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“Yes, it was a mistake. One I have apologized for. I meant no insult to you. And if you and the other people who are hunting me agree to back off, I will not make any moves against you. Havana Ramos will be left alone, as will anyone else under your protection. Everyone can go back to their lives.”
“And if we don’t back off?” Because they absolutely wouldn’t.
“You will force me to take any measures necessary to stop you. I won’t make this offer again. If I were you, I would accept it. You have no way of locating me. You could try to trace this call, of course, but any time you spend investigating me will be wasted.”
“Yeah? Then why are you so worried that we’re working to locate you?” Tate challenged.
“I am not worried. I am merely … inconvenienced by how much lone shifters are now on their guard.”
Tate snickered. “I don’t believe you, York. I think you know it’s only a matter of time before we find you. And I think you know just how bad you’ll suffer once we do. We pallas cats like our vengeance. Your friend Rupert, yeah, he died hard. You’ll die harder.”
For a long moment, Gideon said nothing. “I take it we don’t have an agreement. That is a shame. Especially for Miss Ramos.” The line went dead.
“Well,” began Havana, “we know now that Gideon really is alive.”
“I don’t think he expected us to associate him with—” Tate swore as bullets peppered the front of the building. He moved fast, sliding fully into the bathroom for cover, as windows smashed and the wooden front door splintered. Then there was the screech of tires.
Tate cursed again and rushed out of the building just in time to see a dark blue car disappear around a curve in the road. Hearing footsteps, he turned just as Luke and Farrell came running into view. “You both okay?” he asked.
Luke gave a curt nod. “Don’t know where that car came from, but it wasn’t around when we checked this side of the motel before.”
“The driver must have parked somewhere close but out of sight,” said Farrell.
Tate glanced back at the others, checking they were all fine, relieved when he saw no one—especially his father and Havana—was injured.
“Did anyone get the license plate number of the car?” asked Alex.
Everyone shook their heads.
Tate hissed. “That motherfucker led us here so he could make us an offer and let us see what happened to people like Sinclair who landed on his shit list. My contact specified that the tip was anonymous. I didn’t wonder if it had been passed on by Gideon.”
“What did he say?” asked Luke. “I missed most of the conversation.”
“He pretty much confirmed that he’s Gideon York, and he told me that he’d leave us be if we all backed off. He didn’t like that I refused to fall in line.”
“Do you think he would have shot at us even if we agreed to his deal?” asked Bailey.
“No,” said Tate. “Killing a bunch of pallas cats wouldn’t have changed anything—our pride would have continued to hunt him, and they’d have hunted him harder to avenge us. That’s why he didn’t start shooting the second we arrived. He was hoping we’d take the deal and leave him be.”
“He was also probably hoping that shooting at the motel room would make us reconsider hunting him,” mused Vinnie. “Otherwise, he’d have waited for us all to step out of the building. He didn’t. He gave us one last warning so that we’d know he meant business.”
Aspen looked at Havana. “You need to be careful. There was a slight sneer in his voice every time he said your name. My opinion? He blames you for everything that’s gone wrong.”
“I’d say the same.” Bailey rubbed at one arm. “It was a good thing we hid in the bathroom, huh?”
“He probably figured we’d hide once we wondered just how he could know that anyone was in the motel room,” Vinnie theorized. “I doubt he thought the bullets would truly kill anyone.”
“People are peeking out the windows of the other rooms,” said Aspen. “Someone might call the police.”
Luke shook his head. “It’s a shifter-only motel. They won’t call the human authorities.”
Because shifter business was shifter business. They had their own rules as to how they dealt with things.
“I say it’s time we got out of here,” declared Bailey.
“I couldn’t agree more,” said Tate, tossing the burner phone into the trash. “But first, I want to question the shifters here and see if anyone noticed people entering or exiting this room at some point today.”
They learned that no one heard a gunshot, so the firearm used to kill Sinclair must have had a silencer attached. One person claimed to have seen four people approach the motel room, but he’d been too far away to view their faces. The witness hadn’t thought to pay them any attention, because he’d assumed they were staying in the room.
