Bleacke Spirit

by Lesli Richardson

  The town, on the other hand, looked unchanged. He pointed out the office, the store, the road they’d taken from I-90 into and out of that hell.

  It also seemed that the company his sources had located had all but vanished into the ether. Carl and Mateo were working on tracking down what had happened to all its holdings. He had no access to any of that information, had no idea where his tablet he’d had with him had ended up.

  It’d likely fallen into the hands of the people in Idaho.

  There had been a few properties in Florida, too, but they were still working on trying to figure everything out, now with the old company seemingly vanished.

  One thing Manuel was certain of—there was some sort of secret group living in that compound. They were not fully human—or they were more than human, he didn’t know yet.

  But he would.

  With Carl and Mateo’s help, he’d pulled together lots of information from a variety of news sites, linking what some people dismissed as myths but others studied as cryptozoologists.

  Manual was leaving for Florida on the first of December to start their search there, just north of Tampa. Attacking the Idaho compound without more information would be another suicide mission, with that Manuel wholeheartedly agreed. Their thoughts were to tease out the Florida holdings, find people affiliated through those, and then begin to work their way up the food chain to get more information.

  His uncle was funding the trip, and promised to cut him in on whatever they made—but they had to find Carlomarles alive and bring him in, both for information, and as a biological sample.

  It would be himself, Carl, and Mateo, his uncle’s two most trusted men. They would have four weeks in which to do it, and hopefully the inherent confusion of the holiday season would help conceal their activities.

  When Manuel first balked at keeping Carlomarles alive, his uncle reminded him a dead man could give them no answers. Once they’d captured him, they would call his uncle, who’d send the private jet for them. They could then spirit him out of the country that way, fly back to an airport in Mexico where his uncle had connections.

  Only when they’d extracted every last bit of information—and samples—out of the man would his uncle allow Manuel to finally kill Carlomarles…unless they could make more by selling him to someone else.

  And his uncle had made the valid point that what if the man was worth millions alive?

  The man would never be free again, though. That was for certain.

  Manuel knew that, under the circumstances, that had to be enough.

  For now.

  Wasn’t like he had any other choice in the matter. He was lucky his uncle hadn’t killed him already.

  At least it was a plan.

  Now, Manuel could seek his revenge.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Remember the larger picture.

  Carl was running short on patience.

  It was their second week in Florida, and Carl and Mateo had just about enough of Manuel Segura and his bullshit. But now that they were in Florida, it was even more crucial they not fuck this up. Manuel Segura was a batcrap crazy shitstain, and Carl knew it, but he and Mateo really didn’t have any choice except to help the man and make it look good.

  For now.

  Although Carl and Mateo were in total agreement that if something happened to Manuel, it would make their lives a lot easier. They’d tell Abundio that Manuel acted rash and sloppy, rushed in against their orders, and got himself killed.

  Not like he hadn’t done that once already, rushed in without thinking, that was.

  Until they could arrange for that to happen, they needed to play along before seizing their opportunity.

  They had rooms next door to each other in an extended-stay hotel near the University of South Florida, Carl and Mateo sharing a room with two beds, and Manuel getting his own room. With the holidays, it was busy, crowded, which meant that they would hopefully go relatively unnoticed.

  Despite Manuel growing increasingly anxious and agitated by the day, Carl would not be rushed. He and Mateo scouted the addresses their research had turned up. Unfortunately, the largest property, and its surrounding rural area, made a stake-out impractical. Its layout meant storming the house would be suicidal.

  Besides, Carl really didn’t want to storm anything. He was far more interested in learning more about the residents, to see if his personal guess was correct.

  And, if it was, if he could strike a deal with them to hand Manuel over in exchange for protecting them and Brianna.

  Doing a little more research on the ground led Carl to discover some common ties in the area to Idaho.

  Like several vehicles registered to various addresses in northwest Hillsborough county, vehicles that were owned by a brand-new shell company that could be tracked back to the same company that now owned the large, rural piece of property with the house hidden from view of the road by hundreds of acres of pine woods.

  The same shell company with a registered agent listed in Idaho. Not the same town as where the massacre had taken place, but one only twenty miles away.

  That could not be a coincidence, of that Carl was certain.

  It also couldn’t be a coincidence that Carl’s secret research had turned up the presence of a very old and very large wolf pack from that same area, the Targhee Pack.

  It could not be a coincidence that Manuel remembered the old company’s name he’d tracked down was Targhee International, LLC.

  And the registered agent for both that old and now dissolved company, and the new one, was the same person.

  What Carl and Mateo knew, and wouldn’t reveal to Manuel or Abundio, was how packs commonly incorporated to form companies that could more easily protect their holdings while personally shielding their identities. That made it more difficult for people to spot discrepancies with ages.

  Manuel wanted to go in, interrogate the residents of the houses where those cars were parked, to see if they had any knowledge of Carlomarles or his whereabouts, and then kill them.

  Carl and Mateo had to stall him, and managed to do so while they conducted their own research.

  “You realize we are under orders not to put ourselves in undo jeopardy, right?” Carl asked him. “Rushing in without research got you in this mess in the first place. What’s your hurry?”

