Page 8

Chapter 8

Liam

W hen I open the door to our warehouse near the river, the scent of blood greets me before my eyes adjust to the dim light within.

It’s not fresh: metallic with an undercurrent of rot, soaked into the concrete foundation of this space.

River Street warehouses tend to hold more ghosts than grain these days, but the real horror lives in what we do here, not what lingers from decades past.

Towards the center of the open area, two men hang from their wrists on an old rail no longer in use.

The rusted iron creaks with each small movement they make, and the silence between their labored breaths is tense enough to snap.

Their feet barely graze the gritty floor.

The pressure on their shoulders is already working them past the point of endurance.

Declan prowls like a caged animal in front of them.

The O’Reilly enforcer is eager to spill some blood.

His movements are slow and deliberate, a coiled storm under tight control.

His shirt is already unbuttoned and tossed to the side, sweat-dripping muscles lit starkly by the glare of bare overhead bulbs.

He walks a tight circle around the two of them, slow enough for them to feel the weight of his gaze: sharp and hungry.

Connor is off to the side, leaning against a wide metal table with his arms crossed.

His expression is relaxed, too casual for where we are and what we’re doing.

That, of course, is intentional.

Everything about Connor is meant to disarm.

Polished exterior.

Calm voice.

It’s deceptive comfort.

A man doesn’t rise to second in command in this family by keeping his hands clean.

He lifts a chin in greeting and I head in his direction.

Even though the sun is barely above the horizon, Connor is dressed as impeccably as always: tailored dark slacks, a crisp gray button-up rolled at the forearms, and polished shoes that somehow avoid the grime this place collects.

He hands me one of the trio of coffees he clearly picked up before arriving.

“Let me guess,” I say as I bump my fist against his while taking the offered coffee.

“They aren’t being helpful?”

“Not in the slightest,” Connor says dryly, his tone laced with boredom, but I can see it in the line of his posture.

His restraint is wearing thin.

He’s too calm, which means he’s barely holding his own leash.

Good.

I’ll let Declan be the teeth and Connor be the shadow.

Frustrated, I glare at the two men and take a drink.

The coffee is just short of blistering hot and black with only a hint of sweetness.

Exactly how I prefer it.

It’s grounding for a few seconds.

Familiar.

Focused.

It makes me think of Claire, the sweetness she could provide for my life, before I shake it off.

This is why I shouldn’t claim her, even though she’s the mate given to me by the gods.

She has no business here, no place around bloodstained concrete and screams softened by distance.

Even thinking of her in a place like this tarnishes her unfairly.

I shouldn’t be thinking of her at all right now.

My main priority should be getting the information these two have because the O’Reilly family and pack comes before all else.

That’s what it means to be alpha and boss.

It means making choices no one else can stomach.

Reconciling your humanity with the wolf long enough to twist power into something that resembles order.

Besides, interrogating someone with a hard-on isn’t something I’m keen on.

Centering myself, I approach the pacing Declan, greeting him with a nod, before turning my attention to the two men hanging before me.

One is middle-aged, tattoos bleeding up his neck and across roughened skin.

The ink tells a story of time inside and an inability to think long-term.

The other’s barely in his twenties: young, soft-faced, and shivering despite the sweat clinging to his skin.

He’s shaking like a dog facing a thunderstorm, and he hasn’t stopped since I walked in.

Sniffing, I note that they’re human.

Not surprising.

Ronan isn’t stupid enough to use someone from within the pack, and he’s not desperate enough to seek assistance from our rivals.

Which leaves humans: dispensable and unaware of the bigger rules that govern our world.

They watch me carefully, their fear and anger pungent in the air.

One of them is covered in shitty tattoos, ones I’m going to guess he got in prison.

He’s afraid, but not as much as the one beside him.

That man is younger, softer looking.

He’ll be the one that breaks first.

I pause, studying the younger one.

His eyes twitch when I shift my weight.

He’s close to pissing himself.

Already sweating out whatever bravado he arrived with.

The older one?

He’s forcing the front, trying to hold both their dignity on his still-flexed shoulders.

Admirable.

Useless.

I make a point to check my watch for the time before meeting one, then the other’s eyes.

“I’m getting married today. So why don’t you two do us all a favor and tell me what I want to know?”

The angry tatted one spits at me, the mass of saliva arcing across the space before landing near the toe of the leather Chelsea boots I paired with the suit I picked for the day.

The dark mahogany shine dulls in the low light, but I can still see the fleck of spit at the edge of the sole.

I really don’t have time for this today.

With a loud sigh, I hold my coffee out.

A moment later, Connor is taking it with that unbothered tilt of his brow that says he’s ready to burn the whole building down if I need someone to cheer me up.

I unbutton my suit jacket and shrug it off.

Connor collects it too.

“Declan, you can kill that one,” I say as I unbutton the cuffs and begin to roll up my sleeves.

