He slid it in and shook at what he saw.
Riley alone, strapped down, blindfolded, and muzzled.
He pulled the USB back out and tossed it across the room. He couldn’t. He didn’t have the strength to watch it. It could possibly tell them who did it, but he couldn’t watch it.
He wasn’t nearly strong enough for that. Not yet. It was too fresh.
“Gabe?” Brenton was outside the door and Gabe unlocked it from his desk. Brenton walked in and looked around. “Are you going to get any sleep tonight?”
“I slept all day, Brenton,” Gabe shook his head. “I’m going to pull an all-nighter to reset my sleep schedule.”
“Alright, well…” Brenton sighed and grabbed a chair to sit down. “The Denver office of the US SSTF called and wanted me to tell you that you did good work at the compound. They have enough to shut down the entire ring. They even think they have what they need to rescue a few of the females that passed through the place.”
“Thank fuck,” Gabe rubbed his face, leaning back in his chair. Justice. That’s what they needed; that would help the nightmare finally end.
“Yeah, you did good, brother,” Brenton patted his shoulder. “Abigail will be here tomorrow around noon for us to talk to as well, so I hope you’re ready.”
Abigail Harris. Deer shifter, a rare variety, though no one could really be certain of their numbers. Prey shifters hid well in human society, able to adapt where predators had a harder time. It wouldn’t be the first time Gabe had met her, but it would be the first time that he was the patient.
“Sure,” Gabe mumbled. He didn’t want to do this over again. The talking about shit and feelings. Oh, it helped, he knew it did, but he couldn’t do it all over again. He didn’t want to force the old wounds open more just to feel a little better.
“You want to talk about anything with me?” Brenton stretched his legs and got comfortable.
“No…” Gabe shook his head confidently. “Not particularly.”
“Alright, just remember that I’m here whenever you need me,” Brenton patted Gabe’s shoulder. “We’ll find out who did this to us and who did… what happened to Riley.”
“Yup.”
Brenton left Gabe alone at that and he glared at the USB on the floor. But he didn’t pick it up, he would just tell them he was working on it. He couldn’t bring himself to watch the damn thing.
He was too scared to see what his mistakes cost their girl right now.
RILEY
Once everyone was supposed to be asleep, Riley walked out of her room, the fury still roaring in her. She crept downstairs and to Gabe’s security and computer room. She slid the door open and found Gabe sleeping in his chair. He had worked himself to sleep, thank God, since he couldn’t know she was here.
This was her battle, not theirs. And she needed that.
She grabbed his laptop, the one that allowed her to use the system. It was the one he took out of the room to keep working on. He refused to let her use it, to get involved in the stuff he did. She was just going to have to figure it out on her own, now.
She looked around the room for anything else to help her. She had to get this back before Gabe woke up, she was working on a time limit. If he commented about her scent later, she could just tell him that she was checking up on him and didn’t want to wake him.
Yes, that would definitely work.
She grabbed a notebook to write down her ideas and leads but as she did, she saw something interesting.
A USB on the floor. Being on the floor made it fair game in her mind. She didn’t even read what was written on it as she slipped it into her hoodie pocket.
With everything she could think she need, she slipped back out, running off to her room and locking the door.
Her heart was pounding. She was going behind their backs, and it could get her in serious trouble. She needed this, though. She needed her revenge on her own. She needed to prove to them, herself, and that lion that she was a shifter not to be toyed with.
She sat at her desk and opened the laptop, clicking around aimlessly, looking through Gabe’s files to find what he already had. This man was a genius, but one had to be a genius to figure out what he was trying to do on this damn thing.
She clicked his notifications and frowned. They were still following Abel Cartona? The punk ass cousin of Brenton? Maybe Gabe just forgot to stop? He was also tracking Johnathon Slater, Cameron’s son, and about forty other people. Gabe had been tracking every single person who they had put on their enemy list. How the fuck did he keep up with it all?
