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Addie looked over. "Everything okay?"

"Fine. Family business."

"You just threatened someone over two percent."

"Like I said, family."

Every casual conversation in this house gave me another piece of the pack machine. Every piece gave me another potential place to break the corrupt system.

The kitchen door opened. Gunnar's scent sailed past his brothers and reached me first. Heat. Sweat. Male wolf. My body recognized him with humiliating speed.

"Something smells good," Magnus said.

"That's us," Nell answered.

Vidar came in behind them. "We're going out tonight."

Addie immediately asked, "Where?"

"Lupetto's," Magnus said. "There's a fight."

My mother had entertained Dante Lupetto often enough that I'd known exactly what kind of man he was long before I was old enough to understand the full extent of his business. He'd run death matches. Wolves were put into a ring and made to fight until only one walked out, while men like Dante made money on which one would stop breathing first.

I'd sat quietly beside my mother while he talked business and pretended not to notice his attention settling on me. I hadn't needed functioning eyes to feel the way his gaze lingered as my teenage body developed. My mother never seemed bothered by it.

So when I learned enough about Dante's operation to understand where the cracks were, I'd whispered into the right ears. A piece of information here. A rumor there. Nothing that could ever be traced back to the quiet, blind girl sitting obediently beside her mother.

It was the information I'd fed Elias Vane that had ultimately brought Dante down. Not quite the result I'd intended. Elias was supposed to help expose the Blackwoods, not set off the particular chain of events that ended with Dante dead. I'd been hoping for federal indictments, seized assets, frozen accounts, and the entire Lupetto organization collapsing under the weight of government scrutiny.

Instead, I'd gotten a corpse. Pity. Still, a result was a result.

The old Alpha was dead. His son was now trying to scrub the stink of his father's reign off the family name. Whether Valentino Lupetto had actually changed anything was another question. The fighting rings were older than his leadership. Money moved through them. Wolves moved through them. Information moved through them. Men inherited businesses all the time, slapped a fresh coat of paint over the bloodstains, and called themselves reformers.

I wasn't prepared to give Valentino credit for being different simply because Dante was dead. But I was very interested in finding out if he was.

"All of us?" Astrid asked.

"You're too young," said Vidar.

"I'm a fully grown adult."

"Let her come," said Addie.

I felt Astrid jerk in surprise beside me.

"I'll get Elias to come too," said Addie.

Astrid slumped. "Actually, I'm busy."

The heat at my back told me Gunnar had moved closer to me. His nose pressed into my hair. He inhaled, caging me in so that I couldn't get away. It made me want to run, made me want to make him chase me.

"You want to go, too?" Gunnar asked. His voice was low beside my ear. "To the fight?"

"Yes."

I turned my face toward him. He didn't move away. If anything, his body came closer, his hand settling possessively on my waist.

"You don't have to," he said. "I know you've got a thing about blood."