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He gave a single humorless chuckle. “I don’t know.

I watched him in those videos, and I was trying hard to see remorse or hesitation, but I saw nothing.

There wasn’t even pleasure in his eyes. His face was blank.

He looked like he was doing nothing other than washing dishes or folding laundry.

Threatening, assaulting, stealing from, and torturing innocent people didn’t even make him blink. It tears my heart out.”

“What will you do if he does truly side with Kyle?” I rose up, supporting myself on an elbow to look into his eyes. “Personally, I think he already chose him, and I need to know what you want to do.”

I could see the hard steel of his conviction in his eyes.

“If he’s with Kyle, the choice is easy. My son comes before anything and anyone else. I’ll put him in the ground right beside Kyle if I have to, and I won’t hesitate.”

I sighed in relief. Cole would do anything for Ashton, but deep down, I was worried he would do precisely that— hesitate .

If he did that in the heat of battle, his precious traitor of a half-brother might use that moment to stab him in the back.

Literally. I wanted my son back safe, but I also wanted Cole safe. Relaxing, I lay my head on his chest.

“My head’s in the game now,” Cole said as he stroked my hair.

“I know. I can tell. I’m ready to go back out now,” I said, pushing the covers off.

“Are you sure?” Cole asked, sitting up and surprised. “You don’t have to. You really should get some rest.”

“I know,” I said, patting his shoulder. “But I want to be around people. Being alone isn’t too appealing at the moment.”

That was the truth, too. Without other voices, people, and things to keep my mind off the horrors playing through my head, I would very likely go mad.

Something had clicked in my head these last five minutes.

Cole’s head was back in the game, and so was mine.

I’d be no good to Ashton if I collapsed into a sobbing wreck every ten minutes.

As bad as it was, I had to be strong for him.

“Let’s go, then,” Cole said, and led me out of the bedroom.

Trent and Langston glanced up as we walked down the hall. Porter, Zayde, and Stormy were watching them with rapt attention.

“What’s up?” Cole asked.

“I think we’ve got the skeleton of a plan,” Trent said. “Basic, but I think it’s the best option.”

Cole took my hand, and we crossed the room to join them.

“Lay it on me,” Cole said as we took seats.

“First thing,” Langston said, glancing worriedly at Cole.

“We’re going to need people to pull this off.

More than what we have here.” He gestured around the room.

“In a perfect world, I’d get a big group of my own people to jump in here, but that’s not feasible.

Making the phone calls, orchestrating travel, all that?

It’ll take too long. Trent told me you guys were doing your best to keep all this quiet, but you’re gonna need to do your alpha thing.

Tell everyone what’s happening and see if anyone in your pack is willing to help. ”

Cole stared back at him, an unreadable look on his face. I worried this was about to turn into another fight. Cole might get angry that Langston was telling him what to do.

Instead, Cole sighed. “I suppose we couldn’t keep this bottled up forever.

Pretty soon, everyone’s going to know that Chuck was murdered.

I can’t keep the lid on this forever. Probably should have called a pack meeting already.

” He rubbed his jaw but nodded at Langston.

“I’ll get it done. Now, why do we need all this muscle? ”

Trent pointed at Zayde’s computer. “Zayde’s been scanning all these videos, watching Kyle’s men move through North Crest. By our count, he’s got less than a dozen guys in his crew.

At least, that’s all he brings with him.

What we need is enough manpower to overwhelm his numbers.

A full shock-and-awe attack that he won’t be ready for. ”

Even as he spoke, I could almost picture him and Langston back in the army, dressed in desert-colored fatigues, briefing their teams before a mission. Was this really happening? Here? In rural fucking Georgia ?

“When would we spring this trap on Kyle?” Cole asked.

“We don’t go after Kyle first,” Trent said, shooting Langston a worried glance.

“Right.” Langston grimaced. “We target Dallas first.”

Cole didn’t even blink, just nodded along. “Probably smart,” he said. “Kyle will be pretty wary for a bit. Dallas won’t have as much security around him. They’ll all have their eyes on protecting Kyle. I like it.”

“You’re good with it?” Trent asked, his brows knitting together as he watched Cole’s face for some sign of emotion.

“Dallas took my son,” Cole said, and he looked ready to kill. “If I can’t get Kyle, then he’s the next best thing.”

“What’s Farrah gonna say about that?” Trent asked.

“I’ll handle her. Don’t worry.”

