“It could give us some time to focus on finding her,” Ronan pointed out. Every time we tried to take time away there was always something popping up. This big of a win would give us the chance to stop that.
“We got intel on our last job that he was in the area,” Nikolai said.
“We did,” I confirmed, glancing his way. It was so weird hearing him speak so much, but something had him rattled today. I just wished I knew what it was.
There was a lot I wished I knew about Nikolai, but he kept himself far too guarded, never letting us in fully. The most I saw him come to life was during his fights. Ronan and I hadn’t missed a single one in years.
We’d more than proven our loyalty to him, and someday I hoped he would understand that. It often felt like he’d given up on having a real pack when he lost her, but we weren’t going anywhere.
“I need to dig deeper,” I said, popping my knuckles and massaging my hands, readying myself for what I was sure was going to be a long day of research.
“There’s a fight tonight,” Ronan reminded me.
I looked at my watch, then back at my packmates.
Nikolai tensed, but he wasn’t looking at me. His gaze was locked across the room but his attention was on me as if he was waiting to hear what my answer would be.
“I’ll be there,” I promised. “I never miss one.”
Nik nodded and stood up, leaving me to work.
Ronan hesitated at the door, turning back to me. “Anything?”
“No,” I said quietly. Even if we’d never met her, Aries was always on our minds.
I set a quick alarm before locking in. My hands were already over the keyboard by the time he walked away, my multiple screens lighting up with lead after lead as I dove deeper now that I had better keywords.
At some point, Ronan brought in coffee. My favorite order from the shop down the street. He was long gone by the time I noticed it.
I took a long pull, realizing it was cold by now, but not caring. Caffeine was caffeine, and who was I to be picky at this point?
I had a whole web uncovered. There were incidents we didn’t even realize Spectre was behind.
The bad business deal we’d gotten into last year that had lost us good men? That was his doing.
Someone must have been feeding him information. It was just a bit too convenient that his men appeared during a routine job. We’d lost money, a connection, and our people.
This was the exact kind of hit that would send Victor into a frenzy.
I started building a file, one bulked with everything I’d found.
Until my alarm blared, shocking me out of it. Knowing I’d already waited too long, I pushed back from my computer and rubbed a hand over my tired eyes.
Three hours had passed since they’d walked away from me.
I had just enough time to rush through a shower before throwing on some clothes. We tried to dress down when we were going to these fights, mainly faded jeans, old T-shirts. Anything that let us blend in but was baggy enough to hide our guns.
They were already waiting in the car by the time I walked down, which wasn’t surprising. They knew me well by now.
Nikolai was silent like always as we drove through the city. It was his moment of calm before the fight.
We always arrived earlier than the crowd, Ronan and I finding Nikolai’s side of the cage near Dimitri.
Nikolai no longer had any sort of deal with the old alpha. He didn’t need the money and didn’t want the headache, so he kept Dimitri as his agent.
To his credit, Dimitri was fair. He always made sure that Nik didn’t get fucked over, and earned more than his fair share in the process.
The crowd filed in not long after we did, giving us a wide berth. We had a reputation, no matter how much we dressed down for this.
