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“What’s taking so long,Christophe? Just dispense with the sentence and be done with it. You needn’t take so long on such a smallthing.”

“It’s a man’s life,so I wanted to give it due diligence. I’ll take care of it after breakfast,” I said. “Boththings.”

He exchanged a look with Mother.I knew what he was thinking—that my idealism wouldn’t last forever. Well, I’d hold on to it while I could. Besides, this one was special. Not that they needed to knowthat.

Mason Arkentooth,twenty years old,omega.

Stephen,using all the resources available to the clan that extended far above the police system, had gotten me his information in just a few hours. After that, I’d gone and done my own research. Mason’s story had checked out—he lived with his mother and sixteen-year-old sister. His mother had recently been diagnosed with some unspecified degenerative sickness that’d caused her to lose mobility in her legs. They were barely scraping by, but had still somehow managed to pay off Ackson Bellock’s ludicrous clan fees, despite the fact that Mason hadn’t been employed in months. Obviously, our place hadn’t been Mason’s onlytarget.

Hadit been up to Father, Mason would be locked up for years and his family thrown to the rabids. I was not going to do that. Regardless of whatever it was I felt towards him, I wasn’t going to do that. This was my first leadership act, and I was going to act in the true spirit of the CrescentMoons.

After breakfast,I retreated to an empty sitting room and made a phone call to Chief InspectorBurnside.

“Yes,”I said, finally managing a word in between his angry shouting. “No, you heard me correctly, ChiefInspector.”

“Listen,we’re still working on his identity. I don’tunderstand!”

“Yes,I understand you’re still working on identifying him. You don’t need to worry about thatanymore.”

“Mr. Luna,this manstolefrom you.He—”

“Chief Inspector,he’s not going to go unpunished. Believe me. I’m simply moving matters into the hands of my clan. So please, don’t make me repeat myself. He’s to be released immediately, with no further action on your end.Understand?”

There wasa moment of angry silence. “Yes.”

“Thank you for understanding, Chief Inspector,”I said. “The department can always count on a generous donation from the Crescent MoonClan.”

Ihung up the phone,and was surprised by a warm, tingling rush that overtook my body. Now I could find out what kind of person Mason really was. I just hoped that I hadn’t made the biggest mistake of mylife.