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“Emily? My name is Cole Garrett. I’m the alpha of the Harbor Mills pack. I’m here to help you all. Me and my pack want Kyle gone. Gone ,” I added with extra emphasis.

She looked over her shoulder again, scanning the empty dining room before looking at me again. “You aren’t going to hurt me?”

I released her wrist as a show of friendship. “I promise.”

She licked her lips, eyes darting around, hands shaking. She looked like a caged animal.

“We can’t talk about him,” she said at last. “Not anything bad, anyway. The owner, Lee, is on Mr. Alexander’s payroll.

He’s one of the only people in town who doesn’t have to pay a full tax to his men, but in return for the…

discount, or whatever you’d call it, he has to let Mr. Alexander know if anyone’s saying stuff about him. ”

I let that sink in. It was very similar to how Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia operated, as well as the Italian mafia. Inspire terror among the populace, but then make sure to have a few traitors in your back pocket to inform on the others.

“Lee won’t know you talked to me. I swear,” I said, keeping my voice low.

“We don’t have anyone to defend us.” Tears shimmered in her eyes, ready to spill down her cheeks. “All we can do is obey.”

“How is that possible?” I asked, leaning forward. My phone buzzed in my pocket, but I ignored it. “What about the North Crest police? I know you’re a small town, but…” I trailed off as she shook her head.

“There’s only three guys on the force,” she said. “They’re all on the payroll, too. They help him with security when he needs it.”

“Jesus Christ,” I hissed. Kyle had gone that far? A tremor of fear rumbled through me. What else was he involved in?

“Why can’t you run?” I asked.

Emily shook her head hard, causing a few tears to fly off her lashes and onto her notepad.

“We can’t do that. If we run or talk bad about him, he’ll…

well, he’ll do bad things to us. Awful things.

And if we do manage to get away, he’ll punish anyone left behind we care about.

Parents, siblings, friends… we’re all too scared to do anything.

” Her eyes widened in terror. “You can’t imagine the things he can do to us. ”

I could. I recalled the video of him injecting that poor man with some strange cocktail of drugs.

She was talking about being turned into a mindless animal.

That would scare the shit out of me, too.

At least when I shifted, I retained my mind and worked in concert with my inner wolf.

To become some animal that didn’t have any thought or memory of a human life? That sounded almost worse than death.

“Can you really help us?” Emily asked.

She didn’t sound confident. In all honesty, if things were as bad as she said, I’d have a hard time believing anyone could save me from such a horrible situation, either.

Yet, behind the fear in her eyes was a faint glimmer of hope.

The poor girl was terrified, and I was sure many more people in town were as well.

“You act normal, Emily,” I said. “Normal and calm. Let me and my men do what needs to be done. I can’t promise it will happen right away, but I promise I’ll do everything I can to help you and the rest of the people in this town.”

She nodded and wiped at her eyes. “Okay. Got it. Uh… so… any lunch?”

I couldn’t help but snort out a laugh. It was nice to break the tension. Smiling at her, I nodded.

“Sure. I’ve got some time to kill. How about a club sandwich?”

“Okay,” she said, and smiled at me. “On the house.”

“Thank you.”

She went into the kitchen, and I pulled my phone out to find that Langston had texted me.

Langston: Thirty minutes

I nodded grimly to myself and looked out the window at the street.

It again looked deserted like it had before we’d left town the last time.

Everyone was preparing for… what? I didn’t even know what this collecting thing would be like.

The videos had been sparse on information.

Was it always the same? Did they change tactics?

The biggest question was, would Dallas be with them?

A few minutes later, Emily put a sandwich down in front of me, along with a side of kettle-cooked chips. She hurried away before I could thank her. While I’d waited, four people entered the diner. Two of them seemed to be a couple.

My appetite was nonexistent, but I still picked at the food to give myself something to do while I waited to see how things played out. It didn’t take long. Less than ten minutes later, my phone buzzed with another text.

Langston: It’s starting

Snapping my head up, I looked out the window, and sure enough, a group of six men were making their way up the street.

Two groups of three. One group was coming out of the grocery store Langston had been posted in.

The other group—Dallas and two other burly men—was harassing the owner of a bookstore.

The two larger men hovered over the poor woman while Dallas spoke to her.

My hand clenched into a fist as I watched him.

