Proof of Life (The Potentate of Atlanta Book 4) Page 8

  “Are we sure we’re not dealing with two bombs?” Bishop rocked back, his chair squeaking on its wonky caster. “The first might have been a dud.”

  “I’m looking into it,” Reece assured us. “The fact Choco-Loco was on fire prior to Hadley’s arrival might indicate its timer was faulty. That could mean it failed to ignite as intended, but the result was the same thanks to its magical components.”

  “If that’s so, I’m grateful the bomber is inept,” Lisbeth tossed in then frowned at me. “We could have lost you.”

  “The ineptitude is what bothers me.” Anca leaned forward, fingers in front of her mouth. “The coven is a ruthless and merciless enemy. They’ve proven they’re well trained, organized, and intelligent. Why, then, are they fumbling now?”

  Until she mentioned it, I hadn’t framed it that way in my head. “You’re right.”

  Milo leaned back in his chair. “Are we sure it’s the coven?”

  “The chemical and magical signatures are identical to the samples we gathered after Hadley’s apartment was bombed.” Reece clicked more keys to pull up a graph for us all to see. “Either the bomber is a coven member, or they had access to the coven’s blueprints and materials.”

  “I don’t trust this.” I sloshed the cup in my hand, and it drew Ambrose’s attention. “Any of it.”

  Twining around my ankles, the shadow hammed it up for a hit of sugar.

  Careful to hide my actions from the others, I dropped the cup into the void to give him his treat.

  “Remember this the next time I get thrown across the pavement,” I muttered, but he ignored me.

  “Ford mentioned you have family visiting,” Lisbeth said shyly. “How do we keep them safe?”

  That she offered without me asking meant a lot, but I had been wondering the same exact thing.

  “They’re here to view an art installation.” I waved an absent hand. “Addie can tell us which one.”

  The reminder I didn’t know, that I hadn’t even asked, burned me with shame. Once Addie confirmed my mother’s interest, some internal switch flipped in my head, and I ceased to care. It was callous and thoughtless to pin the outcome of the whole trip on Addie, and she deserved better from me.

  Matron Pritchard was a stone around her neck, and I had to teach her how to swim before she drowned.

  “A new Dale Chihuly at the botanical garden is my guess,” Anca said. “It’s the latest big draw.”

  “Can they do that safely?” I pulled on my bottom lip. “Or is it too risky?”

  An outdoors location would provide them with some protection. The crowd and media coverage of an opening night would also go a long way toward insulating them. Then again, the coven had proven they were willing to take out innocent bystanders to hit their target. They might not mind if their efforts landed them on the news. But would they act if I wasn’t in attendance? That was the real question.

  After flicking a brief on the event on the screen for us, Reece declared, “The risk level is moderate.”

  “So far the coven is targeting you.” Bishop rolled his neck. “They have eyes on you. Or ears. Or both.”

  “A compromised enforcer makes sense,” Anca murmured. “Who else has that level of access to you?”

  The thread of suspicion winding through my chest as she cast blame onto the pack made me ill. I hated what the coven was doing to us, making us doubt one another. They were tearing us apart from the inside, whether they had infiltrated us or not.

  Leaving the kit with Bishop after I tested him ripped out my heart and stomped it flat as a pancake. I had trust issues aplenty. I didn’t need the coven pouring more insidious whispers in my ears. I tasted acid in the back of my throat when I ordered him to test the others. Worse, I had the gall to be grateful Bishop had to handle it since I didn’t know who they were or how to find them.

  “Midas, Remy, and you guys are my social circle.” I leaned against the wall. “Tisdale could find out what I have on my schedule through Midas, but the only danger there is her penciling in more family dinners.” I thought about it. “That’s about it. I don’t get into the day-to-day with Boaz or Addie. I don’t much talk to anyone else.”

  As far as social circles go, mine was small and slow to expand, but I trusted everyone in it. Or I had, before all this.

  “We zeroed in on that glint you mentioned.” Bishop tapped a few keys and shared a short burst of footage with us. “Looks almost like a flashbang on its lowest setting.” He mashed his lips together. “The kind the pack uses.”

  “Greaaat.”

  Those tiny suckers, about the size of a scuppernong, were made for the pack by local witches. They were more flash than bang, unless you were gwyllgi. The high-pitched wail emitted upon detonation was outside of necromantic hearing, which explained why I had focused on the sight and not the sound it made. That would also explain the way Ambrose reacted to it. The magical burst had piqued his interest or appetite.

  Urgent vibrations in my pocket reminded me I had muted my phone before our meeting.

