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Chapter thirteen

Felix

“He’s heading east toward the stockyards district,” Duke’s voice rumbled through my earpiece.

I crouched on the rooftop ledge. Below, Kansas City stretched out like a web of lights and shadows. The night air bit at my exposed skin, but my focus remained locked on our target.

Gideon Calloway. My friend. My contact. The man who’d helped Talia train me, who’d dragged me through hell during my Wolf Council training and made sure I survived it.

The same man who’d pulled me out of three ambushes, patched bullet holes in my shoulder, and gotten spectacularly drunk with me more times than I could count.

And he’d just happened to waltz past Duke on the street.

What the hell was he doing here? This wasn’t part of any plan we’d discussed. Sure, my last check-in was a few days overdue—I’d been avoiding contact, making excuses, finding reasons to delay my reports.

But this? Gideon walking alone, unprotected, in territory where Annabella’s crew was known to operate?

Either this was catastrophically bad timing, or Gideon was here precisely because I’d gone dark. Because Talia was getting worried. Or worse—suspicious.

This was deliberate. A calculated risk. Gideon would never expose himself like this unless he wanted to be found. Which meant he had information for me, something too urgent or sensitive to wait for me to get my head out of my ass and check in. Something worth risking his life to deliver.

I needed to be convincing—get close enough for whatever exchange Gideon had planned, then ensure his escape without making my performance seem suspicious to Annabella’s crew.

“Perfect,” Annabella’s voice came through the comm, and I caught the edge of anticipation that had been absent from her voice for the last couple of days. She was positioned at the opposite corner of the rooftop, a shadow among shadows.

Duke materialized beside me. Even in the darkness, I could see his eyes lingering on Annabella’s position, that hungry look that had only intensified over the weeks I’d been with the team.

My wolf stirred uneasily. Not at Duke’s possessiveness but at the memory of where Annabella had gone three days ago. Where she’d been forced to go.

The GPS tracker I’d placed on her car had shown her going back to Ashridge Pack.

I’d read the Council files before coming on this op. Lucas Fallow was the current Alpha along with Tara Roy. Both twenty-seven years old. Lucas was the son of the previous Alpha pair before their deaths in a territorial dispute eight years ago.

It didn’t take much tactical genius to connect the dots.

Annabella had hinted that her old Pack had made her life hell—likely because of her half-witch heritage.

Yet she’d deliberately returned to that territory, to people who’d tormented her.

The only reason powerful enough to justify that risk was family.

Her mother and sister had to be there. But the Council had already swept Ashridge when they first identified Annabella—Bethany Rose had personally scented the entire territory looking for witches. Even a four-year-old half-witch couldn’t hide from her specialized tracking abilities.

Which meant they must have moved back after the Council’s visit when Annabella needed urgent sanctuary for them. And Ashridge Pack was the only place desperate enough or cruel enough to take them in—under what conditions, I could only imagine.

So every time Annabella wanted to see her family, she had to face her tormentors. Had to walk back into the territory of wolves who’d made her hate half of herself.

My wolf’s hackles rose, a growl building in my chest that I barely managed to swallow back. Not for the Council. For Lucas Fallow. For Lucas Fallow and every wolf in that Pack who’d hurt her.

When this op was over, I was going to pay the Ashridge Pack a visit. Lucas was going to learn what happened to wolves who hurt what was mine.

The thought stopped me cold. Mine? When the fuck had Annabella become mine?

“I’ve got him on traffic cams,” Mira’s voice crackled through the comm, dragging me back to the present. “Moving along 7th, heading southeast. Casual pace. No security patterns or counter-surveillance behavior. Either he doesn’t know we’re watching, or he’s very good at pretending.”

I forced myself to focus on the mission, forcing Lucas Fallow’s reckoning to the back of my mind.

“Remember, if he’s anything like the others, his mind will be highly resistant,” Lydia’s glacier-cold voice cut through the static. “We need to bag and tag, get him back to the warehouse where I have both proximity and sufficient time to work through his defenses.”

Something in her tone raised my hackles. We’d gone over this countless times after Duke announced Gideon was in town. Either Lydia was nervous about this target, or she was trying to assert her authority over the mission.

“Copy.” Annabella’s response was clipped, professional, and carried that same brittle edge I’d noticed in every interaction since her return from Ashridge.

