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I jerk back in confusion, pulling the phone from my ear and putting it onto speaker phone. The other guys seem to notice that something is off with this call because they all stop what they’re doing to listen in.

“Who are you?”

“That’s not important,” she says. “I know where Luna is and who took her.”

“What? How did you get this number?” I growl, my mind moving so fast my head starts to spin. The concussion must beaffecting my ability to think clearly, because why isthatthe question I decided to ask this mystery woman?

She huffs out a quiet laugh. “Your website, genius. I called you out of the four of you guys since your bio said you’re from the Southside.”

This woman must be from the Southside too. She’s calling from a payphone with a Southside area code and the fact she called me makes it seem like she doesn’t want to talk to any Northsiders. That kind of mentality isn’t rare down there.

“Where is she?” I ask, trying to soften the tone of my voice. She’s not the one who took Luna.

But was it another Southsider? Maybe there could be some Southsiders who do well enough financially to pay mercenaries to do their dirty work?

She rattles off an address that I’m not familiar with. I gesture to the guys to write it down, but Kane is already on top of it. “She’s being kept in the basement.”

“Who took her? Was it a Southsider?”

“Fuck no,” she says, her laughter a lot harsher this time. “It was one of your beloved council members. She calls him Niall, but most know him as Nikolai Ignatious Aldric Lucien Leclair. Fancy ass bullshit name, if you ask me,” She mutters under her breath.

Archer jerks in his chair at the name. All of us know of him. He’s one of the longer-standing alphas on the council. He’s the one who wanted to buy Luna?

We suspected it was someone high up in the Northside, but that high up?

“When you go in to save her, which I assume is what you’re planning on doing, considering the way she talked about you guys, make sure not to come in guns blazing,” The woman says, her tone going softer than it has the entire call. “The men and women who work at that club are just trying to get by. Arresting them or hurting them isn’t gonna do anyone any good. Go after the Northsiders at the top of the food chain.”

Before I have a chance to say anything more, she hangs up. The only sound in the hospital room is the steady sound of my heart rate monitor.

“Who the fuck was that?” Chase whispers.

“Someone who works at that ‘club’ they’re keeping Luna in? Maybe that’s why she said not to do anything to the people that work there?” Archer suggests, starting to pace the room. He turns towards me. “Do you know anything about these sorts of places?”

“I mean, not really,” I shrug, immediately regretting the movement because of the way it seems to pull at my brain. “My family was into drugs, not human trafficking. Plus, I was too young and not interested in visiting a place like that. I’d assume, based on what I know about the Southside and the kinds of things people will do for money, that she’s telling the truth that some of the people that work there are working there ‘cause they want to.”

“I have to call my father,” Archer mutters. “Even if there’re illegal clubs where people are working there consensually, they’re still being used as a front for some kind of trafficking, at least of Luna. And this is a lot bigger of a problem than we thought if a Northside councilman has his hands dirty.”

“I wonder how big the network is?” Kane comments. “I thought after the riots, it would’ve been harder for things like this to pop up.”

“I mean, they definitely were around before the riots. Prostitution is the world’s oldest job,” I say. “It’s never really gone away. After everything happened and the Northside cracked down on omega registration, it could’ve just made it easier for operations like that to run. It’s not like the Northside is doing sweeps of the Southside and hunting down unregistered omegas.”

“We should still report this to the police,” Chase adds.

“I’ll call my father,” Archer nods. “Kane, you call the police.”

I swing my feet over the edge of my hospital bed, using my IV pole to help me stand. My ribs scream at me in pain, but I grit my teeth and keep going.

“Whoa, big guy, what’re you doing?” Chase jumps up from his seat.

“I can’t stay laying down now that we know where Luna is. I need a walk,” I grumble. “We should report this to the police, but I swear to god, I’m gonna be so pissed if they take forever to mount a rescue.”

“Me too, trust me, we all feel that way. Shouldn’t you sit down?” Chase turns to Archer and Kane, waving at me. “A little help here? It’ll be hard to catch him by myself if his stupid ass collapses.”

I huff, blinking quickly as my vision starts to go hazy, but I force myself to continue taking steps toward the end of the room. “Shut up, it’s not like I’m walking out of the hospital.” Even if I want to. Even if all I want to do right now is steal a car and drive straight to that address that woman gave us and rescue Luna.

I let out a groan when I finally make it back to my hospital bed.

“Fuck, I was holding my breath the entire time you were doing that,” Chase mutters, finally taking a seat. “You’re crazy, you know? You literally almost died and here you are pushing yourself for no goddamn good reason.”