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CHAPTER ONE

CLAIRE

I feel a familiar surge of desperation as I tape the pink paper heart to the outside of Kevin’s cage. It reads, “ Hi, I’m Kevin! It takes me some time to warm up to new people, but once you get to know me, I’m all snuggles! I’ll do best in a home without dogs and love hearing that I’m a handsome boy.”

Kevin is a 16-year-old long-haired ginger cat who’s been at Nine Lives since I started working here. Nine Lives is a no-kill shelter for senior cats with special needs, and My Furrever Valentine is our biggest event of the year. We hold it every February to boost adoptions before kitten season, when the chances of elderly cats like Kevin being adopted drop even lower.

Once I finish fussing with the heart, Kevin settles into the little indent on his bed and curls up into a ball.

I wish I could do that.

This morning I learned that we didn’t get the grant we need to keep the shelter’s doors open. If more funding doesn’t come through soon, Kevin may be without a home, and I’ll be out of a job.

The news could not have come at a worse time.

Placing a hand over my belly, I take a deep breath and hope that the little being inside of me can’t sense my stress. “It’s all right,” I whisper. “We’ll figure something out.”

The truth is, I don’t know what I’m going to do if the shelter closes. Landing a job at a nonprofit is hard enough when you’re not pregnant. Even if I manage to hang onto my position, I have no idea how I’m going to pay for daycare or diapers or the million other things this tiny human will need.

A few tears roll down my cheeks as a fresh wave of despair washes over me. But I wipe them away and focus on hanging the heart-shaped signs for the other feline “residents.”

There’s Polly, the nine-year-old calico who won’t use a litter box; Hamish, the Scottish Fold who needs to be an only cat because of his aggression toward other cats; Tator Tot and Nugget, ten-year-old bonded siblings with cerebellar hypoplasia, which makes them walk with a bit of a wobble; and Yo-Yo, a silver tabby who’s missing half his tail and freaks out anytime someone turns on a small kitchen appliance.

The shelter actually has capacity for up to sixteen cats, but ever since we learned that our funding was in question for this year, we stopped taking in new residents. The ones who are left have proven the most difficult to adopt out, so we’ll be looking for families who are willing to foster them if we have to close.

Once I’ve hung all the signs and put up the Valentine’s Day decorations, I check everyone’s food and water and turn to lock up for the night. Pulling the front of my coat tight, I glance around the empty parking lot and make a beeline for my car. Thankfully, it starts right away, so I crank the heat and head for home.

Even though it’s dark and the temperature has already dropped to single digits, there are still people out on the streets. I live in what you might call a rough part of town. It’s one of the few pockets of the city with affordable housing, but over the last year and a half, developers have been buying up the falling-down old buildings and putting in chain coffee shops and high-end grocery stores. A lot of people like it because it’s good for property values, but I know it’s only a matter of time before a developer buys my building, too.

As I drive under the overpass, I see a few familiar faces: a bearded man bundled in a dirty red sleeping bag, a young guy with his dog, and the elderly lady who pushes a shopping cart laden with her belongings up and down Nevada Avenue.

I have to look away when I see the pregnant woman standing outside the gas station across from my apartment building holding a cardboard sign: HUNGRY. ANYTHING HELPS.

That could be you , says a scared voice inside my head, but I hurriedly shove it away .

Although I’d do anything to keep Nine Lives open, I have to plan for the worst. It’s not just me I have to worry about now. In just a few short months, I’m going to have another little person to provide for.

The thought scares the crap out of me.

Pulling up in front of my apartment building, my heart sinks even lower. The dumpster outside is overflowing, someone has graffitied the wall by the steps, and there’s a new “Out of Order” sign on the door to the laundry room.

“I promise I’ll find us something better,” I whisper, looking down at the barely there bump hidden beneath my sweater.

I never planned on being a single mom, but I’ve grown too attached to the little bean inside of me to even think about giving him up. Even if I can’t afford a better apartment or one of those fancy strollers I’ve seen women pushing around the park, my baby will always know that he is wanted and loved.

Ignoring the heaviness pressing down on my chest, I get out of the car and trudge up the stairs that lead to my unit. But when I reach the top, my muscles go slack, and I drop my keys on the ground.

