Page 102 of In Control

“Who is?”

“My contact.”

Gabe swings his gaze around the apartment. “I don’t think there’s anything more we can do until we hear back. Let’s clean up for her.”

I look at the havoc this psycho has wrought on Sophia’s home and get to work. We sweep away as much of the broken glass and feathers as we can, mop up the puddle and bin all the ruined food in her freezer, then we hang all her clothes back in the closet. We try to return all her belongings to their rightful place and the apartment looks a little less devastated by the time my phone chirps in my pocket. I answer it immediately and listen anxiously as my contact tells me what he’s found.

“Shit,” I mumble, shaking my head. “You’re sure, Sonnie?”

“Pretty certain he’s your man. Do you need any help sorting him out?”

“No, thanks, my pack can handle this. We’ll call you if we need help.”

I hang up and stare at my phone for a good five seconds before raising my eyes to Gabe’s.

“It’s Justin Hollows.”

“Wh-what?” he says.

Because we know him. We all know him. Fuck everybody in the city knows him.

Justin Hollows.

He’s the city fucking mayor!

* * *

Gabe hasto use all his charm, pleading and influence to prevent Esra from storming straight to the mayor’s house all guns blazing, ready to tear the world apart and beat the living daylights out of the man.

We don’t know what the hell we’d walk into and we don’t know where he has Sophia and what the hell he’s doing with her.

We need a calm, considered approach. Something Esra loathes with every molecule of his body, but for once he’s going with what the rest of the pack’s decided, and we’ve decided to formulate a fucking plan.

We meet at the coffee shop at the bottom of Sophia’s building. We’re all fucking twitchy. I’m not saying for one minute it’s easy to show this restraint. My alpha wants nothing more than to break down the psycho’s front door and pound him into oblivion. But I want Sophia unharmed. I want her safe. I want her back.

“Any ideas, then?” Esra snaps, not touching his black coffee.

I’m finding it hard to think straight.

“We need to get into his house,” Liam says, pouring a sachet of sugar into his drink, and then another, and another.

“If he’s been stalking her, watching her, he’ll know about us. There’s no way he’ll let us in willingly.”

“He won’t know about me,” Esra says. “He won’t have seen me with her.”

“If he’s that obsessed, he’ll have done his homework. He’ll know you’re part of our pack.”

“Shit!” Esra thumps his fist on the tabletop, making all our untouched drinks leap into the air.

“We’re going to have to sneak in, then, aren’t we?” Gabriel says.

“It’s too dangerous. If he’s with Sophia when we find her …” I trail off not liking where that thought process is headed.

“He’s the mayor. He can’t lock himself in his stupid house forever. He has engagements and shit. Meetings that he has to be at.” Gabe mops up spilled coffee with a napkin, thinking.

“Right …” I stare up at my packmates, my hands forming tight fists on top of the table. “Then I say we give this fucker a taste of his own medicine. I say we snatch the fucker like he snatched Sophia.”

“How?” Gabe asks.

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