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Twenty minutes later, Johnny had his hair under control and clothes on, which was sad but for the best. I needed to keep my head in the game, but being in the presence of both of my men had my body hot and definitely bothered.
“I’ve been going through the documents that were sent here after Kane—”
“Paid in full for me?” While I better understood the situation and why Kane felt he had no choice but to bid on me, a thought that still made me spark rage, I didn’t get why he hadn’t had a plan for duplicity. It wasn’t like Sal was an unknown entity. The guy was dirty as hell. Kane should have anticipated something shitty going down, aside from buying a female werewolf. I’d be having nightmares about that collar for a long time to come.
“Yes, that,” Levi said with shame in his voice and a pulse through our bond. “This contract has residual magic but nothing that screams witch text.”
I marveled at Levi’s ability to detect magic with a sense that no other wolf I’d known possessed. Even my beastly instincts, which could alert me with a feeling of doom or danger nearby, couldn’t pinpoint magic with the kind of accuracy that Levi could.
“What I think happened was that Kane signed a multi-layered contract.” He shifted some papers underneath the contract he held. “Like this.” He ran his hand over the top. “The witch text could have been embedded in the carbon copies, but this top copy would have held only binding magic to ensure that the signature went through to the other sheets below. Standard practice for contracts these days and nothing Kane would have detected as being off.”
“But you would have,” I said as I reached for the top layer. The static charge that vibrated against my fingers was exactly what I’d expect from a contract constructed by witches. It would have alerted me, but I would have been suspicious of anything that came from Sal. I wasn’t faulting Kane for not second-guessing, not really. He had a plan, however flawed. He just didn’t truly understand how diabolical my stepbrother really was.
“I believe I would have, but this kind of magic is meant to hijack and gaslight.” Levi sighed. “What’s done is done, and we all feel horrible for what Sal did to you. I’m not minimizing it.” He pulsed me again through our bond, and I reached out to squeeze his hand. “What we need now are the actual documents.”
“Andrew and Gareth?” I knew they’d been sent on their mission, given direction from Levi while I’d been…preoccupied with Johnny.
“They’ve gone after the scrolls,” Levi confirmed. “Andrew said they were housed in a vault at headquarters.”
“Makes sense.” I knew that to be where my father had kept some of the more sensitive or in need of protection items he’d possessed. I’d only ever been in the vault a handful of times, and I knew there were two ways in and out—one that was obvious and one that was hidden. “He’ll know how to get them without detection.”
“He checked Sal’s office. No contract.” Levi ran his hand through his hair.
“Could it be at the home office?” Johnny asked.
But that didn’t fit. My father never kept anything important in the vault at home, too obvious. No, he’d have filed it with his right-hand man, who at the time was Carter. Now it was Vincent. Sal’s guy. “It’s with the accountant.”
“The money man?” Levi frowned.
“He’s not the regular kind of accountant. Vincent doesn’t just manage the money. He manages everything related to the business, including holding documents like this one. He’s a bulldog with a bite.” I wasn’t scared of him, but I knew to take heed and approach with caution.
“So we need to go after that guy.” Johnny’s bloodlust was a jolt to my senses, sent through our new bond like a shot of adrenaline.
It hyped me up. Taking a bite out of Vincent was suddenly my top priority. “I’m ready to take him down.” Fuck caution. I wanted blood.
“If we go after one of Sal’s top wolves, we’ll be declaring war.” Levi, the buzzkill, injected rational thinking with a smooth tone and calm ebb to coat Johnny’s energy. “We can’t do that without Kane around.”
Effectively subdued and now fully frustrated, I snapped. “Are we going to talk about the fact that Kane is gone?” Even saying his name made me want to chase after him. It was an impulse, a yearning, and I knew with certainty that meant the three-bite theory was a thing—which also meant, I knew in my heart that Kane had to leave but I wouldn’t say that out loud. “He fucking took off,” I said, instead sounding like a jilted girlfriend.
“We talked,” Levi said, maintaining his calm, no hard edges to his voice at all. “He’s protecting the pack.” He stared into my soul. “He left to protect you, us. You know that, Charlie.”
Shame made my cheeks heat, and I looked at the floor. “Do you know where he’s gone?” I needed to know like a compulsion driving me for information, any information, about Kane’s whereabouts.
Levi’s silence told me what I needed to know. He knew exactly where Kane had taken off to.
“Andrew told you about the three-bite theory?” Levi asked.
I nodded, meeting his eyes once again.
“What three-bite theory?” Johnny said. “Why’d Kane tell you where he was going and not me?”
We both looked at Johnny, realizing that we hadn’t filled him in on anything since he’d bit me.
“I mean…” Johnny shrugged. “I guess I’ve been preoccupied,” he said sheepishly.
“There’s something in the scrolls that Sal has, ones we don’t have, that says Charlie needs three bites, reciprocal bites, to reach her full power.” Levi walked to the table with our scrolls spread out. “And each bite makes it harder for the chosen males to stay away.”
“And Kane ran away because of that?” Johnny shook his head. “What the actual fuck? Since when does Kane run from danger?”
