Page 226 of Secret Shifters Next Door

These were the words I’d wanted to hear my entire life. All those years ago, I’d gone to sleep each night praying that I would hear this exact thing come out of his mouth. Regret, shame,forgiveness—all the things that I wanted. Now? I had my own life, and my own pack. A family that I needed to protect at all costs. This wasn’t the time to listen to an old man’s regrets.

“The past is the past,” I said, cutting him off before he could go any further. “What you guys need to do now is prepare. We have no idea how many hunters are part of this new organization. Arm yourselves if you can. Try to make sure someone is on watch all the time. Patrol the town. It’s what we’ve done. Look for anyone out of the ordinary or who asks weird questions.”

“Right,” he said, audibly pulling himself together. “Good plan. We can get to work on that today.”

“Good. We can’t confirm anything, but we’ve got a feeling Antonio is going to make a big move soon. Whether that’s on us or on another pack somewhere else, I don’t know. His daughter is directly involved here in Lilly Valley. There’s no way he’d put her in the field for something simple.”

“Got it. I’ll have my wolves ready. If there’s anything we can do, don’t hesitate to call me. I know I’m pretty far away, but if I can do something to make up for the past, I will.”

“Stay alive and keep my parents alive. That’s what you do. You hear me?”

“Yes. Yes, I do. Speaking of them, I did get your message to them. They were really happy to hear it. They told me to tell you they love you, and they’re proud you’ve made a name for yourself. Son…you woulda made one fucking hell of an alpha.”

The words hit me like a punch in the gut. My parents were proud of me? I could barely mutter a thanks before I hung up. My phone tumbled from my hands and clattered to the table, my eyes glazing over as I stared into nothingness. Tate patted me on the shoulder, and I blinked back to consciousness.

“That looked tough. Are you okay?” he asked.

I nodded and swallowed hard. “Tough call to make.”

“I know it’s hard. Had to be done, though. What did he say?”

I gave Tate a wry grin. “My parents got my message, and I got one back.”

“Good?”

“Yeah. Yeah, it was.”

“Okay, what’s the move?” Tate asked.

I looked at him, then over to Steff and Blayne. “Well, we can be ninety percent sure that we are Antonio’s main target. He’s targeted bigger clans and done major damage. We’re four guys, but we’ve been giving him hell for almost two years now. We keep coming out on top, and he has to be pissed and ready to deal a final blow.”

Blayne patted the top of his laptop. “We don’t know where he’s been staying, but he can only hide so much. I was able to find the two jets he owns. He did everything he could to make it look like he only had one plane. The other was tied to an offshore hedge fund, but some major digging turned up the bill of sale. That’s the plane he’s been using to get around.

“He’s still slippery as shit, but it looks like most of his trips are for business and not hunter stuff. We know he’s funding the hunters, but it’s not coming from him directly. One of these dozens of corporations and businesses has to be the funnel. Money goes in and disappears to the hunters. If I can find that one company, I can try to hack their accounts and freeze the cash.” He shrugged and grimaced. “Dude’s a billionaire, so it won’t be a permanent fix. He’ll switch to another, but it could throw a kink in their plans for a few days. That could be our opening. While they’re low on money and panicking, we go in. Assuming we’ve figured out their main point of operation by then.”

We were closer than we’d ever been to actually going after the hunters. It was still like throwing darts in the dark, but we were slowly pulling the veil away. Soon, maybe, we could go onthe offensive. I checked my phone for messages from Celina’s bodyguard. I had one of our most experienced guys on her. All he’d sent were hourly updates on her doing pretty boring stuff. It was music to my ears.

The hunters were lurking in the town. I knew it, and that had me on edge. There was no way I would give them a chance to go for Celina. The fact that there hadn’t been any sign of Felicity since she’d left that package for Celina made me nervous. The devil you could see was less dangerous than the one you couldn’t. As far as we could tell, she had no clue that we were on to her, which meant it was only a matter of time before she returned.

Being away from Celina for most of the day made me miss her like crazy. I picked up my phone and texted her to see if she wanted to go out for dinner tonight. Almost instantly, my phone pinged with a text from her that said she’d love to.

Grinning, I turned to tell the guys I’d be heading out soon, but my phone slipped from my hand as a piercing pain shot through me. I gasped, clutching at my chest as my lungs constricted. I slid out of the chair and onto my knees. Tate crouched next to me, and Steff and Blayne leaped to their feet and came to stand by me.

“What the fuck?” I croaked.

“Pain in the chest?” Tate asked.

“Sharp? Like someone’s digging a knife into your ribs?” Steff asked.

I nodded, still wincing in pain. “What the hell is going on?”

“The curse,” Tate and Steff said in unison.

“It’ll come and go,” Steff said. “Sometimes it’s a sharp pain in the chest, other times it’ll be like every bone in your body is aching. It’ll slowly get worse until you claim Celina.”

“Fuck,” Blayne said. “I really hope whatever chick the curse has planned for me is easy. I want to meet her, knock boots,claim, and live happily ever after. All three of you have had issues with your ladies.”

Tate ignored Blayne and put an arm around my shoulder. “I think it’s time you start talking to Celina about the claiming.”

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