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Billy bit his lip as he looked at the photos.

“Yeah, I took those. There were a bunch of butterflies flying by, and when I took the pictures, I saw the guy jab something into that man’s neck.

Then a few seconds later, he… well, he turned into a wolf.

It wasn’t a shifter, though. He was screaming real bad and shaking.

I’ve never seen a shifter act that way. He looked like he was dying. ”

Billy’s mother rubbed his back to console him. “He’s already told you all this. It’s the third time he’s had to say it. Can we please go now?”

“I really appreciate your cooperation, ma’am,” Milbanks said. “You all are free to go, just know that we may have further questions if we get any more leads.”

“Thank you.” She sighed, then led her son out the door.

A few seconds later, Milbanks joined us. He looked annoyed that he had to deal with us.

“I figure you want to look at these,” he said, and handed the file folder to me.

As I took the folder, Langston’s phone rang, and he stepped into the corner to answer it.

I flipped open the folder and looked at the first photo.

It was a simple shot of a park, with swings in the background and a small flock of five butterflies caught in mid-flight against the blue sky.

Nothing there. Things got more interesting in the next photo.

A young man of maybe twenty or twenty-five walked through the park, cell phone to his ear.

Another photo showed a man in a hooded sweatshirt behind the first man, head down and face hidden.

They were behind the flock of butterflies.

Behind me, Langston cursed. “Are you sure?”

I turned to the next photo. What I saw there had my heart lurching, and nausea pulsed through my stomach. The hooded man was right behind the first man now, his hand up, jabbing a hypodermic needle into the first man’s neck. I clenched my jaw so tight that my teeth creaked.

“Cole, Zayde managed to see who?—”

“I already know who,” I snapped as I stared down at the face of my brother. Dallas, mid-injection. Dallas, caught in the process of ruining an innocent man’s life.

I shoved the photo at Trent. My friend’s face fell, all emotion draining out of his eyes. Then, quick as lightning, anger flared in his eyes.

“That fucker,” he said.

“It’s my brother,” I said, handing the folder back to Milbanks.

“Your brother?” Milbanks said, eyebrows knitting together. “The one you were telling me and the mayor about?”

“Yeah.”

God, my brother had fallen so far. There was no denying it now.

No justifications I could think of, other than him being fully on Kyle’s side.

He was the enemy. This wasn’t a man who was doing what his boss wanted because he had some dirt on him or something.

No. This was active participation in a fucking heinous crime.

“Does that mean you’ll handle this?” Milbanks asked. “Being a pack issue?”

My eyes snapped up to meet his. “Yes. I’ll handle it. I know you don’t want to get your precious hands dirty with shifter business.”

“Now, hang on, Cole,” Milbanks said. “This isn’t my call. This is how it’s been for centuries. You all handle your own, and we handle ours. We only cross those judicial paths when a human is attacked. I’m ready and willing to lend a hand if you need it. I already told you that, dammit.”

I exhaled slowly. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to blow up. It’s just…” I shrugged helplessly. “It’s a big deal. Knowing your own blood has done something like this.”

“I can imagine,” Milbanks said.

Could he? Probably not. Wolves were familial to a fault.

It was why having a pack was so important to us.

The mere thought of having to take down my brother made my wolf whine, but it had to be done.

He’d left me no choice. Dallas was a danger, not only to me and my family, but to the entire pack.

Hell , not only the pack but the entire town of Harbor Mills—human and shifter alike.

It was time.

Langston put a hand on my shoulder. “I’m sorry for this, Cole. I know you wanted to believe he was doing this against his will.”

“Yeah,” I said, my voice thick with emotion. “Let’s get back home. I need to tell Avery and Farrah.”

The ride home was tense and silent. I gazed out the window, scanning every face we passed, looking for Dallas. The next time I saw him, there would be blood.

Things went about as well as I’d expected when I told Avery and my sister.

Farrah’s face crumpled, and she fled, running out the front door with tears of betrayal in her eyes.

