Page 34 of Shadow's Edge

How the fuck didno onesee it before now? Because if we didn’t stop him now, there’d beno stopping him at all.

The room was tense, the weight of everything pressing down like a goddamn anvil.

“What does this have to do with us?” Noah, one of Hunter’s guys, asked. His voice was sharp, clipped with barely restrained frustration. He wasn’t the only one struggling to keep his emotions in check. “We didn’t shop him,” Noah continued. “We never even got thechance.” His fists curled on the table as his gaze locked on the intel in front of him. “Just as we were about tofuck him up, the bastardburst into flames. So why the fuck is he doing thisnow?”

I wasn’t surprised by his reaction. His focus had been solely on Bo ever since we realized she was inside Demingo’s operation. His whole body was wound tight, a controlled fire burning hotter with every second that passed.

Hunter, though, well, he lookedthe same. “It’s not justnow,” Hunter hissed. “Let’s be clear about that. With a setup like that, he’s been doing it all along, it’s just we never knew.”

“Well, nothing like this has happened before now,” Elijah, another one of Hunter’s guys, snapped. “So obviously, itis.”

I caught the look Hunter shot at Kyle just before he dropped his head into his hands. His shoulders shook with a deep, ragged breath, his whole body shuddering under the weight of what he now knew.

Then Noah read the next part of the file, and everythingchanged. His chair scraped violently against the floor as he shot up.

“He planned the bomb,” he snarled, disbelief warping his expression into somethingprimal. His eyes flicked down to the paper again before his head snapped up. His entire bodylocked up. “He paid thatfucking bitchto put her babies in the car and hit the button,” heroared.

The sound of woodsplinteringfilled the room as he hurled his chair against the wall. No one moved. Hell, I don’t think anyonebreathed.

On their final tour, Hunter and his team had been ambushed when a woman detonated a bomb with her kids still inside the car. The explosion had ripped through them, killing some, maiming others. It hadendedtheir careers, and now we knew who had been behind it.

Dragon stood off to the side, arms crossed, his sharp eyes taking in every reaction, every shift in energy. The most astute MC President I had ever met, he knew when to interfere and when to let things play out, but right now he knew none of us would be reacting this way if it wasn’tjustified. We wereluckyit had just been a chair.

“He also planned that RPG attack on us a couple months before that,” Kyle said flatly.

The words barely left her mouth before Jared’s head snapped up. I narrowed my eyes at theweasel. His reaction wasn’tshock.

There was no disbelief, no outrage. Instead, his eyesnarrowedslightly, and if I wasn’t mistaken the fucker was tryingnot to smile. Preacher and I had already had our suspicions about him, this was just confirming that I needed to get to thebottomof whatever the hell was going on with him.

“Youcan’tbe fucking serious,” Blake, one of Valiant’s men, muttered.

“Dead serious,” Hunter gritted out.

Blake shook his head, disbelief written all over his face. “Demingo had his freedom. He wasn’t bound to the government anymore. He couldmoveany way he wanted, wasn’t under the microscope. What the fuck does he want with us?”

“Revenge,” Kyle answered, her voice void of emotion. Heads turned toward her as she leaned forward, elbows braced on the table, her expression unreadable. “He lost the power that working for the government gave him,” she continued. “Now he has to answer to other people. He has toworkwith other cartels, so he doesn’t get to run the show anymore. He wants to prove his strength and get that power back.”

Silence.

Then—

“What does he have planned?”

Mace’s voice was strained, his body wound tight.

I felt for the guy. If it had been Kyle who had been taken… if I had gotten thatphoto… I would havelost my fucking mind.

His handsshookas he gripped the edge of the table, his breathing hard and uneven.

Duke rubbed his chin, his expression thoughtful as he mulled over everything.

Mace was barely keeping it together as he waited, but Duke took his time.

“Weknowhe has Ava and Gia,” Duke finally said, referring to Mace’s sister and woman. “And we know he has Scarlett—who was taken fromherworkplace.Thatmeans she wasn’t a direct target like Ava and Gia were.” Duke paused, running through the possibilities in his head. “In criminal psychology, this would be viewed as amulti-motive move.”

Mace looked like he was about tosnap.

Duke raised a brow but kept going. “Ava and Gia wereundoubtedlyaimed at you. But Scarlett wasn’t involved with them, aside from being Ava’s close friend.”

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