She clicked through them and growled when she didn’t find anything she really wanted. She fingered the USB in her pocket and pulled it out. She read it and felt the chill down her spine.
She slid it in and relived all of her nightmare from a top view. The lion was a young male, near Brenton’s age. He had longer brown hair and had no identifying markings on him. She held back the tears, had the volume muted and watched. She hoped desperately for a different angle. She clicked a different file and got what she asked for. This was from the headboard.
Oh God.
It was Abel.
I see why they like you so much.
She felt the bubbling hot rage. Zachary had told her about the lion, after that party in Denver. He wasn’t strong enough to take over the Cartona pride, wasn’t strong enough to earn Brenton’s endorsement to try. He tried to sway strong shifters like Zachary to his side. He was a weakling and terrible leader, for an Alpha.
And now he’d tried to buy Riley, just to have what Brenton did. Because that was the shit felines did. Too bad for Abel that he was bad at it, and she wouldn’t be.
She went back to Gabe’s notifications, checking to see where Abel was flying around over the last week. He spent a week in Texas from before the time of their last capture to the day after she escaped. He’d flown out the afternoon before she freed the pride.
She looked over his bank statements. Fourteen million had been transferred that same day. Abel was planning to kill her entire pride off, but why? He couldn’t take what Brenton had, none of it would go to him or his mother, Brenton’s aunt. Did he know that? Maybe he didn’t. Or maybe he just hated all of them.
She kept clicking through and asked the same question that Brenton and the rest of the guys had asked. Why was he in Denver that night of the party? It was the day after a major attack on the pride. He’d flown in only days before…
How had Gabe missed this? Abel had been spotted by cameras all over the city. Gabe had those images saved. They were lunches with impressive men in suits. And all the businesses that Abel was spotted at were Brenton’s. She only knew them because of his impressive and annoying need to teach her all of it.
Had Gabe forgotten? Had Troy? Troy went over all of Gabe’s work, though both had been run ragged over stuff and weren’t sleeping. It also wasn’t very obvious that Abel was at Brenton’s businesses. He was a couple doors down at a cafe or restaurant, but the proximity wasn’t a coincidence to her. Sometimes the person he was speaking to wasn’t even that visible.
One more image, taken only four days ago, made Riley snarl. A member of the Kingson board of directors and Abel laughing over a file at a lunch meeting in what was definitely not Denver. It had to have been somewhere in Texas, since Abel had been there. She didn’t remember this particular guy’s name, but she didn’t need to.
She didn’t need anything more than she had already found toto go after Abel. She didn’t even care about the image of him with Johnathon Slater, Cameron’s son.
Now, what did she do with it?
She could kill him but the risk of going to prison was too high and it wasn’t enough. She could just turn it all into someone, let him get arrested and charged, but he probably had a team of lawyers to help him if she didn’t have enough evidence. She might have enough evidence, so she decided to revisit that plan later. She could arrange an accident, but she didn’t even know who to contact for that.
<
br /> She tapped her pen on the notebook. She wouldn’t do anything tonight. She could bide her time, let the anger grow. She would come up with something. He was in New York, anyway, so he was out of reach. For now. But she would win eventually.
She printed out everything she’d found on her own printer. She deleted all of it from Gabe’s computer and kept the USB for her own. This was her fight and the longer the guys didn’t know what she was doing, the more chance she had at winning it.
And she needed to win. The fire of her rage would allow for nothing else.
RILEY
Riley sat in Brenton’s office, waiting for this doctor to show up. She had other things on her mind.
They guys had all acted so normal this morning, but nothing was normal anymore for her. She was consumed by the need for vengeance, the fury of what was done to her. She wouldn’t live in fear. She wouldn’t be scared of Brenton once the lion who hurt her was dead. Just like Cameron. Cameron hadn’t made her scared of Brenton. Once Abel was six feet under, he wouldn’t haunt her mind when she was with her alpha either.