There, standing outside my door, is the man I thought I left behind.

SEBASTIAN

It’s been sixteen months that I’ve been hunting Dane Murphy. Sixteen months of chasing dead ends. Sixteen months of failing my pack.

For someone with my track record, sixteen months is unacceptable.

For the life of me, I can’t work out how he managed to evade me for so long. No matter how hard they try, people always leave digital bread crumbs: a credit-card transaction here, a text message there, or even having their license plate captured going through a toll plaza.

In the end, I found Murphy by hacking into petrol-station surveillance cameras and running the footage through a facial recognition program. I had to purchase five more servers to run the software at that scale, but it was worth it.

He popped up at a 7-Eleven in Colorado Springs, but he didn’t just fill up and leave. No. He stayed parked outside in his shitty pickup, watching. Waiting for something.

I knew he had to be in contact with some of the McGregor bears who fled the night Adrian killed their leader. I thought perhaps he was waiting for one of them, but no one ever showed.

Since I was an hour and a half away in Gold Creek, I wasn’t going to catch him that night, but the idiot paid with a credit card belonging to a woman named Claire Belmont. I figured the bastard probably just nicked it until I realized the card hadn’t had any activity until a couple of months ago. Murphy’s been using it ever since at petrol stations, fast-food restaurants, and once at an electronics store.

It usually doesn’t take a person two months to cancel a stolen credit card — unless she doesn’t realize it’s been stolen.

This makes me think that Murphy knows Claire Belmont, so I do what I do best.

I start with a basic background check and credit report. I learn that Ms. Belmont is twenty-two, unmarried, and lives alone in a seedy apartment complex off Las Vegas Street. Given Murphy’s history, I’d expected a rap sheet, but Claire Belmont hasn’t had so much as a parking ticket, and she’s got a credit score of almost seven hundred. Not exactly the delinquent I’d been expecting.

Her place of employment is listed as a place called Nine Lives. A quick Google search brings up a strip club on the north side of town.

For some reason, my wolf keeps telling me that Claire Belmont is the key to finding Murphy. So I set about learning everything I can about the woman who’s been funding his life.

I find death certificates. Medical records. Even a student support plan from a high-school guidance counselor.

Texting myself her address, I pull up the street view of her apartment complex. It’s a run-down building that used to be a motel, located next to a strip mall with a liquor store, nail salon, and a Vietnamese restaurant .

Scouring social media turns up nothing apart from an account for a woman with the handle “ClaireWhoLovesCats.” She’s a pretty little thing with fair hair, blue eyes, and curls for days. This Claire makes videos of sad old cats that are up for adoption.

She can’t be Claire Belmont, and yet I can’t stop cyberstalking her until I’ve watched every video in her feed. Call it disbelief porn — as in, I can’t believe that people like her actually exist.

As a freelance pen-tester who spends sixty-plus hours a week trying to think like hackers and scammers, I’ve seen it all. Scammers pretending to work for the IRS. Phishers texting old people pretending to be their bank so they’ll give up their passwords. Creeps who hack home-security systems and plaster people’s private moments all over the internet. So the fact that there’s somebody out there trying to get a bunch of mangy old cats adopted fucking amazes me.

Reluctantly closing my laptop, I leave the shed where I keep all my tech and walk the short distance to my house. The sun has already dipped below the mountains, and the pretty blue gaze of ClaireWhoLovesCats is seared into my brain.

It’s official — I’ve been at this for far too long.

I’m dying to call up Adrian and tell him that I have a lead on Murphy. But I can’t bring myself to pick up the phone in case this trail goes cold.

I’ve done nothing but disappoint my alpha these last sixteen months. I won’t do it again.

As I emerge from my cyberstalking fog, I realize I haven’t eaten all day. I’ve been cooped up in my shed since early this morning, and my wolf is fucking ravenous.

Opening the fridge, I lean on the door and stare at the empty shelves. I normally get prepared meals delivered, but we recently got a fresh heaping of snow, so the delivery driver hasn’t been able to make it up to my place.

I like a good pho as much as the next guy, and it seems like the perfect excuse to pay Ms. Belmont a visit.