  Manuel glared at him for a minute, but grumbled something Carl took to be agreement before Manuel returned to his room to stew.

  The man had no credit cards, no cash, and no access to the car keys for either rental car. Abundio had told Manuel before they left Mexico that Carl was in charge, and Manuel wasn’t allowed to go off by himself, or disobey Carl’s orders.

  Carl suspected that was the only thing keeping the crazy man in line.

  Meanwhile, Carl picked up several burner cells, then paid visits to those homes at night and duct-taped the phones to the vehicles’ frames. He could track them with GPS via an app he’d installed. If any of them went to the large rural property in question, he’d focus more closely on that particular person and vehicle.

  The first day after he did this provided success.

  Two of the vehicles went to the property.

  After retrieving the cellphones that night so they wouldn’t be discovered, he and Mateo decided to focus on surveilling those two particular vehicles. They were both driven by men, and Carl suspected they were wolves, but didn’t have time to really spend scenting them. Carl also didn’t dare risk shifting to better track their scents. Not to mention frequent rains diluted outside scents. However, the rain worked in Carl’s favor, if they were wolves, in masking his own scent.

  Neither man who drove those vehicles matched the surveillance camera picture they had of Carlomarles, though.

  Thankfully.

  Because Carl and Mateo weren’t yet at a point they could make their own move.

  Finally, after two more days of following the men, yesterday, one of the men met with a woman and another man at a restaurant
not far from the large rural property. While those people were inside, Mateo kept watch while Carl planted a fresh phone on the underside of the Saleen the couple had arrived in. The woman had been driving.

  Unfortunately, he didn’t have time to really scent the car. He literally spent fifteen seconds there before hurrying away, and it was raining, to boot.

  Worked in his favor again, helping to wash his scent away.

  Now, today, the woman had left the property in the Saleen—alone. Carl was alone today, because Mateo was following one of the other men and keeping Manuel distracted. Carl wanted Manuel nowhere near this woman until he had a chance to talk to her.

  Carl had sat parked in a busy shopping center near the main road the woman would have to emerge from when anyone left the property, and picked up her tail after she passed him. They hit I-75 and jumped off again one exit to the south, where she drove to a large open-air shopping mall packed with holiday shoppers. Carl parked several rows away from her, in a spot that would allow him to pass by her car as he followed her.

  When he paused by her car, ducking under it to swap out the cell phone for a fully charged one, he finally took a long, deep breath.

  That’s when true hope finally bloomed inside him. He and Mateo had talked about this, dreamed of this.

  Hoped.

  Prayed.

  This could be their only chance, and he knew he had to make it count.

  He quickly brushed himself off and headed after the woman. Fortunately, he was downwind of her, but when he really got a fresh hit of her scent…

  Carl froze in his tracks for a moment, his nostrils flaring as he sniffed the air.

  Inside, he was doing a victory dance that he would never allow even Mateo to see him do in real life.

  I was right!

  Fortunately for him, common sense and desperation overrode the deeply hard-wired instincts at war within him. The wolf he scented was female, yes, but she was an Alpha.

  Not just any Alpha, but a Prime Alpha.

  He’d never heard of any such thing, except…

  His eyes widened in shock. When he’d first left the Navy, he’d done a little research then, thinking maybe they could hook up with another pack. Then he’d heard so much conflicting information that he decided it was safer for them to remain on their own, rather than risking being shunned or even killed for being gay.

  But during that research, he remembered hearing rumors about the Targhees…

  Oh, shit.

  If this was the wolf he suspected she might be, it was desperately imperative he reach her and talk to her long before Manuel ever knew for certain they’d located her, or all three of them could wind up dead.

  Moving quickly, he followed the other wolf’s scent, even more glad now that he was downwind of her. He scanned side-to-side as he hustled as fast as he dared without drawing undue attention to himself. He knew he would have a very limited window of opportunity to do what he needed to do.

  She headed in to a clothing store and, after he glanced around, he stepped inside after her.

  That’s when he realized he couldn’t see her now.

  Shit.

  Avoiding the sales clerks at the front counter, he aimed as if he were heading toward another woman who browsed alone, at a rack in the back.

  That’s when he felt the press of the muzzle at the base of his spine, and a hand clamped around his left arm.

  “Silence. Dressing room. Now.”

  Oh, fuck me.

  She was definitely a Prime.

  “Please don’t kill me,” he thought to her. “I need to talk to you. It’s urgent.”

  “You’ve been following me since I got here. Who the fuck are you?”

  He didn’t even try to lie to her, not that he thought he could, now that he knew for certain she was a Prime. “I’m a wolf.”

  “Duh, Einstein.” They stepped inside the first empty dressing room and she pushed the door shut behind them with her foot.

  He stared at her in the mirror. She wore a cold, hard expression in her dark mocha eyes that threatened to loosen his bladder.

  Despite her much smaller size, she was absolutely a killer who could take him down, even without the gun. Of that he had no doubt.

  In a rush, he thought as much of the story to her as he could, trying to make it make sense and knowing she was understanding when her glare softened to a confused scowl before hardening back to anger.

