Page 46 of Broken Wolf Heart (Mafia Pack #3)

GREY

M y father’s scent isn’t on the second floor, so I go back to the stairwell and race all the way up to the seventh, intent on working my way down until I find him.

Flames consume the far side of the building, which is apparently where the explosives had been rigged, just waiting for us all to get inside before they detonated.

Up here, the walls are already scorched, the floor buckling.

This place isn’t going to hold for long.

Racing through the space, I stop short when I see Mia and Dutch in what used to be a conference room—now full of overturned tables and scattered debris. Charlie stands with them, but the rest of their team is missing.

Facing off with them is Rocco.

He stands at the far end, arms folded, flanked by two guards who look like they’re unsure if they should be fighting or running.

The general’s face, so similar to Dutch’s in the shape of his nose and set of his mouth, is stone, cold, and unreadable.

But his hands tremble either with fear or rage. Or both .

At the sight of me, Rocco snarls, but Dutch steps forward, clearly trying to continue whatever conversation they’ve already begun. “Mom’s across the street. She came to support our side. She’s with us now.”

Rocco sneers. “Sentimental bullshit. That bitch should’ve stayed home like I told her to.”

Dutch flinches. But he holds his ground.

“I’m not here to fight you, Dad.”

“No, you’re just here to betray me. To tear down everything I built.”

Charlie steps forward then, jaw tight. “Everything you built—you did it with bloodshed and pain. You made something that is killing our children to keep it. Don’t you want to fight for your son instead of against him?”

Rocco’s laugh is sharp. Cruel. “Of course you’d say that. You were always too soft for our pack. All this talk of letting women lead. Of feelings. You were never a real Diavolo.”

Rocco turns to Mia, and the fury in his voice spikes. “And you. You’re a disgrace. Your mother should’ve drowned you at birth.”

Mia doesn’t move. Doesn’t blink.

Charlie does.

He lunges—but Rocco is faster. He slams into Mia, claws out.

Dutch moves fast as a whip.

He intercepts the blow, shifting mid-air and crashing into his father, and they go down hard.

I start forward, but Mia blocks me. “Let him.”

Dutch’s wolf uses its teeth and rolls Rocco over just as Rocco shifts, snarling. Blood coats their jaws as their teeth tear into each other. It’s feral. Ugly. Not a fight—a reckoning.

But then Rocco gets his teeth around Dutch’s throat.

And Dutch’s wolf responds in kind. Fast, too fast, Dutch rakes his claws across Rocco’s eyes. The older wolf snarls and rolls away, exposing his throat. Dutch sinks his teeth into his father’s neck, through muscle and sinew all the way to bone.

The snap echoes through the burning hall.

Rocco slumps.

Dead.

Dutch shifts back, panting, blood soaking his arms, his chest, his face.

He doesn’t look down at the body.

He looks at Mia.

“You okay?” he asks, voice raw.

She nods once. “Yeah.”

“And you?” he asks Charlie.

Charlie nods, pulling Mia into a hug.

Dutch meets my eyes. My wolf howls its approval and sorrow. But the sound is cut short when I feel it.

Lexi’s fear slams into me like a sixth sense. I don’t need words to tell me it’s my father she’s afraid of. That he’s found her and he’s not going to let her go. Already running, I scream her name through the bond.

No answer.

Just a flicker of panic. Determination. Fear.

Hoping it’s enough, I send as much of my own strength down the bond as I can, and then I run like hell, hoping it’ll be enough to strengthen her until I get there.

At the stairwell, I race downward as the bond calls me toward her like a beacon. Pulsing with her presence. But I’m running out of fucking time, I can feel it. Behind me, Dutch and the others have shifted and are running now too.

We race onto the third floor, and I duck low beneath beams that dangle from crumbling ceilings. Smoke fills my lungs, my paws pounding over scorched tile. I don’t stop to think. Just move. Just find her .

I hear them before I see them.

Snarls. Growls. The crash of breaking glass.

I round a corner—and see her.

Andy slumped in a pile of broken glass; shards embedded in her skin.

Lexi. Bleeding. Fighting.

And my father, his wolf coated in power and violence.

He’s changed. Warped by the serum. There’s a darkness in him now too. It radiates off him.

I don’t hesitate.

I leap.

With teeth and claws out, I hit him hard enough to crack bone.

We roll, a tangle of fur, and land hard against the far wall.

Plaster crumbles around us at the impact, but he doesn’t slow.

His teeth gnash at my throat, missing by inches.

His paws threaten to pin me. He’s strong—stronger than before.

But he’s not better . He’s not stronger than the bond I have with my mate.

He slams me into the wall, his claws raking down my shoulder and splitting my flesh open.

Lexi screams.

I launch forward. My father feints right, but I see it coming and match it, my teeth ripping a chunk from his shoulder. Muscle and blood rip free, and he makes a sound of pain, his leg buckling when he tries to land on it.

I take the opening and lunge again, this time ripping a chunk from his flank. His legs give out, and he falls.

I loom over him, ready to end this—at last.

Lexi’s hand lands on my shoulder.

“Don’t,” she rasps. “If you kill him, you’ll absorb all that power. All that darkness. It could kill you—or worse.”

Fuck. She’s probably right. I stop and look down at my father cowering on the ground. He’s wheezing. Bleeding. Not quite dying, thanks to that stupid serum, but rendered immobile .

“Let’s go,” Lexi says quietly. “This place is falling apart.”

And I realize what she means to do.

I turn away from my father as Dutch kneels beside Andy. She’s bleeding, barely conscious, and covered in glass. It’s not until he lifts her into his arms that I see the body behind her.

Severin. Still in his lab coat, which is now coated in blood. A large piece of glass protrudes from his throat.

“You did good, baby,” Dutch tells her. “You did so fucking good.”

“Can we get the fuck out of here?” Mia asks.

“Yes, please,” Lexi says.

I look back at my father.

And I let him go.

Lexi’s right. Killing him would mean inheriting his alpha essence. And there’s no part of him I want surviving in me when this is all over. So, instead of taking my vengeance on the one man who deserves it the most, I shift back to my human form so I can take the hand of the woman I love.

“You’ll die alone,” I tell him. “It’s no less than you deserve.”

Then I turn my back on him forever.

A moment later, his voice stops me. “I knew you couldn’t kill me,” he rasps. I look back to see he’s shifted to his human form. A form that will make healing impossible. All so he can taunt me one last time. “You’re too weak. I was always stronger than you.”

A steel beam breaks loose and crashes through the floor.

Dutch curses, darting out of the way as more chunks rain down. He cradles Andy more tightly against his chest, his eyes wide with urgency now.

All around us, the walls crack.

The floor tilts.

“Out!” I shout. “Everyone out!”

We run .

The hall collapses behind us.

The ceiling buckles.

We don’t stop.

We don’t look back.

We don’t breathe until the sunlight hits our faces.