Page 5
MIA
The Giovanni estate wasn’t built to prove wealth like some of its neighbors. No, this monstrosity was built to intimidate. Stone façade. Iron gates. Windows tall and narrow like the house itself is permanently squinting in judgment. Even on a sunny day like this, it projects an aura of gloom.
The gates swing open as my car approaches. Guards nod as I pass—some new, some more familiar now. I catalog them automatically, mentally double-checking they’re the same guards I assigned to day shift. We can’t afford to get lazy, and if I were an enemy of the pack, I’d test our strengths by trying to infiltrate the duty guards first. But every face is familiar and on the list I approved.
I drive on with a wave.
Ahead, the estate rises from the manicured grounds; a relic of a man who believed power should be carved in marble and stained with other people’s blood.
Lexi’s already begun sanding down its sharper edges.
The hedges are trimmed back. The heavy black banners that used to hang like funeral shrouds are gone. Windows are open where they were once sealed tight. Light spills across the stone like it’s reclaiming territory.
It’s an improvement, though not by much. I still don’t know how Lexi can stand to live here. Not that she spends every night inside her castle. According to my night patrol reports, she and Grey have slipped away to their secret cabin the last two nights.
They think I don’t know about it, and for forty-eight hours, I let them have their secret. But it can’t happen again. Not when both alphas are now the target of Ramsey’s enmity.
I park near the east wing and step out, the morning air crisp against my bare forearms. I grab my suit jacket from the backseat and slide into it, straightening the lapel as it settles against my blouse. Black suit against cream. Bright red hair to match my lips and my heels. Feminine simplicity is powerful in a way those dead relics never understood.
Inside, the foyer smells like polished wood and fresh coffee. The marble floors gleam. The chandelier overhead still drips crystal arrogance. I wonder if Lexi will get rid of it. Maybe let us take turns swatting it like a piñata when the time comes.
I turn away from it and head for the office wing. Movement hums through the halls. Staff. Wolves. Security rotations clicking into place with mechanical precision. Thanks to my restructuring, it’s controlled. But I don’t mistake control for safety. This pack is too new, its protocols too untested for me to feel safe inside it yet.
Donahue, one of Lexi’s team leaders—we’re not calling them generals anymore, thank the wolf goddess—peels off from his conversation with a duty guard near the staircase and falls into step beside me.
“Morning, boss,” he says. Cheerful. Friendly. It’s still weird that I’m in charge but weirder still that people are happy around here.
“Report.”
He hands me a tablet as we walk. “Perimeter sweep completed at oh-six-hundred. No breaches inside the boundary line.”
“And outside?”
“Patrols found two new sections of wards missing. They did a quick sweep of the vicinity. No confirmed sightings.”
I glance at him. “What aren’t you telling me?”
His expression sharpens. “A pair of scouts found a campsite in the north. Abandoned days ago, from the looks of it.”
“Any evidence who was camping?”
“A purse with Violet’s ID was found nearby.”
Merda.
Violet is Lexi’s human friend. The one who showed up on our doorstep two weeks ago, bloodied and bruised, as a message from Ramsey. Had he held her in this camp first? For how long? Was he still using it as a place to hide?
My adrenaline pumps.
Finally. Something to go on.
“Rotate patrol routes fanning out from that site,” I say. “No predictable patterns. I don’t want Ramsey mapping us while we hunt for him.”
“Already done.”
“Good.”
We pass an oil painting still hanging from Franco’s reign. It’s the old man himself, in wolf form, standing on a hill above the gathered pack, all of them bowing to him. I make a mental note to ask Elena to have it removed next time I see her. The Giovanni housekeeper might work for Lexi and Grey, but the way she rules this place, you’d think we all work for her. Even I don’t change anything inside these walls without her permission.
