by Bru Baker
“My meddling brother is trying to get you to come because we’re having a big backyard cookout since my grandmother is coming home tomorrow. She’s been in the Philippines visiting my uncles for months, though I’m sure she’s already heard all about you because every single person in my family is a terrible gossip. It’s part of what I need to talk to you about, and I’d have told you about the cookout myself if my brother hadn’t taken it upon himself to be an utter asshole,” Max said.
He held Danny’s gaze, and a ripple of something winged down Danny’s spine. He couldn’t label it because he’d never experienced anything quite like it. It was almost like one of Alpha Connoll’s direct orders, except pleasurable instead of uncomfortable.
“I’d like it if you came,” Max continued. “But I need to talk to you first. Maybe I could pick you up, and we could go over together?”
“Of course. I’m excited to meet the rest of your family.”
He bit his lip to keep himself from babbling any more. Danny had never been smooth, but he usually had more game than this. They’d just met two days ago, and now he was talking about how much he wanted to meet Max’s family? At least they’d already had a talk about this being a real relationship and not something casual. The wolf would have been out of the bag after a stupid comment like that.
Max’s face softened, and he beamed at Danny. Danny made a resolution on the spot to make Max look like that more often. He was an easygoing guy, but he looked serious even when he smiled. This was something different, though. It felt private and special.
“All right, love birds, this is your stop,” Ray said. He pulled up in front of Danny’s building, and Danny thanked him for the ride before Max grabbed his hand and pulled him out of the truck.
“I’ll walk you up,” Max said. He held his hand out for Danny’s key, and Danny handed it to him, giddy and indignant all at once.
“Are you opening the door for me?” he babbled. “Did I turn into a Disney princess on the way home from dinner? Am I Jasmine? I totally think I’d be a Jasmine. She has that independent streak.”
Max grunted and pushed open the door to the apartment building. “You need a better lock on this. Someone could shoulder it open with no problem.”
“You’d have to take that up with the building super. I’m lucky it was locked at all. Usually it’s propped open at all hours.”
Max glared at the door like he could change the lock just by looking at it. “You really do live in a shit building. Your mom’s not wrong about that.”
“No elevator, no doorman, it’s practically a shanty.”
A reluctant grin curved Max’s lips. “I’m just saying when your lease is up you should look for somewhere better. I’ve heard good things about the building across the street.”
“First your brother says you should marry me, and now you’re asking me to move in?”
Max looked alarmed, so Danny took pity on him. “I’m teasing. I did look at your building, but I couldn’t afford it. I had to keep as much cash free as I could because I was looking for offices for the foundation, so I didn’t have enough for first and last. The owner here let me move in with just the last month’s rent as a deposit. Plus it’s like two hundred a month cheaper.”
He stepped through his apartment door when Max unlocked it, and Max followed him in, looking around like he was hunting down a threat.
“I’ve been using the dead bolt,” Danny said defensively. “I haven’t had any other problems.”
Max rubbed the back of his neck. “Sorry. Instinct.”
Danny didn’t ask if it was cop instinct or if it had to do with the funky bond they seemed to be forming. He wasn’t sure he wanted the answer.
He leaned in when Max gave him a soft, lingering kiss that wasn’t nearly long enough.
“I’ve got to get home. I have some case files I need to go over before tomorrow morning. Thank you for letting me spend the evening with you and your family.”
“Thank you for not running away screaming. I had a good time tonight. At least, the parts where I wasn’t being humiliated by my parents.”
Max kissed his forehead and put his keys in his hand. “None of that was your fault, and it wasn’t you they were humiliating—it was themselves. Lock up after me. I’ll come by and get you about six tomorrow. Wear something a little grungy. A couple of my cousins’ kids are teething.”
Danny wasn’t sure if that was a joke or not. He knew a lot about the supernatural community, but he had a feeling being with Max’s family was going to be a trial-by-fire primer on shifter Packs.
