“What’s going on, Blaze?” Kane asks as he heads over to my liquor cabinet, pouring himself a shot of brandy. My stock is low, so he’s having to settle for that brand of liquor; not his favorite, but he can tell by the expression on my face he’s gonna need something stronger than beer for this conversation.
“Am I gonna need one of those too?” Bolt asks as he eyes the shot glass in Kane’s hand.
“We’re all gonna need one, or the bottle,” I mumble out my frustration with this situation. “One of our victims was found deceased. Her throat had basically been ripped out.”
“In other words, someone tried to change her and she struggled with the bite,” Bolt insinuates as his fingers begin to twitch. Kane and I warily watch him as he gains control of himself. Kane always wears gloves because he too has issues with his hands and touch… only his will shock you, not shoot lightning bolts through you.
“That’s the only conclusion I could come up with too.” I concur with Bolt’s assessment. It’s the only thing that makes sense. There’s no other reason for that type of injury to occur outside of that.
“Has Decoder been able to come up with anything on his end?” Kane asks me.
“So far, all of the towers the website has pinged from have been different locations. He’s tried to follow each and every one of them, but it’s gonna take a while,” I answer Kane’s question to the best of my capabilities. I don’t understand anything technical… Decoder talks to me and it goes in one ear and out the other.
“If these women are fighting back, I expect we’ll be seeing more dead bodies showing up,” Bolt announces, taking his shot and downing it.
“I agree, we need to get an in,” I state. Just as those words leave my mouth, Decoder comes barrelling into the room.
“Got ‘em, Pres,” he states, placing his laptop in front of me. Bolt and Kane come and stand directly behind me as we watch Decoder scan through his computer, going from page to page. “I was able to find the codes to break into their mainframe.”
“Speak English, boyo, ain’t none of us intellectual when it comes to technical jargon,” Kane explicits through a tone bordering on disgust. “I’ve already got a headache coming on, and you’ve just begun spewing out shit.”
“Sorry, Pres, VP.” Decoder slows down and takes a deep breath before continuing. “I was able to jump through their firewalls on their servers, which is set up to protect them from discovery.” Kane nods his head for him to continue. “The mainframe is the computer's mind; it recalls and holds in memory everything that’s been submitted throughout the history of that computer and site. After following the IP addresses as they switched from one tower and server to another; I was finally able to trace it to one person or persons as it turns out.”
“Decoder, spit that shit out already. I don’t like playing detective and having to read between the lines and shit. Just give me a damn name already,” I venomously hiss out, ready to put this all behind us. I want to stop the disappearance of innocent women who are bordering on adulthood. They haven’t had an opportunity to live their lives as young as they are. They’ve had their choices stolen from them and are being introduced into a life that they weren’t aware even existed. It’s got to be terrifying for them; these are the situations nightmares are made of. And I plan on being the one who pulls them from the depths of hell.
“You remember that band of rogue shifters we came upon three or so years ago?” he inquires, with a lifted eyebrow.
“The bear, lion, wolf and snake? That was an odd breed of friends if I’ve ever seen any. Why? Fuck me, you have got to be yanking my chain! Those cretins are behind this?” I’m fit to be tied; those fuckers were run out of our town because they were on a ‘mate’ finding mission. They were groping our women, and terrorizing our town. The club banded together and escorted them to the border.
“The one and the same,” Decoder insist. “They are behind this, from the conversations they’ve had online, I’ve been able to determine that they scoured the country, looking for shifters who’ve been unlucky in finding their mate.”
“But those imbeciles aren’t smart enough to put an operation of this magnitude together,” Bolt declares through a snort of disbelief.
“They have to have a financial backer.” I state my thoughts out loud. “Those fuckers didn’t have the money to finance something as big as this. It takes some serious dough to be able to house, feed and run a program catering to women.”
“Who would be wealthy enough as well as stupid enough to back these morons?” Kane questions, I can tell he’s deep in thought. We all quietly go through possibilities in our head until Decoder clears his throat.
“Well, that’s the thing,” Decoder states, flipping to another tab pinned to the top of his screen. “They have three backers; pretty high up fuckers who are loaded.”
“Jesus fucking Christ,” I spit out, worrying over how we can take on not one, but three wealthy, well-connected pieces of shit.
“Our own state representative, Jason Glemson. Attorney General Markus Carmichael and a member of our elite shifter councilmen.” Bolt, Kane and I jump when he states the last one… someone who’s responsible for the safety and welfare of our people has betrayed every shifter in the world.
“Who?” I grit out, ready to fucking destroy members of our own society.
“Anston Greyhorse,” he hesitantly states. The reason behind his hesitation is because Anston was my father's best friend and is a club confidant. He’s kept us out of trouble numerous times with the council when we’ve gone above and beyond what they deem acceptable behavior. We’ve had to