She heard the doorknob turn, and looked to the door. A blacktail doe shifter walked in. She was elegant, with brown hair and shiny dark eyes as she looked down at her.
“Hello, I’m Abigail. You must be Riley,” the doe said, and Riley nodded.
“Nice to meet you, Abigail,” Riley stood up and held out a hand. Abigail took it and Riley noted her grip was stronger than expected.
“Let’s start with the easy things, Riley,” Abigail smiled so gently at her that Riley’s heart ached a little. It cooled her rage just a tiny bit and Riley couldn’t let that happen. “Or would you prefer Miss Stern?”
“Riley is fine,” she hated being a Miss. She wasn’t a forty-year-old spinster.
“Well then, how are you Riley?” Abigail had a little notepad.
“I’m fine,” Riley stated mildly. It was kind of a lie, but Abigail should follow shifter curiosities and ignore the scent of the lie. She didn’t.
“Riley, I’m a doctor and I won’t let patients lie to me. Now, tell me the truth, how are you? I won’t repeat what you say to anyone else.” Abigail’s small voice was firm.
“I’m not doing very hot. But I think that’s normal for…” Riley looked away from Abigail. Riley was fucking furious. She would remain so until she took Abel down and then she would be fucking fantastic.
“I won’t make any assumptions.” Abigail put her notepad down and just watched Riley patiently. “We can take all day to talk if you want, at your pace but I won’t ever make an assumption about how you think or feel. Or about what you went through. I might try to lead you to a realization though.”
“It’s fairly simple, Abigail. I was taken, strapped to a bed, molested, then hunted. They lost, I won.” Riley was curt. She didn’t have time for this touchy shit. She had other things to be working on.
“That’s all?” Abigail sat down on the couch and looked Riley in the eye.
“I’m fucking angry at it all,” Riley snapped. “If that’s what you want to hear.”
“It’s a start. What, exactly, makes you so angry?”
Riley looked at Abigail, glaring. The doe didn’t shake or even blink. She should have been cowering, but she was totally serene. It made Riley angrier.
“All of it! What do you mean? The hunters make me angry! The guy who molested me makes me angry! I’m angry that my pride thinks I…” Riley stopped. She wasn’t going there with this woman. She wasn’t going to tell Miss Abigail Harris that her pride would only ever look her as a fucking china doll unless she proved to them otherwise. Even now, they were talking with the US SSTF about all manner of things and she was being left out. She wasn’t going to stand for it anymore. She fucking saved them, and they wanted her to talk to a doctor while they took down the bad guys.
“Riley…” Abigail sighed. “What did they all do to you that ties them together?”
“What?” Riley shook her head. “I’m not sure where you’re going with this.”
“They all made you a victim. That includes your pride, Riley.”
Riley snarled and stood slowly.
“My pride-”
“Your pride has a lot of demons, and those have affected your life. Their past mistakes brought down a lot on your head,” Abigail held up a hand when Riley tried to interrupt. “I am not saying they are bad or wrong. They obviously love you. I’m just telling you a hard truth. You had a normal life before this.”
“The hunters treated you like an animal and wanted to do awful things to you. A man did do awful things to you. Your pride’s past brought these things to your doorstep. They all made you a victim, and it makes you angry. This is completely reasonable. Now, is there anything else that makes you angry?” Abigail was writing stuff down as she spoke. Riley wanted to rip that notepad from her hand and burn it.
“I’m angry that they feel I’m an invalid,” Riley muttered, looking away from the deer as she said it.
“Who?”
“My pride. They love me and say I’m a part of the team. I’ve fought off nearly every threat against me, yet they still put me to bed and say, ‘let us take care of it’ like I can’t help or shouldn’t.”
“You think they might not respect you?” Abigail was still writing.