Chapter Six
“I CAN’T find anything that ties all this together.” Max’s partner, Oscar, threw the file folder he’d been browsing through onto the desk with a disgusted grunt. “Fuck. There has to be something we’re missing.”
There was a lot they were missing. But Max couldn’t tell Oscar that—Oscar was human. Forensics had gotten into the phones found at the warehouse they’d raided a few nights ago, but they’d been fried. Not just wiped—fried. Usually the forensic techs could get at least something off a device, but these didn’t have anything on them.
Max was pretty sure they were dealing with a witch. It was hard to cause that kind of damage without completely totaling the device. The techs thought the phones might have been damaged in an electrical surge, though they couldn’t explain why that would have wiped all the data on the devices.
A mature witch could cause that kind of trouble. Max wasn’t sure if the entire ring was supernatural, or if it was one rogue witch flying under the radar and pretending to be human.
Warehouses all over the city were getting hit. Last week an armored truck had been robbed. The only thing they all had in common was a lack of security footage. The criminals seemed to know exactly when to strike and how to avoid the cameras. Some of them shorted out moments before the robbery, and others were covered or painted over as soon as the burglary began.
Entire warehouses were being cleaned out in minutes. The first one hit had armed guards on-site. They walked intersecting eight-minute loops. The thieves were in and out in less than five and had taken an entire shipping container of electronics without tripping any of the alarms or getting caught on tape.
It had to be Supes.
“Why don’t you take a break? Get away from it a bit and maybe something will pop for you.”
Oscar shot him a look. “You just want me to walk down to the deli and get you lunch.”
They’d been at it since eight in the morning. It was after one now, and he and Oscar had gone over the forensics reports and the crime scene photos multiple times. They weren’t going to find a link because there wasn’t a link to find. Some of them were crimes of opportunity—the armored truck had been three streets over because a sinkhole had opened up on its normal route—and some were meticulously planned heists that were executed in mere minutes.
“I wouldn’t say no to lunch if you were passing by.” Max dodged the wadded-up paper his partner threw at him. “How about I go pick up lunch? And you can go flirt with Mahoney or something.”
Oscar sputtered. “I’m not flirting with Mahoney! All I said was she did a good job on the report.”
“Oh, Mahoney,” Max said, fluttering his eyelashes. “You turned this around so fast for us.”
“Shut up. I was trying to be nice. It wouldn’t hurt you to make friends in forensics, you know.”
Max hadn’t cultivated any relationships there yet, but he was working on it, and not by flirting badly like Oscar. He already had an in with a witch in the morgue, and he had contacts in other precincts thanks to Alpha Connoll. He’d only made detective this year, so it was a work in progress.
Max palmed his cell phone and left Oscar pouting in the conference room they’d taken over for the case. He waited until he was a few blocks away from the station before he ducked into an alley to call Alpha Connoll’s Second.
He’d met Jackson Berrings a few times, most recently a month a
go when he’d connected with Alpha Connoll on Pack business. He’d spent the last six months meeting with all of the covens and Packs in the city on behalf of his Pack, strengthening alliances and making new contacts. He still had a few to go, but this case had taken over all his spare time. Pack diplomacy had to take a back seat to his job right now.
He liked Jackson. The guy was straightforward and really knew his stuff. He’d been an Enforcer for the Werewolf Tribunal before he’d gotten married and taken the Second spot in the Connoll Pack. Jackson and his husband, Harris, had invited him over for dinner, and while he’d gone out of duty, he’d actually enjoyed himself. Harris was a psychologist, and the stories he’d told about working with teenage werewolves had been hysterical.
“This is Berrings,” Jackson said when he picked up.
“Thanks for taking my call. It’s Torres. I have some case files for you, if you wouldn’t mind taking a look. I think we’ve got a supernatural theft ring in the city, and I could use your help. I don’t know what kind of Supe we’re talking about, though I suspect witches at the very least. I want to get this taken care of before the fae step in.”