I knew that when she finally came to terms with it all, she might be even more willing to rip Dallas’s throat out than I was.

All the time she’d spent defending him, yet he’d been caught red-handed.

On camera. There was no denying it now that we had irrefutable evidence.

“I can’t help but wonder how things would have turned out if your father had accepted him into the family all those years ago,” Avery said.

“Hindsight is twenty-twenty,” I said, leaning back into the couch.

Avery rubbed my thigh. “I’m sorry, Cole.”

“It is what it is, but things are about to change. We aren’t only hunting Kyle anymore, but Dallas, too.” I turned to look at her. “I need you to do something you aren’t going to like.”

“God, I don’t like the sound of that,” Avery said nervously.

“We’ve done a good job making Kyle think you’re either falling for him or that you want to be with him.

We need to keep playing that card until he challenges me.

Dallas may be around town, trying to see what’s going on.

I think it would be better to keep up that front if you stayed with Stormy for a few days. ”

“I don’t want to be away from you,” Avery said, and I felt both a swell of happiness and a sting of sadness at her words.

“I know.” I brushed her cheek, letting my fingertips linger.

“Unfortunately, Dallas knows this area like the back of his hand. Even with security sweeps, he could still sneak onto the property. He won’t get close before someone scents him, but he could still get a good enough look to see us together like this.

Our whole plan relies on Kyle believing we’re having some sort of rift, and you want to go over to him. ”

She heaved a sigh. “I suppose. Who’s taking me?”

“I’ll do it,” Trent said, raising his hand.

“Good,” I said. “And stay there, act as a guard. Maybe if Dallas or one of Kyle’s men notice you there, they’ll assume I’ve put her on some kind of house arrest or something. Especially when she doesn’t come home.”

“Let me go pack a bag,” Avery said.

Watching her go, I felt that same pang of sorrow as before. I’d told her I never wanted her away from me, and now I had to do just that. Boiling hatred swelled within me. Kyle and Dallas were forcing me to send my mate to sleep in another house when she should be in my bed beside me.

“You good, bro?” Trent asked.

“Not really,” I admitted.

As I stewed on my emotions, an idea came to me. A way to get some of my anxious energy out and give me purpose.

“Hey, Langston? Hand me my phone.”

The man snatched my phone from the table by the door and handed it over. He gave me a speculative look. “What are you thinking?”

“I’m thinking,” I said as I typed out a text, “that I’d like to do a little hunting.”

A n hour after Trent left with Avery for Stormy’s house, trucks and cars began to pull into my driveway. I stood in the yard with Langston, Porter, and Zayde. In my right hand, I held a balled-up Atlanta Falcons t-shirt I found in a box in the basement while we waited.

They were the men who’d helped infiltrate North Crest. The same who’d been helping me train to fight Kyle and his men. Once they were all surrounding me and looking on expectantly, I raised the shirt over my head.

“I want to hunt, and this is the scent you need to find,” I said, shaking the shirt that had belonged to Dallas when he was a kid. The scent would be incredibly faint, but shifters had strong senses.

“Mind if we ask what we’re hunting?” one of the men asked.

“We’re hunting my piece-of-shit brother.”

“Didn’t we try that once before?” another man said, and a small murmur of laughter greeted his statement.

I grinned ruefully. “True. That didn’t go well for us, but we tried it the human way.

This time, we do it the shifter way.” I tossed the shirt to them.

“Take a whiff, then break up into four groups. He was in town today, down by the park on Randall Street. We search for him. I don’t give a fuck if we have to run forty miles. I want his ass.”

The men passed the shirt around, sniffing the fabric to catch Dallas’s scent. Some men had to bury their noses in the cotton and pull in great, heaving breaths to catch the ancient smells of body oil, sweat, pheromones.

“One last thing,” I said before the men could head out. “I want him brought in alive. If he’s getting taken down, then I’m the one who’s gonna do it.”