Page 244 of Secret Shifters Next Door

I knew how he felt. It didn’t make any sense. “Yeah, that’s what I think anyway. There’s something off about the guy. I can’t even get a sense about what type of shifter he is. It’s weird.”

“Well…” Blayne said, “…we looked at all the security cameras after they tried to snatch Celina. I broke into the feed for the restaurant. I put the guy’s face through the same facial recognition program I put Felicity’s picture through. I didn’t find anything. I assumed that meant he was some low-level thug and not important.”

“He was talking to Felicity like a dog, man. Dude either has balls of steel, or he’s got way more pull in the organization than we thought.”

“I’m still confused about the warning this guy gave Celina,” Tate said. “Like is he really saying he’d let her go? That doesn’t make any sense to me. They know she’s a shifter now.”

That had occurred to me. “Tate, I think he’s serious, and I think it’s all because of you.”

“Fuck,” Steff muttered.

“We all know Antonio has a hard-on for you in particular. The rest of us were just bonuses. Icing on the cake, you might say. I think if he could take you down, he’d call it a win. They’ll eventually come for all the shifters, but right now, you’ve got a target on your chest,” I explained.

“If we all stay? What then?” Tate asked. “Is he going to bring the fight to us?”

“This is bigger than Lilly Valley,” Blayne said. “We’ve already seen them attacking other packs, but for the last year-and-a-half the focus has been here. Once we’re gone, they’ll work their way down the list of shifter packs until they’re all gone. Our pack is small, but it consists of four alphas. This is the first stop on a whole fucking world tour of genocide.”

“There are cracks in this organization,” I said. “The way this guy talked to Felicity tells me she doesn’t really have a true leadership role. This whole thing with me and Celina was probably supposed to be her first big mission, and she fucked it up. Also, the guy let slip that Ryland was never supposed to touch April. Ryland was one of their big guns. If Antonio’s generals, or whatever, are this inept, it means they aren’t unbeatable. We’ve got a chance against them. I’ll be there in a minute, we can talk more then.”

I ended the call with the guys and went back inside. Celina was still fully passed out. I wrote a note about going into work and to call me if she needed anything, then made sure to lock the door when I left. On the drive to the office, I glanced aroundthe entire time. My paranoia was on overload after last night’s events.

I didn’t see anyone or anything strange the whole way to the office, but that didn’t make me feel any better. I stepped into the office and nodded to Kennedy before heading to the conference room. The guys were still there, waiting for me. My phone buzzed, and I yanked it out.

I looked at the guys. “It’s my guy Chris. The PI in Denver I hired.”

“Answer, bro,” Steff said.

“Hello?”

“Miles? It’s Chris.” Something was wrong. He sounded panicked and was out of breath. From what I could hear, it sounded like he was running.

“Chris? What’s wrong?”

“Fuck…hang on.” I heard a strange jangly sound that sounded like a chain link fence. Was he climbing one?

“I’m back,” Chris said, still running.

“What’s happened, Chris?”

“I’m sending you some files. You aren’t going to fucking believe what’s going on at this goddamned toy factory, my man. I don’t...Jesus Christ, it’s crazy.” It sounded like he’d finally slowed to a walk. His voice sounded disgusted when he spoke next. “These people are sick as shit. If they get caught doing whatever the hell it is they’re doing, someone’s head’s going to roll. Hold on, and let me send this email real fast. There, it’s sent. You’ll get it in a few seconds?—”

I could hear a rustling sound through the phone, and Chris screamed a curse and started running again. “I’ve gotta go, man…they’re on me.”

Without another word, the line dropped dead. My heart raced maniacally as I grabbed a laptop. The guys were all shouting questions, but I ignored them. I pulled my email up asfast as I could and saw the message from Chris. The subject line read: download to an external drive and then delete this email ASAP.

The email had dozens of attachments. Pictures, videos, and different files. I looked at Blayne. “Flash drive. Now!”

Blayne jerked away and started rummaging through his desk. “How fucking big?”

“Big. Lots of video and image files.”

He slapped a drive into my palm, and I slid it into the USB dock. Blayne made sure we had the highest speed internet, so the files were downloaded in less than a minute. I pulled the drive free and then deleted the email. Blayne spun the computer toward him and typed away, doing some other type of wizardry to clean the trail that led to us. After a few seconds, Blayne sighed and turned the computer back to me.

“That’s all I can do. Shouldn’t be any way they can trace the email from Chris’s phone back to us,” Blayne said.

I jammed the flash drive back into the computer and pulled up the files. Steff, Blayne, and Tate sat beside me, and I glanced up to make sure the door was closed. I shared the computer feed up to the massive monitor on the wall. Most of the files I skimmed through looked like medical charts. The handwriting was too illegible to really make heads or tails out of. None of the names looked familiar. Other files had chemical equations that none of us could understand or even attempt to figure out. Frustrated, I switched over to the video files.

“Damn,” Tate whispered. “Did your guy use a drone?”

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