Three days of withdrawn silence, punctuated by terse commands.

She’d been throwing herself into mission planning with a barely contained desperation that worried the operative in me.

Her usual methodical approach had been replaced by something rawer, hungrier.

“There’s a storm front moving in from the northwest,” Zeke’s voice came through, low and concerned. “Barometric pressure’s dropping fast. Maybe we should—”

“We’re not standing down,” Annabella cut him off with unusual sharpness. “We’ll be in and out before the storm hits.”

I recognized the tone. She wanted this win, probably wanted to prove to herself that her head was still in the game. The professional part of me knew that was dangerous—emotional stakes compromised judgment, led to tactical errors.

Duke deliberately positioned himself between Annabella and me when she approached our corner of the roof.

His muscles tensed visibly beneath his tactical gear, scent spiking with territorial pheromones.

The display was getting old, but I couldn’t afford to challenge it tonight.

“We should hit him now before he reaches the main street.”

“No,” Annabella shook her head once. “We wait until he’s in the stockyards district. Fewer witnesses, better containment.”

“What about that service alley?” I suggested, nodding toward a narrow passage between buildings. “If we cut through there, we can get ahead and pin him between us when he passes.”

Annabella shot me a look that carried approval, and something warm unfurled in my chest. Dangerous territory.

“Let’s do it. Felix, stay on my six,” Annabella ordered. “You follow my lead exactly.”

I flashed her the easy, confident smile that had become my operational mask—just enough cockiness to be believable, just enough warmth to build trust. “Whatever you say, Moonbeam.”

We moved, dropping from the roof, sliding down the fire escapes, moving silently as we hunted our prey.

Gideon’s footsteps echoed off the pavement ahead—perfectly audible to enhanced werewolf hearing, a rhythmic counterpoint to my accelerating pulse.

Adrenaline flooded my system, sharpening every sense to razor-edge clarity.

The subtle shifts in air pressure as bodies moved through space.

The complex bouquet of scents—wet concrete, distant food carts, the distinctive ozone tang that preceded lightning.

I had to get this right.

Three… two… one…

We flowed into position like water finding its level.

Annabella materialized in front of Calloway, her movement so fluid it seemed inevitable—one moment, empty sidewalk, the next an immovable obstacle in his path.

Duke rolled in from the cross-street, cutting off the back exit.

I slipped from the service alley to Gideon’s right while Zeke dropped from the fire escape to his left, landing with barely a whisper of sound despite the fifteen-foot drop.

Mira hovered behind Duke, but she was there as our tech support, not as a fighter.

Calloway’s head snapped up, his eyes locking on Annabella’s.

The bastard actually smirked, his entire posture relaxing rather than tensing for combat.

“Ooooh, this is delightfully unexpected,” he drawled, making no move to shift into a defensive stance despite being surrounded. “Was my invitation to this little ambush soirée lost in the mail? I do hate being fashionably late to my own capture.”

His gaze swept over each of us in turn, a casual assessment that managed to be both dismissive and amused simultaneously.

I recognized the tactic—calculated arrogance designed to provoke emotional responses, to make opponents angry enough to become sloppy.

I’d seen Gideon use it during Council training sessions, had been on the receiving end of it during sparring matches.

“Let me guess,” he continued, rolling his shoulders as if merely working out a kink, “another Pack of disgruntled puppies with Council-shaped grudges? You’re not even the first group to try this week.

” He sighed with theatrical disappointment, glancing at his watch.

“And honestly, your timing is absolutely tragic. I’m in the middle of a very important pastry-tasting tour of the city.

The cronuts at Messenger Coffee are life-changing, and these interruptions are just killing my sugar high. ”

The casual arrogance was pure Council—the same superiority I’d seen in too many briefings, the same dismissive attitude toward anyone who dared challenge their authority. It made my teeth ache with suppressed anger.

“Your schedule isn’t our concern,” Annabella replied, her voice deadly calm as she stepped forward, Duke continuing his slow circle to cut off potential escape routes.

“Five against one,” Calloway mused, looking genuinely entertained. “I’m touched by the excessive force. Really shows you care. But sadly, I’ll have to decline whatever makeover you’re offering.”

“It wasn’t an invitation,” Duke growled.