  The number belonged to Midas, and I ducked into the kitchen to answer. “Sorry I left without—”

  “Claudia was killed last night.”

  The words landed like bricks between us, and I smarted from the impact. “What?”

  The outburst drew the team’s attention, and I tucked myself deeper into a corner to avoid their eyes and ears.

  “A challenger took advantage of her grief. They fought, and she lost. Cameras caught all of it.”

  “Two-thirds of their pack gets incinerated,” I snarled, “and they blame her?”

  “Hadley—”

  “I was the target.” I punched the nearest wall. “This was my fault. It wasn’t hers. How could they…?”

  “The challenger was a supporter of her father’s,” Midas said gently. “He was biding his time, and he took the first opening she gave him. The others were too stunned to intervene. They were reeling, and he took advantage of that too.”

  I almost asked him how we could fix this, but there was no repairing this.

  Claudia was dead.

  Dead.

  A vibrant, ambitious young alpha with a heart big enough to make the tough calls, and she was gone.

  Fingers curled into a fist at my side, I already regretted punching the wall. Ouch. “What can we do?”

  “Mom has asked the Knoxville pack to leave.” Heaviness settled into his voice. “It’s not right, but it was a witnessed challenge. There’s nothing we can do but let them go.”

  “Get them out of Atlanta before they start making messes, you mean?”

  “Yes,” he gritted out, and I heard his disapproval loud and clear.

  “Okay.” I steadied my nerves. “What do you need from me?”

  “I wanted you to be aware of the situation, but what you’re doing is more important.”

  “I don’t mean workwise.” I was almost done at HQ. “Are you okay?”

  “Violence is a part of who we are,” he said quietly. “We’re predators, and weakness can be tantalizing.”

  The distance he put between the emotion simmering in the words coming out of his mouth told me what he thought of the line he was feeding me. One he must have choked on a time or two as well.

  “That doesn’t answer my question.”

  “I’ll make peace with it. In time.”

  A warm handed landed on my shoulder, and Bishop raised his eyebrows to ask if I was square.

  A nod was all I could spare without drawing him into our conversation, but he stayed put afterward.

  “I’ll touch base with you soon.” I curled my fingers around my phone. “I love you.”

  “I love you too.”

  Midas ended the call before I dragged it out more, which was good and bad. “You heard?”

  “Enough,” Bishop said, but what he meant was every last bit. “Gwyllgi aren’t necromancers.”

  “Gwyllgi aren’t so different from necromancers.” I pocketed my phone. “We
take down rivals, end reigns and lives, stage coups. Less blood is spilled, sure, but the political and financial consequences can prove more ruinous for the families left behind than for the person who earned the hit.”

  “You can’t reform the pack.” He searched her face. “You get that, right?”

  Chagrin at being caught having those exact thoughts swept through me. “Am I that transparent?”

  “Beneath the wrapping, Midas’s gift is no different. Don’t fool yourself into thinking it is. That he is.”

  “I accept him for who and what he is, Bish.”

  And miracle of miracles, he returned the favor.

  “And the pack? Their laws? Their customs? Their traditions?”

  “It’s a work in progress.” I twisted my lips. “I can’t and won’t stomp on their beliefs because they’re not mine. I can’t ask them to change a fundamental part of who they are for my comfort. I get that. All of that. I’m struggling to move my line in the sand a little farther out than it used to go.”

  “Then you’re on the right path.” He dropped his arm. “I would worry if you said it was easy.”

  “Nothing in my life is ever that.” I laughed under my breath. “Are you coming out with me tonight?”

  “Do you really have to ask?” He glanced over his shoulder toward the command center. “Milo is going to shadow us, see if he picks up anything I missed.” He led the way out of HQ. “I don’t expect him to find anything.”

  “Because you’re that good?”

  “Because there’s nothing to find.” He locked up behind us. “The bomber is acting on intel they overhear at the Faraday, not what they glean from tailing you. That’s my working theory. They know you’d spot them, or that Midas would scent them. It would be risky, and the coven has proven they’re risk averse.”

  I didn’t call Bishop out for glossing over possible OPA involvement. It was nice to pretend with him, for a few hours anyway, that our team was untouchable. That the people under our protection were safe.

  “Their numbers are dwindling. That could make them reckless.”

  “True.” He led the way out of the parking garage and down to the street. “Or it might make them think.”

  “Thinking is bad for us.” I hated smart enemies. “Thinking means they’re a step ahead of us.”

