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Tate came to him. “You all right?”
Isaiah gave a curt nod, unable to say the same for his cat—the feline was still raging. He looked down at the corpse at his feet and said, “He was going to take Emeline. He could have shot her. Didn’t. He meant to take her.”
As a bunch of others crowded them, Deke crouched beside the body and tore off the mask.
Gasps sounded. They knew that face. Knew the hazel eyes, dark scruff, scarred cheek, and deep brown hair. The shifter had recently made himself fairly infamous, along with his three brothers.
“Son of a bitch,” Tate muttered beneath his breath.
“Knowing all he’s done,” began Bailey, “I kind of wish his death hadn’t been so quick.”
That was a relatable statement for sure.
Once Helena was done healing any wounds, Farrell escorted her and several others home. At Tate’s insistence, the rest of them gathered at the house he shared with Havana in the cul-de-sac. His father Vinnie, who was also the pride’s previous Alpha, had joined them. Luke and his mate Blair had arrived soon after. And now they were all spread around the spacious living area, varying degrees of all-out pissed.
Sprawled in an armchair, Isaiah cricked his neck. Of the people there, three had been shot earlier. Havana had taken a bullet to the upper arm, Tate had been shot in the shoulder, and Camden’s calf was hit twice.
Isaiah suspected it was only Havana’s injury that had kept Tate from rushing out of the building earlier to help Emeline. The guy was a nightmare for any bodyguard, because he was the first to risk his neck in the defense of a pride mate.
“It’s definitely him,” said Tate, stood near the fireplace, his hard blue gaze on the screen of his cell. A gaze that then lifted to Isaiah. “It’s definitely Samuele Vercetti you killed.” He turned his phone, flashing Isaiah a look at the online alert poster. A past photo of their dead guy was plastered right there.
The sight of it made Isaiah’s cat snarl once more. He’d ceased raking at Isaiah’s insides in some bid to claw his way out, but he wasn’t yet calm.
The corpse had been taken away by Alex’s uncles. The three wolverines were always happy to help get rid of bodies. Usually by eating them, but Isaiah decided not to think about that.
On the sofa, Bailey wore a bloodthirsty smile. “So many shifters worldwide are going to celebrate on hearing that one of the Vercetti brothers are dead.”
More than likely.
Made up of several breeds, the Vercetti Pack had been pissing off shifters left, right, and center for years. They were so corrupt and conniving that not even jackals—a fairly cruel and shady species—would do business with them. Only humans, knowing no better, associated with them.
The pack didn’t respect shifter laws, didn’t take mates, didn’t acknowledge the authority of Alphas, and didn’t have any problem doing business with anti-shifter human extremists.
The pack didn’t even have an Alpha. Four wolf-shifter brothers—Sebastian, Tommaso, Davide, and Samuele Vercetti—ran the group, acting much like a council. The rest of the members allegedly followed them blindly.
The pack had mostly operated in the shadows—trafficking drugs, cashing on bounties, dabbling in cybercrime, even running a shifter prostitution ring for humans who quite simply wanted to fuck a shifter.
But the pack hadn’t made themselves true enemies of the shifter state until more recently. Their newest venture? Kidnapping shifter children—usually those of the Alphas—and either holding them for ransom or to force the aforementioned Alphas to commit acts they would never ordinarily do. Beat their mate, shoot their Beta, offer up another child in exchange for theirs, or even kill one of their parents.
It was totally fucked.
The ransomed children were usually returned uninjured. Usually being the key word. Sometimes they were missing a finger, ear, toe, or—in one case—a foot. Sometimes they didn’t return at all.
The Vercetti brothers weren’t really interested in money. They’d made enough cash over the years. What they liked was making Alphas submit to their whims.
There were bounties on their heads, and online alert posters had been sent around the shifter community complete with pictures of all four brothers. Hence why Isaiah and his pride mates had been able to so easily identify the now dead wolf shifter.
His expression grim, Tate looked at a silent but furious Havana, who sat on the other armchair. “If we’d had kids, the brothers would have taken ours. They won’t have known whose child Emeline was, wouldn’t have cared. It was about having me by the balls.” He clenched a fist. “God knows what they would have done to her.”
“It doesn’t bear thinking about,” Aspen murmured, snuggling into her mate on the sofa as he idly combed his fingers through her dark, choppy-layered bob. “What’s known about the brothers? Their background, I mean?”
Stood between his mate and older brother, Luke stirred. Though he carried less muscle than Tate, the Beta was still well-built and closely resembled the Alpha male. “They were part of a prominent wolf pack,” said Luke, sweeping his blue gaze over each person in the room. “Their mother died giving birth to Samuele, and their father passed on only days later. They were then raised by their maternal grandfather, who was Alpha.”
“Giuseppe Vercetti,” said Vinnie with a nod. “I met him once or twice. He had a cruel streak a mile wide. Seriously, he was one depraved son of a bitch. People who knew him well said that he treasured his mate and daughter but nonetheless beat them. Beat those boys, too. Often. Especially Samuele—Giuseppe blamed him for their mother’s death, apparently.”
Isaiah’s cat peeled back his upper lip in contempt at the deceased shifter. Mates and children should be protected, never mistreated.
“When Giuseppe stepped down, he didn’t choose any of his grandsons to take his place,” said Luke. “He instead gave the position to their cousin. The brothers killed Giuseppe, the cousin, and any who stood in their way as they then scampered.”
