Page 23 of Chasing the Wolf (Dark Wing #7)

Chapter 23

Xavier

M y insides are on fire. I never thought this would be easy, but it makes me furious that Stanton figured out what was going on from a picture of me on social media. I should have stayed in the cabin and never gone out. The devil has ways, and so does Stanton. That's why this was never an easy thing. Why neither Fletcher nor I could have just taken him out on our own.

I raise my chin to the First Officer on the other side of the room. "Fletcher sent you the complete list of my father's wolves."

"Just got it. I’ve got the first run through HQ's database. Fuck, this is a bunch of scum,” Orin, one of the Dark Wing security team, says.

"You're not wrong. But there's plenty of good people in the pack too. Shifters scared for their lives and the lives of their loved ones." I take Mac by the hand and pull her to my side. She smells so good, but when I take a deeper breath, there's a tang of fear under her natural scent. I'm sure she's not the only one feeling that way.

Orin lifts his headphones. "It's a shame this all came out. The prospectus of what you had planned for next week looks solid. I'm working with Archer on Stone's team, Ruiz in HQ, and Fletcher in Maine to get things straightened out. We've got this, Mackenzie." Orin tilts his head back to his computer.

I glare at the lion shifter. Not because he's wrong but because I was sloppy and let it happen.

We're at it for another hour. Everett and the Stone Security squad are almost to Maine.

There's another knock on the door, and the Captain's butler has it open while the person's still knocking.

"Captain, I have the ship-wide message we'll send out on the app. And the copy we'll deliver at 8 a.m." Rebecca, the ship's cruise director, hands him a paper.

He reads it. "Good. But add that any future cruise purchased this week is half off." He takes his pen, edits a few things, and hands it back to Rebecca.

"I'm going to go help Conrad," Mac says.

"I'm sure he... He's in the kitchen. First door on the right." Matthias points behind the desk.

Mac gives me a kiss on the cheek and slips away, leaving Colton glaring at me.

"You. Mackenzie’s brother. Can you look at this map of your downtown area? What's this building?" Ina asks. Mac introduced everyone around the table an hour ago.

"Captain. We've completed the probability analysis of anyone on the cruise who might be willing to work for Stanton," officer Orin says.

"And?" Smoke streams from the captain. It's not the first time tonight. I wonder if there are any smoke detectors in this cabin.

"Only five people have any connection to the Timberline pack Alpha."

"Mackenzie, Colton, and me are three of them."

"Correct, and here are the other two." Orin hits a button on the screen, and there's Gia, the girl who found Mac's phone, and her friend.

Colton's standing by my side. "You've got to be kidding. That's who I was with two nights ago."

"You slept with her?"

"Yeah." Colton throws his hands up. "That doesn't make me an accessory to anything. Also, I don't think..."

"They had Mac's phone."

"Yeah, and they gave it back to her," Colton says.

"Fuck," the captain and I say at the same time.

"And she had access to your phone," the FO says.

"No, I had it with me... Wait, when I put my pants on in the morning, my phone was in my left back pocket, but I normally have it in my right."

"Give me your phone now," I say.

Colton hands it over to me. I turn it off and hand it to the captain. "Mackie." I race for the kitchen.

She's sitting on the counter while Conrad is whipping cream in an industrial-sized blender. It smells of almonds and sugar, and the smile on Mac's face makes me momentarily forget why I'm here.

That is, until the huge FO slides in behind me. "Mackenzie, your phone. Now!"

Wide-eyed, she takes it out of her pocket and hands it to me. I click it off and race back to the living room. Mac's on my heels and catches me before I get to the dining room table that’s been set up as a command station.

"Why did you take my phone?"

I'm about to say "no reason" when I realize she's not the seventeen-year-old cub I need to protect anymore. "The wolf shifter and woman from the club have ties to Stanton."

"No way. I knew I was right to run from them. But why did they give me my phone back? Wait, were they bugging us?"

"I think so."

"Whoa."

"Xavier, come here. Mackenzie, you too," the captain calls from the other room.

"Yes sir," Mac answers for both of us.

"I want your phone too," he says to me.

"Yeah, that's a good idea." I turn both mine off and hand all three to the captain. He passes them to Ina, who puts them in a plastic zipper pouch and takes them outside.

My brow furrows. "What are you doing with them? If you want to destroy them, you don't have to dump them in the ocean, just snap the boards."

"We have data analysis at HQ and drones that fly from the ship back to the mainland all the time. We use it for critical supplies like medicine or parts when we need to. It's state-of-the art," the captain says. "And a little questionable in some air spaces, so we're not going to mention it."

"Have you sent anyone to pick up the two of them for questioning?" I ask, pointing to the screen that their ID pictures are still on.

"No, that's going to be hard since they got off yesterday and didn't make it back in time. Dock workers have reports of them making a big scene about being left behind."

"Of course they did."

Ina comes back in from the terrace. "The tech is away, Captain. Edvard is piloting the drone from the bridge."

"Good work."

There's a loud bang outside. Chairs scrape along the floor as we all rush to see what it is. There's a streak of red and orange floating down to the ocean ahead of us.

"The drone?" I ask, already knowing the answer.

There's a moment of everyone staring into the dark sky before the team turns and races back to the computers. Voices collide with each other.

"We have to assume they know everything."

"We need to pivot."

"No," Matthias's voice cuts through the noise. "Orin, the specifics of the plan—I never heard you say anything out loud."

"Correct, sir." Orin's eyes flick to Colton and back. I suppose his lack of trust might have saved us.

"Good. They heard mention of specific buildings from both Colton and Xavier. But so what? From the look of the town, it's not that big. We strike now."

