He couldn’t help but notice the stark contrast in the club since he’d last been there. Usually it was in full swing, regardless of the time of day. Today, however, it was like someone’s parents had come home and told them the party was over. There was no music, no DJ present, and the dance floor was empty.
Strike was, as usual, surrounded by several of his pack bitches, but they were all keeping their distance. He didn’t see Darla but figured she was at her normal spot beneath the table. Seemed rude to check, though.
Dean would have smiled if he hadn’t been fully aware that the slightest indication he knew anything about the attacks in Central Park would end badly for him.
Instead, he quickly ratcheted down the attitude ... a bit anyway. “What’s the deal? Normally this place is jumping, but now it looks like a funeral home. Someone’s grandma die?”
Strike’s eyes narrowed dangerously. “You’re real funny, rich boy. Should take that act on the road.”
“That’s what all my friends tell me. But seriously, what happened?”
“Two of the pack got iced last night.”
Dean feigned raising an eyebrow in surprise. “They get run over crossing the street?”
“Looks like a hunter got them out in the park. But it’s weird. Far as we can tell, it was quick and clean. Over in minutes. Hunters are good, but this was some Chuck Norris shit right there. Took out Jorge and Darla like they were a couple of newborn pups.”
Darla? That explained her absence, and likewise Strike’s particularly foul mood.
“Has all the makings of an ambush. It’s almost like the bastard knew where to find them,” Strike continued. “Got my boys sweeping the place for wires, making sure we’re not bugged.”
“Maybe they just got lucky. You know – right place, right time. You’ve said yourself that they’re cagey motherfuckers.”
Strike leaned back and ran his fingers through his greasy hair. “I don’t know, man, maybe. Whatever the case, this shit is bad for business. It don’t scare me none, but now I gotta deal with it.”
“The burden of leadership.”
Strike’s eyes met his, almost as if seeing him for the first time. “Speaking of which, how’d your change go?”
“Pretty rough, no thanks to you,” he lied.
Strike laughed. “Not my problem. No bucks, no bane. Still running a tab, my man. I don’t suppose you’d care to settle with the teller.”
“Not today. Cash has been tight. I’m just here to check in.”
If anything, Strike looked even less pleased than he already did. “Not the words I want to hear, rich boy. That trust fund of yours drying up already?”
Anger spiked through Dean as he remembered everything that had happened to his and Coop’s families, and here this asshole was making light of their deaths. He was in no position to say anything to the contrary, though. “Everything is still locked up. You and your friends made sure of that. The cops don’t forgive and forget when it comes to these things.”
“My heart bleeds for you, esé. So much that I’m gonna give serious consideration to not tripling the price.”
“You’re too good to me.”
“Ain’t I? And in these trying times, too.” Strike’s eyes narrowed again. “Now, you got any other business, or are you just gonna stand there making the place stink of Axe body spray?”
“I think we’re done here.”
“For now. I’m considering how to deal with our sudden membership shortage, so stay in touch. Don’t make me come looking for you.” Without further preamble, Strike nodded and the two goons escorted Dean to the door.
Though he kept his cool on the way out, he was fuming inside. The only solace he took was that Ro had done her job and managed to hurt these bastards.
But it wasn’t enough. He wanted to see Los Colmillos taken down for good, Strike most of all.
Though he’d sworn to himself that his time with Ro and her father was finished, that the only connection he could have with them going forward was with whatever blood samples he had left, he began to wonder if he’d been hasty in that decision.
John Sinclair was dangerous, single-minded in his hatred for wolves. Even if Dean approached him with the intent of completely selling out his pack, he’d likely not live to enjoy it. There was that other hunter in the city too, Kane, the one that Coop had told him about. Dean didn’t know him but, without proof to the contrary, it was foolish to believe he was any better than the old man.
Ro, however, was different. He had little doubt she’d happily accept some more dirt on Strike’s people come the next full moon.
The problem was getting to her without the others knowing.
♦ ♦ ♦
Kane stalked into the station, ignoring the lukewarm greetings of the graveyard shift. He sat at his desk and scowled at the messages left on it – a pile of post-it notes that littered the usually tidy surface. Most were inconsequential, empty leads, requests for callbacks, and he knew half were placed there just to piss him off.
He’d gotten some flak from his Guild buddies for not bagging any whelps the night before. They had a running tally on kills for the quarter and he’d been in the lead until this last full moon. All he had was a cold trail and no new leads.
On top of that, Ro had been particularly bitchy. When they’d met up at the diner, she’d looked at him like she’d rather eat dog shit than sleep with him again. Uppity bitch. Who does she think she is?
Still, the memory of pumping into her as her nails scraped down his back, holy hell, it was enough to get him hard again.
The reaction only served to fuel his anger, he adjusted his pants and turned on his monitor. Might as well put his bad mood to use and see if anything interesting came of the evidence he’d found at her place.
He checked his email then opened the report on the AFIS search he’d requested on the prints from her apartment. As expected, one set matched hers, no surprise there. A second set, however, came from someone else, and a search by the analyst had found a positive hit.