He knows which one without me needing to specify.

It comes from years of working so closely together.

Like the angry asshole, my arms are a canvas of ink.

Unlike him, though, I paid for quality work: symbols of my heritage, my kill count, my oaths.

Wolves wear their history as scars and ink, both etched with meaning.

I begin to wonder what Claire will think.

When she’d last seen me, I’d only had a few on my biceps.

She hasn’t seen what’s beneath the surface now, what years of violence and vows look like carved in black lines under moonlight.

I stop myself there.

No room for sentiment in the kill room.

By the time I move to my second sleeve, Declan has shifted.

The shift is rapid and brutal: bone crunch and sinew stretching as his limbs twist into something animal, something older than sin.

His enormous black and red-flecked werewolf form towers over the dangling men.

He steps forward on heavy paws, growling low in his throat as his claws glisten obscenely under the overhead light.

I smirk at the men’s shouts of fear.

The scent of anger is completely gone now.

The younger man screams and thrashes, his face pale and eyes wide with terror as he’s splattered with his comrade’s blood.

Declan has always been pointedly savage.

He doesn’t prolong suffering unless asked.

He makes statements with blood and fear the way an artist might use oil and canvas.

He’s been an O’Reilly enforcer since he was a teenager, and as alpha he’ll be my primary enforcer.

This is exactly why.

The crunch of bone as jaws sink into flesh isn’t something you ever get used to.

But if you’re born O’Reilly, you learn to listen beneath the horror.

The wet thuds that follow—Declan ripping the man’s chest open like butcher’s paper, one sickening tear at a time—aren’t meant to entertain.

They’re reminders.

Exposure therapy for an empire ruled by wolves.

By the time Declan is done, the remaining man is shaking hard enough the chain above him rattles as he sways.

All that’s left of the other man is a hollowed out corpse, the head nearly entirely decapitated and hanging askew, jaw slack in a frozen scream.

Declan huffs, panting, blood and viscera dripping from his maw and claws.

He stalks back on his hind legs, eyes glassy with the afterglow of carnage.

I walk past him, careful to avoid the carnage on the floor.

I have places to be soon, after all.

I grab the terrorized man by the jaw, yanking his face towards me until he brings his eyes to mine.

This close, I can see wet tracks down his cheeks and spots of half-dried vomit at the corner of his mouth.

A new, foul scent hits me.

He’s shitting himself and doesn’t even realize it.

“Now,” I say, voice low and razor-thin, “tell me everything about the job you worked when you were paid to kill John O’Reilly. If you don’t?” I move his face, my fingers digging into his cheeks with enough force to leave bruises, so that he’s forced to look at Declan over my shoulder, “I’ll let him question you.”

The man’s eyes roll in terror.

He nods frantically, trying to speak through the choking panic in his throat.

“I—I didn’t know it was him!” he whimpers.

“We—we were just told it was a high-value mark. Some kinda rich business asshole, but no name. Just a picture and a place to be. We were paid to block the exit and shoot. I swear!”

By now, Connor’s beside me.

Still calm, but his body is alert.

“Who paid you?” I demand.

“A courier. We got the drop from a woman, dark hair, looked Eastern European, maybe Russian. She didn’t say anything. She just handed the info and cash. No tracebacks.”

Connor frowns.

“Russian, maybe the Chernikov bear shifters?”

“Maybe,” I grit.

“Or a false lead.”

Declan growls again, low and impatient.

“Anything else,” I bark.

“Give me more, or I throw you back to my friend.”

“I swear, she said it was a favor owed. That the target had enemies. We—we got double payout from a third party too, two days after the job went bad. No name, cash only, foreign bank.”

Damn it.

I pull back, stepping out of the rank cloud of blood, bile, and waste clinging to him.

My jaw is tight.

There’s too much plausible deniability here.

And still, the timing, the outsourcing, the layers protecting the original order?

This approach reeks of Ronan.

He’d make sure nothing ties back to him.

But it’s still not enough.

Connor mutters, “It’s too clean. No digital trail, no names, no prints. Everything disappears behind cash and corpses.”

I exhale sharply.

No hard proof, no smoking gun.

Just rot dressed in wolves’ clothes.

And Ronan is still the closest scent connected to it.

“Clean this shit up. Then make sure you’re at the ceremony on time.”

I turn without another word and head for the exit.

Connor follows, the faint jingle of his keys the only sound for a few steps.

Behind us, Declan snarls, and then it’s drowned out by screams.

Outside, the afternoon light should be blinding after the dim warehouse, but instead it just makes everything feel too sharp.

There’s no satisfaction in this.

Only confirmation of what we already knew: Ronan’s involved.

We just can’t catch the son of a bitch pinning the knife.

Not yet.

But soon.

If I have to burn every inch of this city down to discover where he slipped, I will.

And when I do?

I’ll sit back and listen to him beg while Declan butchers him alive.