"Copy," Orin says, and there's an echo around the room.

"Whitney, their ops room agent, says it's a go."

"It's a go," Mac repeats. She grabs my hand and turns and takes Colton's with her other. "What about Mom and Dad?"

"They're not in town," Colton says.

"They're not?"

"No, I got a text earlier tonight from Mom. They're in Boston. They asked to stay at my apartment for the night. It's snowing. One of those weird, late snowstorms. Something about Mom being asked to pick up a shipment from the port today. Something they have to have for a test product. But it wasn't there. She was all kinds of mad. They told her to come back in the morning." Colton turns to me. "I don’t know when you had the time to do it but Thank you."

"You're welcome. I got a quick message out to Riley earlier.”

We all crowd around Orin's computer. It's like watching a video game, but not. They're real people. My brother included.

"I can't watch." Mac moves out of range to the sofa. I look between the screen and her. I can't change anything from here. Whatever happens now, happens.

"Is this seat taken?" I ask Mac and sit down.

"This is . . ."

"Scary. It's okay to be scared."

There's a roar from the officers and Colton around the computer. A few fists are thrown in the air. "They have Stanton. He's alive."

Orin's voice cuts through the noise, "Whitney says he's alive and begging. He'll give up names so long as the dragon doesn't eat him."

"Oh, don't eat him, Everett. You'll get indigestion, and Hope will be mad," Ina mutters.

And Mac laughs. It's the first good feeling I've had in hours. She puts her head on my arm, and I just want to pick her up and carry her back to 1414, but there's a lot left to do. Like, a lot , a lot.

"Sorry,” she says. “I'm just used to getting up at five a.m. And it's what now?"

"Four a.m. Go to sleep."

"No, I'll just rest my eyes. Wake me up if anything big happens." She taps my arm. "Promise?"

"I promise." I kiss her cheek.

Conrad appears with a blanket. He hands it to me and then collects glasses from the table. I cover her up, and she snuggles into it. I wait until her eyes are closed and she's on her way to sleep before I join the others at the table.

"Copy that, Whitney," Orin says. He turns to the captain. "Minor injuries for the Stone Security team. Everett's fine. He crushed a few cars and burnt down a shed, but the local fire department has it under control. Three of Stanton's males are dead. Ten are in custody, including Stanton. There's a handful hiding in the town. But the pack members have handed over three to Fletcher. They're looking for four—no, five, Whitney says."

"Can you tell Whitney that when things are calm she’s to have Fletcher reach out to the ship since I don't have a phone?" I'm going to need to talk to him about what comes next. Because our original plan isn't going to work anymore.

"My mic was open to her. She says affirmative," Orin says.

"Fantastic job, crew. When I say I have the best logistics, security, bridge, and public relations teams, I mean it. Leave the tech; it can be cleaned up in the morning. Well, it is morning. Later. We can get it sorted later," Matthias says.

The captain shakes Ina's hand as she's leaving. "Captain, HQ says they'll have another drone for us in the morning."

"I'm going to stay online until they're all done," Orin says.

"And I'll stay to give him breaks," the FO adds.

"Thank you both." Matthias nods to Orin and his First Officer. And then it's the six of us in the room: the captain, Orin and Luca, and Colton, Mac, and me. Colton sits down on the sofa, his sister's feet in his lap. My wolf's not happy about it, but she is his sister.

"Whitney says they've found a ton of records. Stanton was thorough in documenting his crimes. This asshole is going down... I know that's not exactly what you said, but that's the gist. Okay." Orin turns to us. "She said that with a more lawyerly tone, and she said alleged crimes and that he could possibly be convicted. There's evidence of crimes that go back a decade. Are you happy?... Good."

When I close my eyes, I see our phones exploding. I didn't know my dad was smart enough to harness that type of tech. And it has me twitching. Was he the one behind that? And how did he get the two girls in place if it wasn't public knowledge until I was already on board the ship? I glance at Colton again. His eyes crack open.

"How did my father know to send those two girls?"

"That's a good question." Colton sits up straighter.

"You're the only person who knew I was coming on the cruise."

"That's not true. Riley knew. And Venus."

"It's not Riley," I say. "They would never do anything to hurt anyone."

"True. Wait, you don't think it was me?" Colton points to his chest.

For a moment, I consider it. But no, there's no way. Colton thought I was going to mate with Venus. "No."

"So then it's this Venus. Whoever she is," Orin says.

"She was—is—the female his family had a marriage contract with for the last, what, twelve years or so," Colton says.

"Yeah, twelve years."

"Twelve years is a long time to be thinking you're going to be mated to someone and then not get to mate them.”

"Venus is the one who wanted the engagement called off."

"What about her family? Could they have not wanted it? Whitney wants to know," Orin says.

"I don't know that her father was excited about his daughter mating into our pack anymore. In the last decade, my father has become more and more extreme. His head was even more off base than it was when the contract was first made all those years ago."

Orin's typing. "When did you call this mating off?"

"Two weeks ago," I answer. “But no one but Venus and I knew.”

"Those two girls have had tickets for six weeks. Unless your dad was working with?—"

"Old Alpha. He's not my dad anymore. That's gone. It's been gone for a long time, but the second he tried to kill Colton and Mac? Yeah. I have no allegiance to him, and the promise I made to my mother is gone. If the State of Maine doesn't lock him up for the rest of his life, I will be challenging him and taking my rightful position from him the old-fashioned way. If Fletcher doesn’t want to do it anymore." I only wish I hadn't made that promise to my mother all those years ago. I should have taken him out the second I was strong enough.

Mac stirs on the sofa next to me...