Cooper Maddox, 32, ex-Army, arrested on heroin possession. Ex-military explained the survivalist thing, Kane reasoned. No record after that. Last known address listed was some place in the Bronx. The guy looked sorta familiar from his mug shot. Kane tapped a few buttons, running a search of his name through the system.
He stared at the computer screen, disbelief on his face. “Holy shit,” he muttered beneath his breath. He scanned the file that popped up, his mind finally making the connection, then sat back in his chair and tried to make sense of what he’d just discovered.
When Ro had mentioned meeting a man named Coop, the name had rung a bell with him, but he hadn’t been sure how. Now he did.
The Mason murders.
The question now was what to do with this information.
♦ ♦ ♦
John Sinclair knew he was many things, not all of them nice. He could be a stubborn old bastard set in his ways, one who’d screw over his best friend if he thought it was for their own good. However, he wasn’t stupid.
He took some time to calm down after his daughter had given him some cock and bull story about needing to bring that idiot Kane up to speed. Though they operated in the same city, they were fully independent of each other. There was no more need to check in with Kane than there was to walk into his office and take a shit on his desk. Sure, hunters often worked together when packs were involved. It was both a courtesy as well as an occasional necessity to make sure nobody died of their own stupidity. However, most partnerships only lasted as long as it took to clean up any messes left after the full moon.
Meeting for coffee struck him as suspicious, considering he’d made no secret of his disdain for Kane. Deep down, he worried that maybe something was going on between them. That cop was a good-looking fella, around her age, and he was a slick-tongued son-of-a-bitch if ever there was one – could probably talk a dried up old spinster out of her pan
ties if he needed to.
Under other circumstances, he wouldn’t have minded. Hunters were encouraged to marry other members of the Guild. It kept their bloodlines pure, ensured their gifts were passed down to the next generation. Hell, that’s how Rowan had come to be born, at least until he realized what a craven cunt her mama really was.
Kane wasn’t a coward, John was sure of that. But he was an arrogant idiot of the highest caliber. Being stupid was as surefire a way to meet an early grave as losing one’s nerve in this business.
The problem was, Rowan could be as bull-headed as he. He wouldn’t put it past the girl to drop her drawers for the fool just to be spiteful. Hell, maybe that’s why she had slipped away when she had.
Who was to say what the fool girl had been up to while he’d been incapacitated and unable to keep her on the straight and narrow?
John sat back and considered everything that had happened. There were three potential issues to be dealt with as he saw it.
His health was his top priority. In his current condition, he was likely to lose a slap fight to a toddler. John had always kept in good shape. He might be within spitting distance of sixty, but he normally had the physique and stamina of a man half his age. Problem was, two months flat on his back had erased his edge. Now, for perhaps the first time in his life, he felt his age.
He’d need to whip himself back to fighting form before he did anything else, or it would all be for nothing. He’d be no better than an old man crying about shit from his bed while everyone else went about their business and ignored him. Hell, he would, too, if he were in their shoes. No. They’d be far less likely to ignore him if they knew he was just as likely to kick their asses as do anything else.
Kane was the next on his list, an easy fix if ever there was one. He needed to make known to the man that he’d best keep his prick in his pants if he didn’t want it shot off. At the same time, John needed to be careful to not alienate him. Making enemies of other hunters was bad enough, but Kane was a cop, too, and the son of a bitch was probably spiteful enough to use his pull to make life hard for anyone who crossed him. Hell, at the very least, it would probably only take a phone call or two for him to get John’s PI license revoked. Not that he’d been earning a lot with it the past few years. Still, best to work it carefully so he could get what he wanted while still keeping Kane in his pocket.
Besides, he might very well need the man’s help with his last problem – that goddamned wolf. He had no idea what the whelp had said to Rowan to keep her from immediately splattering his brains all over the sidewalk. It didn’t make sense. There’s no way he wouldn’t have pulled the trigger, not even if his and Rowan’s positions had been reversed.
He didn’t trust whelps.
He didn’t negotiate with whelps.
And he sure as shit would never have shacked up with one.
He considered that last thought. A few of the more brazen bitches he’d met over the years had tried their luck, hoping that offering him a piece of ass was enough to keep him from firing a bullet between their eyes. All of them had ended up in a shallow grave.
It was the way he’d raised Rowan, taught her since she was a girl. Hell, he’d have probably been less angry with her if she’d let him die. But she hadn’t and as a result had left a major loose end to be dealt with.
He’d been meaning to give her a good tongue lashing before she’d walked out on him earlier, but now he was glad he hadn’t. It had given him time to take stock of the situation and realize what needed to be done.
He had a full month to work on his problems. Might as well use the time wisely.
Thus, when Rowan finally returned home from her meeting with Kane and asked what he wanted to talk about, he was quick to brush it aside, thank her for saving him, and do whatever needed to be done to start mending his body as quickly as possible.
25
“Your blood pressure is good and your heart sounds strong,” Ro announced as her father rolled down his sleeve. She put away the stethoscope and blood pressure cuff. “You should be ready for the hunt next week.”
