I wanted to go and pick them up myself. They were my responsibility, belonged to me, but as the sergeant-at-arms, I couldn’t simply abandon my post. Knox, Thian, and Gray were on their way back to the clubhouse, and I needed to be here when they got here. I could be overreacting. We hadn’t been threatened or had any direct contact with Eric since he’d been ousted.
The day we made our move, our target, his father, was higher than the moon. It didn’t take much, but somehow Eric still got shot in the arm. I also noticed how he put a few pills in his pocket, not to mention a handful of baggies that had the same powder that coated the floor. Yeah, I turned him in because we didn’t need someone high on this shit. The occasional hit of weed, fine, but when you started to hit the harder stuff, you lost your senses, and you were no good in the field. You could be distracted, desperate for a hit, instead of covering your brothers’ asses. He thought I hadn’t noticed, but I did. He was shot in the arm, stitched up, and sent on his merry way. A month later, he tried to rob a bank and was shot in the back by a security guard. Served him right. After that, he disappeared, and we hadn’t heard from him since. Until today.
There was a good possibility that nothing or no one would make a move against Verity tonight, especially if they could smell Siam there. Eric was a shifter, but that didn’t mean he surrounded himself with other shifters. If he did, the scent of a big cat tended to scare people away. In person, Siam might be a foot shorter than me, but in leopard form, she was only slightly smaller. She was also more lithe and less bulky than me, making her more agile and faster.
I didn’t trust their fates to chance. If Eric found out he failed to procure the woman he wanted, failed to kill his ex-employee, then he could decide to lash out quickly.
“Go with the prospects and get her. We can talk when you get back,” Knox shouted in my head.
“I didn’t say anything.”
“No, but your anxiety is affecting all of us. Shut that shit down,” he snarled.
Typically, I had a firm grasp of my emotions, and I hadn’t let anything slip through the bond since I learned to turn it off, picking and choosing who I wanted to speak to. As children, I’d always had that ability with my sister, but I figured it was because we were twins. Our parents couldn’t hear our thoughts, and we’d never been able to hear them. Becoming brothers with the men in Dark Leopards MC changed everything for me.
371
Snow
Jumping on the back of my bike, I tore out of there, quickly catching up with the van and taking the lead, leaving them behind. They would catch up to me, but I suddenly had this overwhelming niggling in the back of my mind, demanding I hurry.
It didn’t take long to arrive at my destination. It was a good neighborhood, one that didn’t see a lot of men like me, but that didn’t mean shit. Let them call their neighborhood watch or the cops. It just meant they could take away anyone who didn’t belong. And there definitely was someone who didn’t belong. I could smell him. A dirty, wet dog smell permeated the area. Not Eric, but someone who had been around him recently. Seemed he did have a few shifters on his payroll.
“Dimitri, someone is trying to pick the lock on the front door,” Siam shouted in my head. She wasn’t too panicked, and I could feel the small sliver of fear running through her, but she was also ready for a fight. I swore my sister had a bigger pair of balls than some men I knew.
“Outside. On my way up. Be careful, but protect my mate.”
“You got it, big brother.” I could feel the moment she shifted. Whoever was stupid enough to break in, would have a shit storm waiting for him the moment he finally got the door unlocked, which if he still hadn’t, he was an idiot who didn’t need to be messing with shit like that. It took a gentle touch to pick a lock, and anyone I knew with the skills, could do it in the same amount of time it took to use an actual key.
The van pulled up as I ran into the building, racing toward the stairs because waiting for the elevator would take too long. I burst through on the third floor and found the apartment door open. Siam yowled, but I also heard a deep growl coming from another animal. And then glass broke, and Verity screamed. Everything began to move in slow motion.
I stormed into the apartment, Siam turned her head toward Verity’s bedroom, giving her opponent an opening. A giant wolf leaped, landing on Siam’s back, sinking his fangs into her neck. She slammed him against the wall, knocking him loose, and yelled at me, “Go get Verity!” While I understood Siam could take care of herself, she was still my sister, but another scream from Verity had me shifting and leaping over my sister, who had pinned the wolf to the ground on its back. Her fangs were a lot larger than his.
Breaking through the locked door wasn’t an issue, and inside, I found a puma, large raptor, and badger. What the fuck? Verity sat on the ground, her back pressed against her tall dresser, staring wide-eyed at the three animals standing in front of her next to her bed. The windows lining the wall on
