Page 23
“Not by choice,” Lexi says quickly.
“It’s a long story,” Grey adds, “which we’ll absolutely tell you another time. For now, just know that Lexi and I have found a way to balance the darker effects by sharing it through our mate bond. Ramsey doesn’t have that luxury. Neither did my father—and it killed him.”
I want to ask Grey more about what happened to his old man, but now’s not the time. “So, this serum Ramsey took, it’s fatal?” I ask.
“It’s likely,” Grey says.
“I think we should be more worried about what he’s capable of while he’s still alive,” Andy points out.
“Which is?” Marcus prompts.
“Unstable dominance, unpredictable aggression, and the strength of ten alphas coursing through his veins at all times,” Dutch says dryly. “Super fucking fun.”
Grey shakes his head slowly. “The lab was destroyed. The research, the files, everything we found—we burned it.”
“I think it’s safe to say Ramsey had already found access to this before we did,” Andy says quietly.
They exchange looks, each of them digesting that.
“I think Andy’s right,” Mia says. “It’s clear he’s been planning this for a while.”
Dutch brings his fist down on the table. “Which means he knew about the lab all along and never said a word.”
“Fuck,” Grey snarls.
The silence that follows is the particular kind that means everyone in the room is running the same calculation and none of them like where it lands. I can’t say I blame them. An artificial alpha with overwhelming power is an unknown variable. That means everything I know about reading an opponent just became unreliable at best. No wonder they all look so bleak.
Grey looks at Lexi. Something passes between them through the bond, quick, private. Then he looks back at the room.
“Ramsey had time to work against us,” Grey says. “But he doesn’t have what we do. Loyalty. Family. People who fight because they believe in each other, not because they were promised territory.” His gaze moves around the room. “We beat Franco. We beat my father. We’ll beat him too.”
“Grey’s right. His head start won’t save his ass in the end,” Dutch says, eyes glittering with the promise of violence.
“And we have numbers,” Razor says, nodding at me. “Fucker won’t know what hit him.”
Grey nods and glances at Mia. “Can you work with Nash on coordinating patrols? Let’s use more of his guys for the scouting since they’re less vulnerable to being poached than ours. We’ve already found a couple of camps. There have to be more, and we’ll find those too.”
“Consider it done,” she says, but I notice her gaze never quite reaches mine before darting away again.
After that, the meeting agenda shifts from assessment to action with the efficiency of a machine that has been running a long time. Mia leads it, asking questions, giving orders, delegating while still delivering important intel to whoever needs it. Marcus gives her the names of our best scouts, and she replaces the names of her own pack with ours on their rotation schedule.
I watch her work and say nothing.
Under the table, out of sight, Marcus slides a folded piece of paper toward me without looking up from his own notes.
I open it.
You’re staring.
I refold it and slide it back.
He tucks it into his jacket pocket, expression unchanged, and writes something else in his notebook.
The meeting runs another twenty minutes. By the end of it, the patrol grid has been completely restructured, and Mia has not looked at me directly once. But as the room empties and I’m the last one out, I catch her reflection in the dark window behind the map wall.
She’s watching me leave.
6