“Yes and no. They respect me as a person but not a member of the pride who can handle the work. Which is just so fucking wrong!” Riley snarled at her hands. “I fucking did it. I saved them like they saved me back in March, but when we got back here, they tell me that they want me out of it. Like I can’t… I can’t fight my own battles,” Riley clenched her hands, making fists. She could feel her nails digging into her palm. “I killed four out of the five hunters who broke into my room. I protected myself at the diner when they came for me. But no, I’m Riley, the little cheetah who shouldn’t be in the fight to begin with.”
“They want to protect you,” Abigail sounded so sad at Riley’s anger.
“They taught me to protect myself and don’t trust me to do it!” Riley roared. “They don’t… they don’t trust me.” She sat down on the couch. “After everything, and I’ve asked them to so many times, they don’t trust me.”
“Are you sure?” Abigail asked softly.
“That’s what it feels like,” Riley muttered.
“Maybe you should have a real talk with them,” Abigail offered. “Not an argument, since that seems to be your natural state.”
“Haha.” Riley wasn’t laughing. “So funny.”
“And very true. You have such a temper. You swing from fine to furious in a heartbeat. I wouldn’t classify you as mentally ill in any way, I think it’s just a product of the life you’ve led. So, when someone says something that pokes you in the wrong way, you end the nice conversation and immediately fly into biting and argumentative,” Abigail stopped writing and looked Riley in the eye. “Try to not fall into the temptation of being abrasive and have a real talk.”
“Sure. Are we done here?” Riley tapped her foot.
“We’re done whenever you are. Brenton has my number. I’ve told him to give it to you, so you can reach me without needing to go through him. It will make it easier to ask for help. I’ll be in town for a little while, as well.”
Riley didn’t say anything else as she stormed out of the office. She passed all the guys in the dining room. She ignored Thomas stripping down to go running himself. She threw her clothing off in the yard and the moment she could, she shifted to her cheetah form. Then, she ran.
She moved at top speed until her legs couldn’t go any further. She made it to the field and collapsed, rolling a few feet as she stopped.
She was breathing hard as she stared at the sky.
She ignored the footsteps as they approached her nearly ten minutes later. A large, very black wolf looked down on her.
*You are fast as shit.* Thomas’ voice echoed in her head.
*I would hope so.* She was a cheetah for fuck’s sake.
*Didn’t like therapy?* He laid down about ten feet from her, watching her with those blue eyes.
*Not really.*
*It happens. Therapy isn’t for everyone.* Thomas huffed and rolled on his back. *It feels good to be a wolf without needing to fight and run.*
She let that comment sit there for a minute. It did feel good to be in her cheetah form without needing to run for her life or hide. She also wasn’t scared in this form. If she could get away from the hunters and their dogs, she could get away from any of them.
She watched the wolf. He’d done the same thing as her, escape, then go back to fight. He’d done more than her, fought in a war, was a member of the military. He’d probably seen things and done things that she couldn’t imagine.
*Thomas, I’ve got a question.*
*Shoot.*
*How do you deal with it? The combat, the fighting? The… I’m not really sure how to put it.*
He turned back to her and laid his head down between his paws.
*I know what you’re asking. I don’t really have answer for you either. I wish I did, but every day I have flashbacks. Every day I remember but… I keep moving forward. I keep trying to be better, do better. This recent… event will haunt me for the rest of my life. I can only imagine how you feel.*
*Do you ever want revenge?*
*Riley, I didn’t only want revenge. I got it once.*
*Did it help?*
*They say revenge never solves anything but… for me? Yeah, I’ll be honest. It did but there’s an important caveat. It must be enough. Revenge is normally a problem since it is never enough for most people. They want more since it doesn’t actually solve the problem of how they feel. You need it to be. It has to be enough. Mine was.*
Riley stewed on that for a minute. She didn’t say anything for a long time.
*Riley, my best recommendation is to talk to your pride. They can help you.*
She didn’t say anything to that either.
*Riley, whatever-*
*It doesn’t matter, Thomas. Stay out of it. This is feline business.* She tried to keep her tone the mild, Brenton professionalism.
Wild Fire (The Kingson Pride Book 2) Page 26
