doubt whoever sent that rogue will continue to come after me. If we’re inconspicuous enough, we can turn the tables on him and come away with information we need in less time than it will take you to pressure him out. He has my scent and he isn’t going to stop now.”
I looked at Nick for help. “What do the next two days look like for you, Jessica?” he asked me, and I loved him for it. “I’m fairly free and can manage all your details with you.”
“Actually, I have a meeting tonight with a potential new client,” I said. “Drinks at a public place to discuss a future case.” I looked to my father, who still wore a grim expression. “It would be a perfect location for someone to follow me in unseen.”
“Which case?” Nick asked. “I haven’t heard of any new client.”
“His name is Colin Rourke. I spoke with him yesterday for the first time.”
The uproar was instantaneous.
Everyone in the room began talking at once, a few of the wolves jumped from the table and started pacing, including my brother. Devon let out a small gasp as his hands furiously clacked away on the computer keys.
“What? What did I say?” I shouted over the din, startled by what had just happened. I raised my voice a few notches. “What’s going on? He told me he ran an accounting firm. He suspects his partner of embezzlement, or something equally uneventful. What’s the big deal?” I ended lamely with nobody paying any attention to me.
“This really is bad,” Devon said, more to his computer screen than anyone else. He shook his head slowly. “If Rourke knows, then Jessica’s already on the open market. We have more to worry about than just one traitor in the Pack.”
James loomed behind me, his knuckles stark as he gripped the back of my chair. The wood bowed and cracked beneath his fingers, and he was muttering a colorful string of nasty words under his breath—words I hadn’t heard him utter since I lit my father’s toolshed on fire by accident when I was thirteen. I turned from him to my brother.
“How in the hell did he get here so fast?” Tyler shouted. “And he told Jessica his real name! He knew she would find out who he was, and he still gave it to her. What’s his fucking angle?”
“Who is this guy?” I yelled, making sure I was heard this time. “Why are you all freaking out? Somebody better fill me in before I lose it.” Then I immediately felt foolish for not researching my own client myself. At the very least, I’d been off my game yesterday, but if I let the truth be known, I hadn’t really planned on researching his legitimacy until after I’d accepted the job. Dammit.
These rookie mistakes were going to cost me. There was no way my father was going to have any faith in me now, and by the looks of it, he was gearing up to tell me just that. I’d just showed myself as an incompetent and foolish private investigator. I was the only female werewolf on the goddamn planet, and I hadn’t thought for two seconds about changing the way I did my business moving forward. I should’ve been on high alert, not dillydallying around eating cheeseburgers.
This guy must be incredibly talented if he could cause a roomful of lethal werewolves to go crazy.
Well, shit.
Nothing about this looked good.
My father answered me first, scowling. “Colin Rourke is the most notorious supernatural mercenary in the entire country, possibly even on the planet. He only gets hired when people want the job done, meaning they want it finished, tied up tight with no loose ends. The fact that he’s already here escalates this issue to a new level. Your secret, it seems, has not been much of a secret at all. Other Sects, not just wolves, must have been waiting on your change, with plans put in place. It’s the only possible way he could be in my territory so quickly.”
“What is he?” I asked. “If we’re this up in arms, he has to be something big, right?”
“He’s a werecat of some kind,” my father said. “But his exact species is unknown. No one has seen him in his true form and ever lived to talk about it. It’s speculated he’s the last of his kind, which is why we’re unfamiliar with his scent. The cat population has decreased to the point of extinction over the last few hundred years, and he is much, much older than that. He’s ruthless and extremely dangerous. His common aliases are David West, Dean Raith, and Connor Dade. And those are only a few.” My father eyed me. “He rarely uses his given name, and most don’t even know it.”
“How do you know it, then?” I asked.
My father looked past me. “I hired him to fight with us a long time ago.”
“He came to battle with you?”
“He did. He killed everything in his path without shifting. He fulfilled his duty to me. I paid him. He left. We forged no further bond.”
I mulled this over in my brain. He must’ve been skilled with a sword or some weapon to go to war and not shift. James and my father were that strong, depending on who they were up against, but not relying on your true form to aid you in battle was almost unheard of these days.
My father added, “And you won’t be going anywhere near him this evening. Or any other evening after for that matter.”
Well … hell.
I’d heard of Connor Dade. In my profession, you came across notable stories about bounty hunters and mercs all the time. Connor Dade’s reputation was well known. The last thing you always heard after a recounting of one of his exploits was “Whatever you do, don’t fuck with Connor Dade.”
I was less familiar with his other aliases, but the one I knew was more than enough. “Let’s look at this logically for a moment, shall we?” I said, fighting to be heard. “If Colin Rourke used his real name, and he knows who I really am already, he’d most likely count on me finding out who he was.” If I was a smarter person to begin with. “He can’t be out to kill me if he told me his real name. Right? He dealt us a hand, and now he wants to play.” Sneaky sucker.
The noise level quieted as the wolves chewed on that.
“Listen, he deliberately told me who he was,” I pointed out again, not wanting to lose my audience. “He could’ve used any name on the planet, especially if he was trying to lure me away. Screw that, he could’ve jumped me himself instead of the rogue. And if what you’re telling me is true, he would’ve been successful, and all this would be a moot point right now because I’d be dead.”
My father grumbled but stayed silent. Tyler stopped pacing.
“This is reading like a go-to, not a jump,” I insisted. “Maybe he has something to share, or knows who’s after me. Who knows? But telling me who he was when he’s had known contact with my father doesn’t make any sense. And how did he know I wouldn’t recognize his name from the start? That you hadn’t shared it with me a long time ago?” I looked over at my father and raised an eyebrow. “Which may have been a good idea in retrospect, with me being a P.I. and all.”
Tyler reluctantly said, “Jessica has a point. There has to be some kind of angle here. Someone like Rourke doesn’t just pop in and announce himself to the world like that. He’s a threat to our Pack, and just being in our territory without permission is enough for us to go after him.”
Sly bastard. He knew I’d meet with him, even when I found out who he was. He was banking on it.
“He’s not stupid,” Elliot Murphy added. “He’d know without a doubt the Pack would recognize his name.” His pale, freckled skin now seemed a few shades lighter. “It also seems he knows who Jessica is already. It’s a ballsy move. I have to agree, he must have something to share, because calling to announce he’s here is not his standard M.O. He’s a brutal bastard. If he was hired for a kill, he would not give fair warning.” He finished with a little lingering awe in his tone.
“He honored our contract during the war,” James stated. “He showed up and fought hard for our side. He did not strike me as a man who would kill a female without provocation and I don’t have that impression now. He doesn’t take jobs because he has to; he takes them because he wants them. Killing Jessica doesn’t feel like something he would sign up for.”
“How do you know that?” Cliff Delano asked.
James shrugged. “Because that’s not what I would do.”
“The bloke doesn’t have to kill her,” Danny interjected. “He could be hired to kidnap her. That’s what I’d do if I wanted her. Pardon me, Jessica, but who better for a heist than a psycho killer with a penchant for playing mind games?”
“Yes, that’s exactly why he called her and announced to the world he was here,” Tyler scoffed. “If he was going to grab her, he wouldn’t go through the trouble of setting up a meet first. Hell, he most certainly wouldn’t
