Page 24 of Mane in Finance

They put me in an office with no windows, and my hands still tied. A guard is on the door, but I leave a trail on the way. I know Lucian. I know he'll come home to a note that says only gone to confirm a lead, and the note will terrify him. He'll tear the manor apart looking for what I was chasing. So I gave him the chase. My laptop's gone, but before I left I did the thing I do with everything, I backed it up three ways, and the lease record, the power spike, the shell company, all is sitting mirrored in a cloud vault under his name, timestamped this morning, waiting for him just in case.

I press my forehead to the cold cemented wall and listen to them shuffle around trying to resolve it. I whisper to the dark like a prayer to the one person who'd understand it.

"Follow the money, Lucian. I left it right where you'd look."

20

LUCIAN

The note is four words in Sophie's handwriting, and I read it twice in the empty kitchen before control goes out of me like air from a punctured lung.

Gone to confirm a lead.

No time, no place. Hector comes in and sees my face before he reads the paper.

"When did anyone last see her?"

"The cook, at dawn. Her car's gone." I'm moving toward the vault, because panic is useless and she taught me what to do with useless feeling. "She found something this morning and went to look alone because she knew I'd stop her. Find me what she found."

We tear into her workspace. Her laptop's gone with her, and for a sick second I think we have nothing. Then her voice surfaces in my head, clear as if she's at the whiteboard. I back up everything three ways.

"Cloud vault," I say, Hector's already at the terminal. "Under my name. She told me about it."

Timestamped 6:09, mirrored and waiting, a woman leaving a lantern by a window. A shipping facility circled in her furious shorthand.

"She didn't chase a hunch." Pride and terror fight for the same inch of my chest. "She found the actual meeting. Get everyone."

Hector's already got the frequency open. "Kian. Kurtis. Every Alpha in range. We have a location. And they have Sophie."

We move at dusk, and on the drive I feel fear rise. For years I went into every confrontation empty, because that is safe. A leader with nothing to lose can't be reached. Now I'm barreling toward a warehouse with my heart somewhere inside it, and the fear is enormous, and I finally understand what Hector warned me about. He was right, it makes me collateral. I ignore it, because I'd rather feel this and fight than be the untouchable thing I was before her.

"East fence is thin," Kian murmurs over the frequency, his people already scouting. "Built to keep people in, not out. Refrigerated trucks nearby, engines off. Captives inside, a dozen at least, in transit cages on the main floor."

"Then we're not just here for her. Every cage opens. They don't ship out tonight. Kurtis, take the dock and the trucks. Kian, the fence and the floor. Hector, you find Sophie and get her out. " I'm already stripping my shirt. "I'll make sure every gun points at me instead of the cages."

I go through the east fence as the lion, and the syndicate learns their walls were built for the wrong threat.

There's a sound trained men make when they understand that the thing coming through the wall isn't on any assessment they've read. I heard it on my own staircase the night Sophie watched me change. I hear it again now, a whole facility's worth, and I use it. Fear fires before any rifle. Men who freeze don't aim. Men who run don't cover the cages. I move through the dock like an avalanche, Kurtis' bears hit the trucks behind me, Kian's wolves pour through the fence, and the careful machine the syndicate spent years building comes apart in seconds, because it was never designed to be attacked by shifters.

The captives are already moving. Kian's people have the locks, and a bear-broad man with a chained wrist is on his feet herding the others toward the trees. Every one a name Clifford tried to sell. I hold the center of the floor and let the mercenaries choose between me and the exits, and they all choose the exit.

Helena Barber steps out of a glass office with a weapon built for exactly what I am. She isn't afraid, making her dangerous. She's trained herself to override the animal part routing everyone else, and she fires with the discipline of someone who's studied how to kill things like me. The first round burns my shoulder. The second grooves my flank as I turn. I close the distance through both because she can't reload faster than I can cross a floor, and I put her down hard against the glass, the weapon skidding away across the concrete.

From somewhere beyond the offices, Sophie's voice cuts through the gunfire.

"East corridor! Two guards at the loading bay, one at the cages. The service door behind the glass office opens straight to the fence!"

Hector answers over the frequency before I can. "I hear her."

"She memorized the building," I say.

Of course she did. A second later she's shouting again, directing Kian's people away from the west aisle where another pair of mercenaries are waiting and toward the unguarded service passage. The captives start moving faster. Even tied up somewhere, Sophie found a way to turn herself into part of the rescue.

Hector's voice cuts across. "Luke! I've got Sophie, west exit, go!"

Everything still fighting Helena stops mattering. I leave her on the concrete and go.

I find Sophie beyond the fence, on her feet, bleeding from a split cheek, arguing with a wolf that's trying to walk her to safety.