“Fair enough,” Trent said. “We expect Kyle to make contact soon. He gave Avery that ultimatum, so I’m sure he’s going to try to call her and see if she—” he shivered in disgust “—has decided to be his mate yet.”

I sneered at the thought. “Gross. Fuck him. If he calls, I’ll tell him to go screw himself.”

“Don’t do that,” Zayde said. “If he calls, you need to keep him on the line as long as possible.”

“What?” I gaped at him. “Why?”

“I’ve got some software that can trace a call. I’ll have a plug to attach my laptop to your phone while you talk. If it goes well, we might be able to triangulate his position.”

“Can you do it that fast?” I asked, staring at Zayde’s laptop.

He shrugged. “The movies have it all wrong. If the cops want to trace your call, they don’t need you to stay on the line very long.

Ten seconds tops. I, however, am not the cops.

I need to run the number through a half-dozen programs and piggyback through a back door I found in the state police computer system.

It’ll take a few minutes to do it carefully.

Unless you want the Georgia state police to come busting our door down.

” He snorted derisively. “ That might get them here, even though a shifter kidnapping isn’t worth their time. ”

“Got it,” I said. “Keep the asshole on the line until you’ve got his location. I can do that.”

“If we can pinpoint Kyle’s location, we may be able to forgo going after Dallas and ambush Kyle directly,” Langston said. “Whichever comes first, I suppose.”

“I think this is good,” Cole said, clapping his hands together. “Good job, guys. I think this might work.”

Langston grinned and raised an eyebrow as he looked at Cole. “Good to hear. And if I may be blunt, I’m glad you got your head out of your ass.”

There was silence around the table, and we all stared at the two of them, worried about Cole’s reaction. I had to force myself not to put my hand on Cole’s arm to restrain him.

Thankfully, I didn’t need to. Cole’s face broke into a grin. “I deserve that. One hundred percent,” he said, chuckling.

The men shook hands, and a collective sigh of relief rippled through the room. I reached forward and rubbed Cole’s back, smiling to myself. Things were finally getting a little better.

Cole and Trent started making phone calls. By midnight, they’d gotten a hold of enough members of the pack to ensure that word would spread about the meeting the next day.

N ow, sitting in Cole’s house the next afternoon, I could see how stressed he was.

Farrah was there, along with Trent. Langston and Porter were setting up in the city hall conference room.

A few hundred shifters were about to find out exactly how bad things were in their town, and it was weighing on Cole.

He looked at Farrah. “What do you think they’ll say?”

Farrah hadn’t taken the video evidence of Dallas’s involvement well.

She was heartbroken, and if I had to guess, she was feeling guilty as well.

From the look on her face, she still thought she and Cole could have helped change him if they’d tried harder when they were younger.

Thankfully, though, she hadn’t argued about our plan to go after Dallas.

“I think they’re gonna be freaked the fuck out,” Farrah said.

“You’ve got to lay it out for the town, though.

We saw what Kyle did to North Crest. If they know what kind of danger they’re in, they’ll overlook the fact that we hid this from them.

Harbor Mills is in worse shape than North Crest, with all that legal last will and testament shit of Dad’s.

Be yourself. They all respect you, they all like you. I wouldn’t worry about it.”

Cole nodded, but his foot bounced an unsteady rhythm, and he glanced around the room, unable to focus on any one thing.

He looked like a nervous wreck. Back in high school, he’d never been excited by the prospect of being a pack leader.

Part of it was his constant worry that he would let people down.

With his father having done exactly what Cole had feared, there must have been a thousand possibilities going through his head of how he’d be like his dad.

“She’s right,” I said, reaching over and putting my hand on his thigh. “You’ll do fine. You aren’t your dad.”

Cole’s head whipped around, and he pinned me with his eyes. From the look on his face, I’d obviously been right on the money.

“I don’t want to push the pack too far too fast,” Cole said. “I only got back a few weeks ago. I’ve done a good job of getting them on my side, but I can’t help thinking that this might be too big of an ask for them. Of course,” he added, “we don’t have much of a choice.”

“We’ll be there with you,” Trent said. “Moral support. Plus, if anyone wants to be a dick about it, Langston will tie a knot in their ass.”

Back in Des Moines, Langston’s father was the pack alpha, and Langston acted as enforcer. As Harbor Mills had no enforcer at the moment, he’d accepted the post of temporary enforcer.