The fae were one of the only supernatural species that didn’t intermix with humans. They lived in a parallel realm and only came over to mete out justice when they thought a breach in secrecy had occurred. The Fae Guard were ruthless, and if they caught wind of the crime ring, they might investigate on their own. Fae justice was usually bloody and unilateral. They’d kill humans alongside Supes if they thought it was necessary. Max didn’t want them in his city, and he knew Alpha Connoll wouldn’t either.
“Fucking fae,” Jackson muttered. “Sure, I’ll take a look. If we can find anything that supports your theory I’ll see if I can get the Enforcers involved.”
If the crime ring was supernatural, Max would need help taking it down. He couldn’t lead a bust on a bunch of witches with humans in bulletproof vests. They’d be mowed down with a single thought from a witch.
“Appreciate it.”
“No problem. Hey, you want to come over and watch the game tonight? My Cardinals are going to sweep the Mets this series. I can feel it.”
“In your dreams. Wish I could, but I’ve got a Pack thing.”
“They play again Sunday afternoon. I think Tate and Adrian are coming over for dinner. You should come, bring your brothers.”
“You’re seriously signing up to feed that many wolves and shifters?”
“Harris makes a killer chili, and I was going to throw some wings on the grill. Nothing fancy, but we’re used to feeding a crowd. Offer’s open if you want to come catch the game.”
Jackson and Harris had an apartment in Alpha Connoll’s compound. It was a seriously sweet setup. The Pack owned the entire building, and everyone who lived there was either Pack or a Supe of some sort. It was about as good as city living got for someone in a Pack.
Max’s long-term goal was to buy a place outside the city. Have a little land for the Pack to run, a house big enough for Pack nights and cookouts. Fresh air, less noise. A place where he and his mate could raise a family. He’d have to hang up his detective badge for that, but it was a long way in the future.
“I’ll keep that in mind. Thanks for the offer. I’ll have a courier bring over the case files for you. Are you at your apartment?”
“Yeah, I’ll be here all day. I’ll give you a call if anything twigs.”
Max hurried the rest of the way to the deli and picked up lunch. If he was lucky, he’d have time to get the files copied and sent over before Oscar came back from his flirt break.
His afternoon didn’t get any better. Lunch had been eaten standing over his desk, followed by hours of hunting through case files and then a trip to the latest scene to see if anything had been missed.
“There are cameras on every exit and in all the hallways. How did they manage to take them all out at once? They’re not connected. IT guy says they just installed them—each one has its own power source. Every single one died at 3:37 p.m.”
Definitely witches. This was the biggest theft so far. The warehouse had gotten a shipment of flat-screen televisions mere hours before, and the thieves had completely cleaned them out. None of the outside cameras were working either, and all the traffic cameras in the area had been fried.
Forensics thought the thieves used an electromagnetic pulse, but that would have disabled vehicles and other electronics in the area. The only thing affected had been the warehouse’s security system and all surveillance cameras in a quarter-mile radius. EMP couldn’t do that, but a band of witches could.
He looked at his watch and cursed. He was supposed to pick up Danny in ten minutes, and he’d be stuck on the scene for at least half an hour. If he was lucky.
Danny hadn’t been lying when he said he was excited to meet Max’s family. He’d smelled happy, and Max didn’t want to ruin that. Danny deserved nice things. Max wasn’t sure he’d put his family in that category, but Danny certainly thought they were. Besides, Danny was important. It was way too fast, but it felt right.
Knock, knock, he texted Danny.
Danny’s answer was immediate, and it made Max grin to think he’d dropped whatever he was doing to answer. Who’s there?
Not me because I’m still at the station, he sent back. He added a few frowny emojis because his nieces Jessica and Victoria told him they helped lighten up texts. Reading texts from the two of them was like interpreting hieroglyphics.
But he wanted Danny to know that he was sorry he couldn’t pick him up. So… frowny emojis.
