Page 4 of Honey Heat
“Who, Ethan? Who did this to you?”
Ethan’s eyes rolled back, and he slipped into unconsciousness once more.
“We need to search that warehouse more thoroughly,” Lucio said. “Maybe they left something behind, some clue about who’s doing this.”
Santiago nodded, phone pressed to his ear. After a brief conversation, he hung up. “Matias agrees. He’s sending a full team back to the warehouse. And he’s reaching out to Boone.”
“Good.” Lucio glanced at the unconscious bear, noting the pallor of his skin and the sweat beading on his forehead. Poor guy had been through hell. “I’ll head back there now, see what I can find in the security system. Maybe they didn’t wipe everything.”
“I’ll stay here,” Santiago said. “In case he wakes up again.”
Outside, the afternoon heat hit Lucio like a physical blow. He squinted against the sunlight, his hangover protesting the brightness. Climbing onto his bike, he started the engine, the vibration traveling up through his body.
As he pulled away from the clinic, his mind kept returning to Ethan’s words. “Wolves first. Bears now.” Maybe other shifter species would follow. Someone was hunting them systematically, collecting samples, and developing serums.
The road stretched ahead, heat rippling off the asphalt in waves. Lucio gunned the engine, pushing his bike faster. If someone was targeting shifters again, they needed answers fast.
By the time he reached the warehouse, several pack members had already arrived. Vehicles lined the gravel lot, and wolves moved in and out of the building with purpose.
Inside, the warehouse had transformed from abandoned shell to a hive of activity. Pack members combed every inch, searching for evidence. Raphael and Chopper were still there, directing the search with grim efficiency.
“Find anything?” Lucio asked, approaching them.
Chopper shook his head. “Nothing obvious. No dropped ID cards, no convenient trail of breadcrumbs.”
“But we did find where they were keeping him,” Raphael added, gesturing toward the back of the warehouse. “Some kind of makeshift lab setup. They took most of it but left a few things behind.”
Lucio followed him to a cordoned-off area, where a metal table stood, leather restraints dangling from its sides. Blood stained the surface, already dried to a rusty brown. Nearby, discarded vials and syringes littered the floor, along with torn packaging and cotton swabs.
“Looks like they left in a hurry,” Lucio observed, crouching to examine the debris without touching anything. “Probably when the cameras went down, they knew someone would be coming to check.”
“Question is, how did they know about the cameras?” Raphael said.
Lucio frowned. “Good point. Not many people know we monitor this place.” He stood, surveying the scene. “I need to check the main security hub, see if I can recover any footage before they cut the wires.”
The security room was tucked away in a back corner, accessible through a hidden panel in the wall. Another detail only pack members should know about. Inside, the small space housed monitors and a central computer system. Lucio slid into the chair, fingers already moving across the keyboard.
“Let’s see what you bastards were up to,” he muttered, navigating through the system.
As suspected, most of the recent footage had been wiped clean. Whoever did this had known exactly what they were doing. But they hadn’t been perfect. In his experience, people rarely were when it came to tech.
After twenty minutes of digging, Lucio found what he was looking for. A backup cache that stored periodic still images rather than continuous video. Not ideal, but better than nothing.
The images loaded slowly, revealing snapshots from the previous night. Most showed empty warehouse space, but a few captured movement—blurred figures in white coats moving equipment, surrounding the table where Ethan had been restrained.
One image made Lucio pause, his finger hovering over the keyboard. A clear shot of a man’s face, turned directly toward the camera as if he’d sensed it. Not wearing a lab coat like the others but a tailored suit that looked expensive even in the grainy image. He was smiling, confident and unworried about being seen.
Lucio didn’t recognize him, but something about that smile sent a chill through him. This wasn’t some rogue scientist or hunter. This was someone with resources, with power. Someone who knew exactly what he was doing.
He downloaded the images to his phone.
Back in the main warehouse, he found Chopper examining the restraints on the table.
“These aren’t standard,” Chopper said without looking up. “Reinforced steel core inside the leather. Made specifically for shifters.”
“Whoever these people are, they’ve done their homework,” Lucio replied, showing him the images on his phone. “Recognize anyone?”
Chopper studied the photos, eyes narrowing at the man in the suit. “No, but I’ll bet Matias might. He knows all the players in this region.”