My heart lurched as the woman hurried inside, then came back and handed Dallas a thick envelope. My brother tucked it inside his jacket pocket, then said something to the two men in his group, sending them off in different directions. One of them headed straight for the diner.

“Shit,” I muttered.

The man, a big goon of about six-foot-three and at least two-hundred-and-fifty pounds, shoved the diner door open, using far more strength than necessary. The door banged against the wall, and what little conversation had been going stopped abruptly.

“Good afternoon, everyone,” the man said in a bad imitation of a preschool teacher. “You know what time it is.”

The customers all stared back at him in terror. I kept my head down, staring at the remnants of my sandwich, hoping he wouldn’t get curious and take a better look. I was sure most of Kyle’s men would know me on sight.

“Lee!” the man bellowed.

From the corner of my eye, I saw a woman flinch.

“Oh,” the man said with mock concern. “Did I scare the pretty little lady with my big bad voice?”

Tilting my head to get a better look, I watched the man stride over and lean on the table, eyeing the couple.

“Is she scared of my big voice?” he asked again.

“It was nothing,” the man with her said. “She… uh, she sneezed. That’s all.”

“I sneezed,” the woman said.

“Hmph,” the henchman grunted. “Didn’t hear a sneeze? I wonder—” he leaned even closer— “if she’s scared of how big my voice is, would she be scared of how big my?—”

“I got your money,” a voice rang out.

The guy whirled around, leaving the couple alone, and I raised my head as well. An older man came forward, trembling slightly, holding out an envelope to the thug.

“Well, well, well. Lee, it looks like you’ve been doing well for yourself,” the guy said, snatching the envelope away and weighing it in his hand. “You got any news for us?”

Lee shook his head, keeping his eyes downcast. “Nothing. No.”

“Unfortunate, but I do like it when you make this easy for me,” the guy said. “Now, maybe we’ll see if your customers and employees want to contribute to the fund?”

“That’s not part of the deal,” Lee said.

While the men argued, I slid out of my seat and crept into the bathroom at the back of the diner. Once the door was closed behind me, I pulled my phone out and shot Langston a text.

Cole: Got a tax collector here. I’m gonna make my move on this guy.

From the dining room, I heard the man call out, “Where’d that fucker in the back go? Anyone see the asshole?”

That would be me. Looks like our little dance was going to happen sooner than I thought.

A couple seconds later, the bathroom door was kicked open. I didn’t give the guy any time to get his bearings. Lunging forward, I grabbed his wrist and pulled him forward, catching him off balance. He was huge, but I was an alpha. A beta was no match for me.

He crashed to his knees and looked up at me. The light of recognition flared in his eyes before I punched him, the cartilage in his nose shattering under my knuckles. He fell back, slamming onto his back.

“You dumb fucker,” he mumbled, slurring the words through his broken nose. He tried to sit up.

I pressed my boot to his chest, holding him down.

He glared up at me, blood streaming from his nose down into his mouth, staining his teeth red and pink. “You look exactly like the boss’s little shit-getter. The errand boy. You his big brother, ain’t you?”

“Indeed, I fucking am,” I growled, letting my alpha aura surge out.

He flinched back, wincing as my energy washed over him. Reining it back in, I let the guy recover a bit.

“Did that little piece of shit set us up?” His eyes burned with hatred. “If he did, Boss gonna skin him alive and dip him in fucking alcohol after.”

“Dallas didn’t do shit,” I said. “He has no clue I’m here.” Reaching behind me, I tugged the four-inch blade I had tucked away in a sheath on my belt. His eyes widened, anger devolving into fear at the sight of the blade.

“Wha… whatcha gonna do with that?”

I grinned at him, a mirthless expression that didn’t reach my eyes. “You’re the one who first mentioned skinning . I like that idea.”

The man’s mouth dropped open, and I could see the horror in his eyes as I gently touched the tip of the blade to the soft flesh right below his Adam’s apple.

“I’m going to ask this once, and only once. I better get the goddamned answer I want, or this floor is going to be much redder than it is right now. Where the fuck is my son?”

Shaking his head slightly, he jabbered at me. “I don’t know. I do the money and security, man. That’s all. I’m not involved in the crazy shit?—”

I dug the tip into his skin. A bead of blood appeared, and the guy squealed like a pig.

“No, no, no, man, please, no,” he blubbered, tears welling in his eyes.

“I asked you a question. I expect an answer,” I said.

“I don’t know, I swear. The boss says I’m too dumb for stuff like that.”