I’m stuck here for another hour or so. Do you want me to come get you and we can go late?
He laughed at himself when he realized he was holding his breath watching the dots on his screen that meant Danny was typing.
Wouldn’t that be out of your way? Why don’t I just Uber?
Max started to respond, but more text popped up.
I mean, unless you don’t want me there without you.
Which is cool. I’m some rando you just met. Why would you want me alone with your family?
Max couldn’t keep up—Danny texted as fast as he talked. He growled in frustration and stepped into the hallway as he dialed Danny.
“Don’t be silly, of course you aren’t some random guy I just met,” he barked as soon as Danny picked up. “I just thought you might not want to be there surrounded by people you don’t know. I want them to meet you. Why wouldn’t I?”
Danny’s chuckle made Max pause his rant.
“Well hello to you too,” Danny said. “I should probably have warned you that I stream of consciousness text.”
“How do you even type that fast?”
Danny laughed out loud at Max’s grumpy retort. “Practice. Lots and lots of practice.”
“I’m sorry I’m standing you up. I wish I could say it won’t happen again….”
“But it will,” Danny finished for him. “Trust me, I get it. Your job is demanding, and your hours are crazy. I can relate.”
Max blew out a relieved breath. Danny wasn’t mad. “I really am sorry, though. I was looking forward to a little alone time with you before the horde descended.”
“I’m sure your family is wonderful,” Danny said. “I’m starving, though. If I’m going to wait for you, I’ll have to eat before going over.”
That would be a tragedy. Ray might be an asshole, but he’d been right about the mac salad and crispy pata being rare treats.
“No, if you don’t mind being there without me, go on ahead. I’ll text you the address. Ray can introduce you around.”
Danny blew out a breath, the sound making Max grin. “Good, because I really wanted that pig.”
“I’ll be there as soon as I can, okay? I promise.”
He wasn’t entirely fine with sending Danny into the fray alone, but he wasn’t going to fight with him about it. It wasn’t Danny’s fault that Max’s instincts were going nuts at the thought of sending him into an unfamiliar den alone.
Oscar was smirking at him when Max slipped back into the office they were using as a headquarters at the scene. Max ignored him and took a seat, eyes glued to his phone as he texted his brother.
Danny’s coming over alone. Stay with him, Max texted. Don’t let him get overwhelmed. It’s going to be a full house tonight.
All of his aunts and uncles would be coming to see his grandmother. There were easily two dozen kids among them. It would be an intimidating crowd for someone who was new to it.
On it, Ray texted back.
Max walked over to the tech who was taking photos of a scorch mark on the exterior door. The lock had been blasted off.
“I thought maybe blow torch, but the burn pattern isn’t right for that,” the tech said.
The witches were getting sloppier, and it worried Max. They’d covered their tracks better in the beginning, but now they were leaving things like this. Other scenes had evidence of brute force, which made him think there were additional Supes involved. This could get really messy.
Max went in search of the manager. He’d already talked to him, but he had a few more questions about the shipment and who knew it was coming. He’d need an inventory sheet, too, and a rundown of the building’s security.
It was six thirty by the time he came back out, and he still had no idea how the thieves knew exactly where the shipment would be. It wasn’t dumb luck. Every time, they made a beeline right to their target. But so far he couldn’t find anything to connect them. They used different scheduling systems, different delivery companies, different security systems. How were the burglars targeting these places? Where were they getting information about the shipments?
“You gotta get going to your family thing?” Oscar asked when Max rejoined him. He had one of the security cameras in an evidence bag to take back for the lab. Max already knew what they’d find—the thing had been fried. He’d bet anything that the wires would be melted when they opened it up.
“Yeah, I’m going to jet. You got this?”
Oscar nodded. “We’re finishing up anyway. I’ll tell the techs to call you if they get anything, but I’m guessing they won’t process this stuff until tomorrow morning at the earliest.”
