Kai didn’t need shifter abilities to hear his families. Kids were squealing as they chased Molly around his parents’ yard. The Stone mates were scattered throughout his family, chatting and laughing. Kai drank in the sight of his mate smiling at something his mama said to her. He could have eavesdropped, but he allowed them their privacy. When it looked like they were finished with their conversation, he jogged up to Josie and tossed her over his shoulder.
“What are you doing?” she squealed and laughed as he ran back to the water.
“Hoping to show you something.” Sure enough, the turtles were still out there. “Look.” Kai set Josie on her feet and pointed.
“Oh, my god.” Josie, not caring she was in her lavalava, took off into the water. She jumped as the waves threatened, so Kai swam out to her and picked her up. When they got close, Kai stopped, letting his mate enjoy the creatures. They stayed in the water until the turtles eventually swam off. Josie grabbed Kai’s cheeks and smashed a kiss to his lips. “Thank you, Love.”
“You’re welcome, Sunshine.” Kai carried her to the house so they both could change into dry clothes, and then they returned to his parents’ house. Josie took off toward Katherine, so Kai made his way to where Ranger and Nikolas were standing off to the side, deep in conversation.
“The human is at the Apia Lodge. Fetu and Hoani are headed there now.” Nikolas raked a hand through his hair. “Frey wants us to bring him to New Atlanta. He’s going to reunite Hagen and Kallisto. A life sentence in the Pen is more than the kid deserves, if you ask me.”
Ranger clapped Nikolas on the shoulder. “No, Uso. Taking away someone’s freedom is worse than death.”
“What’s the plan? Is it safe to go home?” Kai asked Nik.
“Not sure it’ll ever be safe as long as the Unholy are out there, but yeah, we’re going home. I’m going to get Henry situated with Julian. Together, they should be able to track down all of Drago’s assets if we don’t get the information out of Hagen first. Isabelle and Dante will carry on with antiserum, and the rest of us will hunt Unholy while figuring out next steps with our homes. But we have another problem on our hands. After Lachlan escaped, someone was still using the computer. At least that’s what Hunter thinks.”
“And It wasn’t Julian?”
“No. He…” Nikolas looked around. “Hey, Henry. Got a second?”
Henry walked over. “Sure. What’s up?”
“I need you to do something.” Nikolas explained the situation, and Henry growled. “I’m on it.”
Kai and Nikolas followed Henry to his house. The younger Goyle was silent as he worked. It took him half an hour, but he crowed, “Got ya.”
“What? Who is it?” Nik asked.
“Someone almost as good as me. I’ve never seen this level of redirects before, but whoever this is was making it look like he was using the same IP address as Lachlan. He’s… Shit, Uso. Even I can’t figure out where he’s working from, but I can tell you it wasn’t Lachlan.”
“You’re sure?”
“Positive. Look here.” Henry pointed to the monitor. Kai didn’t bother looking because coding might as well have been Egyptian hieroglyphs, but Nikolas had some knowledge, having worked alongside Julian for so long.
“I’ll be damned. While I’m glad we weren’t wrong to trust Lachlan, the male still escaped, plus we now have an unknown enemy.”
“And I’ll not stop until I figure out who he is,” Henry said fiercely.
“I believe you. But I hope you’ll wait until we get to New Atlanta. I want you working at the lab so Julian can take a break. Get his head back on straight.”
“Whatever you want. Kili and I will pack our things and come with you. I’m not taking my equipment. I’m leaving all this for Timoh, so we’ll be ready to go when you are.”
Kai gave his nephew a one-armed embrace. “Good work.”
As the three of them were walking back to join the others, Nik asked, “Are you and Josie coming with, or are you hanging out here a while?”
“We’re coming with you. I love my family, but Josie’s missing her own mother. We can come back here to visit soon.”
Nikolas clapped Kai on the shoulder. “I’m ready to be home. I have a baby on the way, and no offense to your family, but I’d rather Lydia be born in New Atlanta. Speaking of pregnant mates, I’m going to go sit with mine.”
Kai felt the smallest pang of jealousy. He was ready to hear two heartbeats coming from Josie’s body. But first, they had a house to rebuild and a training center to open.
Josie’s apartment felt small and suffocating after being on the island. She was already looking forward to going back and visiting when they could enjoy themselves without looking over their shoulders. Kai’s brothers had gone to the hotel and grabbed Hagen right as he was getting ready to leave. Drago’s assistant was taken to the Pen to live out the rest of his life for conspiring with Drago.
When they arrived in the city, Kai had driven Josie by their house at her request. Her eyes filled with tears as Kai pulled the Jeep to a stop in front of the rubble. She could only imagine how the others felt. Josie had spent days here while the others had lost the place they’d spent months and years. At least they all had somewhere to land with so many of the Clan opening their homes.
Josie had called her mom as soon as they got home with promises to visit soon. Being around Lani had been wonderful and bittersweet at the
