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“Don’t worry about being gentle,” I called after him.
“He usually isn’t.” Teresa propped her chin on her hand; she was curled up in her desk chair like usual, her legs folded beneath her body, her elbows resting on the tabletop. Despite all her dangerous skills, she sat like a second grader. No one outside our pack took her seriously, but Teresa didn’t seem to mind.
I glanced at her skeptically. “Are you comfortable contorted like that?”
“I’m always comfortable,” she promised, and she did seem like she was comfortable everywhere she went. Never fazed or hurried or stressed, no matter how bad the situation. Her frame was petite, feminine; other packs never expected her to be part of my leadership team. They never saw Teresa coming.
“We’ll wait for them.”
“You don’t normally wait on Shaw.” There was a curious note in her voice.
Other alphas didn’t allow their subordinates to question them, but I didn’t mind it. I knew they meant no disrespect.
“I don’t,” I admitted. “If I waited on Shaw to grow up, we’d never get anything done. But this is his revenge too.”
My father, as alpha, might not have gotten his throat ripped out if he’d allowed a few more questions. Then again, there were a few shifters in my pack who would rip out my throat if they ever got the chance. Most of the pack treated me with the respect I’d earned when I killed my way to the top. But I had enemies.
And I had brothers and a sister in my pack too, so while I knew they had my back, there was a distinct lack of appropriately respectful behavior onthatfront too.
Teresa nodded. “It’s almost the five-year anniversary of the Longroad pack murdering Brennan. Do you think the timing will make them suspicious? On higher alert?”
“I don’t think Nathan Longroad ever expects to be held accountable.”
Held accountable.Those were some abstract words for the bloodbath we planned for the Longroad pack.
She nodded slowly, still looking thoughtful. “I’m sure you’re right. They don’t know how strong our pack has grown over the past few years.”
There was a subtle compliment there, since I’d become the alpha when Brennan died. I’d hated my brother for leaving me alpha, as much as I’d loved him too.
Since Teresa never gave compliments for free, I asked, “What’s bothering you, Tee?”
“That nickname, for one thing,” she said dryly. Then she glanced at the eight-by-ten photos hanging along the target wall.
Most were of enemies or leadership high in the Longroad pack who we had to be sure we killed when we went in. Nathan Longroad was tagged asmine.Then we would kill anyone who resisted.
But Amelia’s photo was marked. She wasn’t to be harmed, not by anyone from my pack. I wanted to have a private conversation with the woman he’d obsessed over…the woman he’d been with the night he was murdered.
“What are you going to do with the girl?” Teresa asked, though she usually only asked questions when she already knew the answer.
I’d heard stories from our spy in the Longroad pack that Amelia was being treated badly in her pack. Those stories made me wonder if she was villain or victim in the story of my brother’s death.
In the footage of his death, she’d looked unharmed, so I leaned toward villain. When I thought of that damned video, my hands curled into fists. “If she betrayed Brennan, I’m going to gut her myself.”
“So, this isn’t a rescue mission.”
I was five years too late for a rescue mission. If I’d arrived at the motel in time, when Brennan and Amelia ran, I could’ve saved my brother. “This is revenge, Tee.”
She nodded, her gaze worried, but she didn’t argue with me.
“Please spare me any nonsense about de-escalating shit. I hear enough of that from Liam.” My brother was crazy in more ways than one, but his pacifism was the weirdest kind of crazy. No one knew better than Liam that the world was brutal. “I prefer to de-escalate conflict by creating dead bodies.”
Teresa raised her hands in a placating gesture. “I would never. I love an ambush as much as the next girl.”
The Longroad pack ran a mining operation, and they’d be transporting their cargo to the other side of the mountains. There was an empty stretch up in the mountains where we should be able to target them without taking civilian casualties.
“Do you have the assignments and locations for our machine gunners?” I asked, glancing over at the map.
“You know I do.” There was an amused glint in Teresa’s eyes. “They’ve all been informed of their positions, and they’re happy to take on the role.”