“I’d better be with all the extra training I’ve been doing,” he muttered gruffly.
“I’m just glad to see you better, even if I think you’ve been pushing yourself too hard.” she added, not looking him in the eye. She was glad he was feeling better, that he was alive and well, but he’d been cold to her ever since they returned to the apartment, even more so than usual. She knew he was still angry she’d refused to kill Dean, even if it had meant saving his life. The constant distant attitude had spoken volumes.
He stood, stretched, and cracked his back. “Don’t get old, Rowan. Your body betrays you, even if your mind still thinks it’s young. If you’re as stubborn as me, and I know you are, it’s hard to slow down when you need to.”
She glanced at him, surprised by the relatively wistful tone in his voice. “You’re not old, Dad. You were bitten by a wolf. You’re lucky to be alive.”
“True that, though I won’t be happy until I get a chance to pump the whelp who took a chunk out of me full of silver.”
Ro held back a sigh. It was becoming a running argument between them. No matter how much she tried to convince him that Dean had only wanted to help, that there were other wolves out there more worth their time and energy, her father remained obsessed.
With the hunt approaching again, she fervently hoped that the intelligence she already had on Los Colmillos would be enough. Her last message from Dean, a brief text two days after she left the mansion, had been little more than a quick note that the pack had been twitchy since losing two of their number, but there’d been nothing else since.
She had to admit that she’d hoped to hear more from either Dean or Coop in the intervening weeks. She’d never before given much thought to her loneliness, not with her job at the hospital and her hunter life. But with her father’s return, she realized how narrowly focused she’d been, how superficial her few relationships were.
No one really knew her. Definitely not Kane, whose thoughts stopped at the end of his dick. Kamika and her other friends at the hospital knew nothing of her secret life and, as such, she was forced to keep them at arm’s length. Hell, even her father didn’t know her half as well as he probably thought. He’d never even tried to understand why she would want to do something with her life other than hunt.
Though she’d been reluctant to admit it at first, she slowly realized that in Dean she’d found a kindred spirit. Coop, too, she quickly reminded herself. She’d found in them, dare she say, friendship.
Or at least she’d thought she had.
She’d taken to keeping the cheap burner phone in her pocket. It had remained silent since that single message from Dean, but she kept it near in the hope that, as the full moon approached, there might be another message. However, with the pull of the moon rising and still no word, so too did her hope begin to wane.
So, it was, after stashing her equipment, a surprise to hear the buzz and feel the slight vibration in the pocket of her jeans. She spared a glance at her father, who was busy scowling at the set of hand weights she’d gotten him, then quickly walked into her bedroom and closed the door.
She pulled the phone out and saw a simple one sentence message. Meet me by the grocery store. You know the spot. 15 minutes.
She raised an incredulous eyebrow. The smug presumption of the text combined with her annoyance at how eagerly she’d ripped the phone from her pants raised her ire through the roof. The arrogant bastard! Was he really so self-centered that he thought she would drop everything to meet him?
An angry grunt alerted her that her father had begun his workout in the next room. He was going to be in an even more cantankerous mood once he was done, almost certainly looking for an argument. She let out a sigh that had been building inside of her. If she was going to escape, it had to be now.
She grabbed her weapons just in case – remembering the old Guild mant
ra that it was better for old habits to die hard than an unprepared hunter – then pulled on her jacket with the hope that her father wouldn’t notice she was heading out armed. She didn’t need him asking questions, not when she wanted to know why Dean was contacting her now after three weeks of nothing but silence.
“I’m going out to grab a bite to eat. I’ll be back soon.” Without waiting for an answer, she left the apartment.
♦ ♦ ♦
Ro waited in the alley by the convenience store, certain this was the place Dean had been referring to in his text.
She glanced nervously around. With her father back, meeting this close to her place was the height of stupidity. She’d need to point this out to the idiot once he showed his face, make sure they came up with a different spot to meet in the future.
Ro paused in her thoughts, surprised that she’d so quickly settled on the fact that she planned future rendezvouses with Dean. She mentally slapped herself. That was a piss poor way of putting it. Meetings, yes. They were just meetings ... to discuss nothing but business. There was nothing else between them.
A shadow fell upon her, interrupting her thoughts. She looked up to find Dean’s familiar silhouette darkening the entrance to the alleyway.
An awkward silence settled between them, the surrounding noises from passing traffic and pedestrians oddly muffled. Perhaps it was the blood rushing through her ears, the thrum of her hunter’s instincts now that she was so close to a wolf with the full moon only days away.
“Hey,” he finally said, his voice a bit shaky. He actually sounded sort of nervous, which surprised her. Considering their proximity to her apartment, though, perhaps it shouldn’t have. Oddly enough, she felt more exhilarated than anything else.
He’d lost weight, that much was obvious, and she wondered if he and Coop had run out of grocery money. She was about to ask when she remembered he’d called this meeting, presumably to discuss things other than this week’s deli specials. “I was surprised to get your text. Is Coop here, too?”
Lycan Moon: An Urban Fairy Tale (Lycan Evolution Book 1) Page 19
