Page 6

The meeting room doors swing open under my hand. Inside, it smells faintly of dry-erase marker and breakfast sausage.

Maps cover one wall—Indigo Hills dissected into grids and sectors like a body laid open for study. Border lines are drawn in red where we’ve fortified with additional sentries. The ward lines are another matter.

The ward lines are hex-magic-infused boundaries put into place by Franco years ago. The full boundary runs in a complete circle around Indigo Hills’ city limits. Or it used to. On our current maps, they’re represented by dashed lines or no lines at all in the places we’ve confirmed they’re gone. The areas without any dash lines are already alarmingly large.

Once, the ward lines were impenetrable without an alpha’s approval to pass through them. But since Ramsey has clearly found a way to dismantle them, I won’t trust their protection until we can find another hex witch to fix the magic.

Davina might have been that witch, but she’s been missing since before Vincenzo and Dr. Severin reunited for one last attempt at creating a super-alpha using Franco’s LAG gene mutation serum. I hope she got away. No one deserved a life sentence of working for a guy like Franco. Or Dr. Severin.

This morning, Razor sits at the conference table, inhaling a breakfast sandwich like it’s a contest to see how few bites he can take before it’s all stuffed into his mouth.

He looks up when I enter. “Hey.” The word is muffled thanks to the food filling his face.

“Am I interrupting?” I ask wryly, setting my bag down and reaching for the file folder of reports sitting untouched in front of him.

He chews, swallows, groans. “Crow might be a hex witch.”

“What are you talking about?”

“This breakfast sandwich is so good; it’s gotta be magic.”

I shake my head, then glance at the report inside the folder. “This says Crow pulled a shift on patrol last night.” I glance at the empty wrapper that apparently once held a magical breakfast sandwich. “When does that asshole sleep?”

Razor’s eyes light up like I’ve just validated his conspiracy theory. “That’s my whole fucking point, dude.”

“I don’t see your report,” I say, returning to the folder’s contents.

He smirks. “That’s because I didn’t write it yet.”

I look up sharply. “Don’t be a smartass. Did your night turn up anything?”

“No hex witches that we could find,” he says, deflating as he delivers the news. “We’ve run down the usual channels. Nothing.”

Usual channels meaning interrogating any and all prisoners we have in custody, which are mostly Vincenzo’s loyalists or anyone corrupt enough to actually get convicted of a crime in this lawless town.

“Which means they’re either no longer in the city or very good at hiding.”

“Hexes have always been good at hiding,” he says.

Thanks to the wards acting like a prison cell for some of us, Razor’s not too fond of hex witches. I don’t blame him, but I also don’t make sweeping judgments of entire races of people based on the work of a few—who were probably coerced in the first place.

“We still need to find one to reinforce the wards,” I say, scanning the notes. “I don’t care if we have to drag a witch in by her designer boots to do it.”

Franco might have been an evil asshole, but I’m not above coercing either when it protects my city.

Razor snorts. “I’ll see what I can do.”

“Where the hell is Dutch anyway? He’s supposed to be at this meeting that starts in…” I check the time, “…ten minutes.”

“Probably skulking around, staring at Andy like she invented oxygen.”

I grin and take a seat across from Razor, happy to roast our mutual friend in his absence. “He does look a little… domesticated these days.”

“Whipped,” Razor corrects.

“Honestly, it’s kind of gratifying to see that asshole brought to heel.”

Razor cracks up.