  Except not at him this time.

  She didn’t holster her gun, but she did pull it out of his back and carefully lowered the hammer. Her gaze didn’t leave his in the mirror as she obviously needed a moment to think things through.

  Finally, she whispered her next thought aloud. “What assurances do I have of your loyalty if I do this? I mean, legit loyalty, not you doing what I tell you to because of Prime. I mean, you do realize I’m a Prime, right?”

  Keeping his hands out to his side and moving sooo slowly, he turned, then dropped to his knees and tipped his head back, exposing his throat.

  “Yes, I know you’re a Prime,” he whispered. “Please. I beg for sanctuary. I pledge my life and honor to the Targhee Pack. I’ll give you Manuel Segura if you’ll give me and my mate, Mateo, and his sister sanctuary, and make us part of the pack. Mateo and I can be Enforcers. We’ll do anything you task us with.”

  “I don’t have room for a human on my Enforcer team.”

  “We’ll do anything.” He blinked away tears. “Please.” He kept his head tipped back.

  “How do you know your mate will be okay with this?”

  “Because Brianna’s the only family he has left besides me. We wanted to try to save enough money to smuggle her out of the country and buy her a new identity so we could leave, too, but we had no idea where to go where we would be welcomed and not run out of the territory. Or killed. We’ve spent every extra bit of money we’ve made to put her through school and to keep her safe.”

  He hoped he hadn’t badly misjudged her and just gotten himself and Mateo killed.

  She studied him for a long time before finally reaching out and grabbing his throat. He forced himself to stay still, sensing the sheer, raw power gripping his flesh. All she’d have to do was squeeze a little harder and crush his windpipe, or rip out his carotid arteries with her fingernails.

  When she next spoke, her voice sounded barely louder than a whisper. “As head of the expanded Targhee Pack Council, and speaking for the pack Alpha, your pledge is accepted upon our honor. You and your mate and his sister are now considered Targhee. We conditionally grant you sanctuary.”

  She wiped her hand on her jeans after releasing him, but at least she holstered the gun, hidden under her shirt along her back waistband.

  “Conditionally?”

  “You give me Manuel Segura. Immediately.”

  “Yes.”

  “Stay right there,” she said as she pulled out her phone.

  Sensing that for the first time in years maybe they’d know true peace, he closed his eyes, bowed his head, and wept with relief.

  She made a quick, terse phone call to someone he suspected was the pack Alpha, to get permission to order Brianna be brought in, then another phone call to someone else.

  “Alvarez? Dewi. Hey, we need to move someone, stat. Shifter line, but a non-shifter. On the pack’s tab. I’m going to put you on the phone with their brother-in-law, and he’ll give you her deets. Don’t hang up after, I need to talk to you again.” She nudged Carl’s hand with the phone. “Here. ”

  He took the phone, defaulting to Spanish when he heard the man’s accent. After giving the man Brianna’s information, and what to say to her so she’d know she could trust the man, Carl returned the phone to Dewi and slumped against the wall while she talked to the man again.

  Freedom.

  After she ended the call, he felt her breath in his face.

  He opened his eyes to find her squatting there, her face inches from his and staring him in the eyes. Before he could move
, she grabbed his chin and silently spoke to him again.

  “Your mate and his sister both need to take knees to me, or to Peyton. In person. Understand?”

  “Yes. Absolutely.”

  “I so much as get a hint that any of you are going to double-cross me or even think badly about me or anyone else in the pack? You’re going to wish I’d put a bullet in your brain out there in the store. I’ll kill your mate’s sister first, in front of you and him, and then I’ll kill him, and make you pull the trigger for both of them.

  “Are we perfectly clear? I have children to protect in our pack, and that fucker put children at risk when he and his men came onto our land. Not to mention there’s the not-so-inconsequential matter of his brother raping and murdering one of ours. And my mate was one of the ones who ran off the road to escape his men.”

  Oohhhh, fuck.

  Honestly? He was shocked he wasn’t dead right now. “I swear our allegiance. I promise. We had nothing to do with Idaho, I swear. He approached his uncle after. Had I known before, I would have tried to stop him.”

  “You’re going to have to earn your place in our Pack. I’ll guarantee Brianna’s safety in Idaho, but you and Mateo will stay here in Florida, for now. I need to know you’re not going to just take off and run, and I don’t want you anywhere near our compound until I’m sure I can trust you. I’m taking enough of a risk in my condition as it is.”

  “Anything. We’ll do anything. I don’t care if I have to shovel shit and clean toilets, I’ll do it.”

  She finally nodded and released him. Only when she stood again did he finally realize what she’d meant by her condition—she was pregnant.

  She smirked. “Yeah,” she said aloud as she patted her still-flat stomach. “You want to earn my trust? You be my good little Judas goat to give me Segura, so we can finally put that chapter to rest forever.”

  Her smile faded. “And until he’s ours, you don’t say or do anything I don’t tell you to first. Make sure to impress upon your mate how vitally important it is to not piss me the fuck off right now. Which was really easy to do even before I got pregnant. I’ve been told I’m acting kind of hormonal lately.”