Page 297 of Secret Shifters Next Door

Now that the leader was out of his mind with pain, Tate turned to the others. “What the fuck were you gonna do with the girls? If you lie”—he held a shaking finger up to their faces—“your own whore mothers won’t even recognize your bodies. Speak!”

“We weren’t gonna hurt them!” the youngest guy screamed. “They’re human. They’re human. They get a pass.”

“Y-y-y-yeah,” Piss Pants stammered. “We only had to take them to tear the pack down. Antonio said you were a mixed pack, and that there was a dragon among you. He assumed that since you were the most powerful, you’d be the leader. W-w-w-we were to take the girls to flush you out. His plan was that once you were taken out, the rest of the pack would be easy pickings.”

Tate’s voice dropped to a whisper. “Do we look like easy pickings?”

They shook their heads vehemently. “No, sir,” they said in unison.

Tate was enraged. I stepped forward to take over questioning before he did actually burn the guys to a crisp. “What caused this fresh wave of attacks? Why is Antonio coming so hard now?”

Piss Pants shrugged. “Antonio’s been hell-bent on you guys, but it went to another level a couple of months ago. He’s been obsessed with the Lilly Valley pack after you guys killed his daughter.”

“The fuck are you talking about? That dumb-ass daughter of his accidentally killed herself. She went off half-cocked and tried to run over her own brother with a car. Crashed into a tree and died.”

The two coherent hostages seemed perplexed at that. Young Guy said, “No. You guys killed her. Killed her after turning Antonio’s son against him.”

I coughed out a single laugh. “That’s what he told the media, but surely you guys know the truth? Hissonis a dragon shifter. Antonio butchered the whole pack years ago and took Jared under his wing to be a tool. A weapon. And Mariana was a sick, twisted psycho. Antonio had made her like that. Starting to see a pattern here?”

“Hey, man, we only follow orders. This isn’t personal,” Young Guy said.

Tate leaned forward and pointed at him. “I’ll bet Nazi soldiers said the same fucking thing.” He turned to walk out of the unit. “We got all we need. Let’s go, guys.”

We followed him out and found Kyle and Sam standing in the gravel parking area. Sam nodded toward the building. “Whatcha want us to do with the garbage? Take out the trash?” he asked, raising his eyebrows.

Tate shook his head quickly. “Send their asses back to Antonio. Send them with a message. Have them tell him that we’re stronger than he thinks and he won’t scare us. Got it?”

Sam nodded. “Got it, big guy.”

We walked toward the truck, but Sam stuck out a hand and grabbed me by the arm. I looked down at his finger. “You wanna get your hands off me, Francis?”

Sam let go and held his hands up. “Sorry. I wanted to ask you a question.”

“Go for it.”

“Have you done anything to make sure your place is secure? Safe, I mean?”

I frowned. “Same security system all the guys have. It’s as safe as it can be.” Realization started to dawn on me, and I saw where he was going with this. “Is this about Ava?”

Sam shrugged. “These assholes are scoping out your houses. You don’t know this yet, and I didn’t tell you, but last night these sons-a-bitches broke into her rental. Bugged the place.”

My panther yowled in rage and anger. A hunter had broken into her house while I’d been running around in the woods like a fucking child? I was pissed at the hunters, but more so at myself. “Is she all right?”

Sam nodded. “All good. She saw what was going on and drove over to Gio’s place. Mikey and LJ went back and cleared the house and found the bug. Door was repaired this morning. Ionly want to make sure my beautiful niece doesn’t get caught in this crossfire. You read me?”

I met his eyes and smiled grimly. “Got it. I’ll keep an eye out.”

Sam smiled back. “We’d appreciate that. We’re gonna have guys cruising through every few hours. To be safe, you know? Just so you and yours know that. I don’t want some fucking dragon eating my guys on accident. Fuck me, that was scary,” Sam said, shooting a worried look over his shoulder toward Tate in the truck cab.

I nodded. “Thanks for the heads up. And…uh, thanks for this, too,” I said, gesturing back toward the storage unit.

“No prob, Blayne,” Sam said. He patted my shoulder and walked back toward the unit with Kyle.

The drive back to the office was damn near silent except for our breathing. Once there, we decided to head to our respective homes and check on our people. Tate was going to try to get his family out of town that afternoon, instead of waiting till the weekend.

I drove home and thought about the exchange I’d had with Sam. Something about it wasoff,for want of a better word. We’d talked almost like friends. Well, maybe not friends, but acquaintances who were on good terms.

I pulled into my driveway and breathed a sigh of relief when I saw Ava’s car was there. That alone was confusing. I was happy that she was safe across the road. I’d spent the last ten years hating her and anyone related to her. My anger had been like a festering boil inside me for so long that it had become like a friend to me.

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