  “They’ve been that since Choco-Loco burned. Before then, really. This puts them two or three ahead.”

  “Oddly enough, that doesn’t make me feel any better.”

  “I like having you around, kid.” He ruffled my hair. “And not only because of your questionable judgment when it comes to the OPA’s expense account. It’s my job to tell you the hard truths.”

  “Mmm-hmm.”

  “Have you seen your dad yet?”

  “Nope.”

  “Are you going to visit with him?”

  “We have to make an appearance together at some point.” I bet he was looking forward to it as much as me. “Even if it’s in the lobby.”

  For a nice change, Bishop let the topic drop before I ripped it out of his hands and stomped on it.

  “Do you sense that?” He kept his head forward and his stride even. “It’s like…”

  Skin crawling up my spine, I sensed the presence a heartbeat later. “We’re being watched.”

  “Milo isn’t responding.” Bishop checked his phone. “He may be laying low.”

  Even a dimmed screen doubled as a beacon for trouble on a dark street. He might not be able to answer without giving away his location.

  “Maybe.” It was a better alternative. “We’ll give him five minutes, but then we’re hunting him down.”

  “Deal.” Bishop shook his head with a grin. “Before long, the team will be meeting at HQ face-to-face.”

  “I don’t want to violate their privacy.” I chewed on my bottom lip. “I hope they understand that.”

  “We have precautions in place,” he reminded me. “At the end of the day, they know what they signed up for, and they’re aware the OPA will take any measures necessary to protect them, even at the cost of their anonymity.”

  As it happened, we didn’t need the five minutes. Within three, the sensation evolved into the familiar click-clack of claws on asphalt. I let myself believe, for a second or two, that it was Midas come to check up on me. But he had never given me the heebie-jeebies, even there at the start, when I was convinced he would kill me the second he learned my true identity.

  The phone in Bishop’s hand buzzed like an angry wasp, and Milo’s name flashed onscreen, but Bishop couldn’t afford to divide his attention with a threat closing in on us.

  “Hadley Whitaker,” a male voice boomed. “Beta of the Atlanta Gwyllgi Pack.”

  A knot formed in the vicinity of my stomach and clenched until my abs trembled. “That’s me.”

  A man stepped into the streetlight, flanked by two others and a mangy, underfed gwyllgi on all fours.

  “I’m Lon Burke, Alpha of the Knoxville gwyllgi pack.”

  Of average height, the man was wide and thick with muscle. Salt-and-pepper hair hung to his shoulders, and his neat beard had been trimmed close. He wore jeans, a Henley, and a pair of boots.

  The guy had seriously gotten himself all done up to do this. He wasn’t even wearing fighting clothes.

  “I challenge you for the rank of beta in the Atlanta gwyllgi pack.”

  The cadence of his speech told me this was formal, and he had brought his own witnesses.

  Under my breath, careful not to take my eyes off the guy, I asked Bishop, “Can he do this?”

  “It’s highly unorthodox, but you are Midas’s mate. The pack will honor the outcome.”

  “Frakking hell.”

  “Will you fight?” The challenger shoved his hands into his pockets. “Or will you forfeit?”

  “Midas is going to kick your ass for this later,” I warned him. “Then Tisdale will stomp on what’s left.”

  “I’ll take my chances,” he said in a friendly voice. “They’re an honorable bunch. They won’t be happy for me to step into the prince’s role, but they’ll have to crown me all the same.”

  There was no literal crown, and if there was, Tisdale would beat him to death with it first.

  “Hurry this along.” Bishop took a healthy step back. “Kick his ass, kid, then we need to get back to work.”

  “We’re trying to figure out who blew up two-thirds of your pack, not that you seem to care.”

  “What pack?” Lon angled his head to one side. “There are a dozen left, maybe, here and at home.”

  “And what happens to them if you win?”

  An easy shrug rolled through his shoulders. “They go their way, and I go mine.”

  “Why kill Claudia if her position was only a steppingstone to the one you actually wanted?”

  “We had old scores to settle.” A smile kicked up one side of his mouth. “I’ll make this quick.”

  No regret. No grief. No…nothing.

  Even if Midas had never taken me to the den, even if I had never met his pack, never met Samzilla, I would gnaw off my own arm before I let this guy spread his corruption through a healthy, vibrant pack.

  Hands in my pockets, mocking his posture, I asked, “Rules?”

  “No weapons, only natural talents.”

  “Your natural talent is a weapon.”

  He spread his hands wide in answer, and I didn’t argue. Why would I, when he had stacked the deck in my favor as well as his?

  Hope you don’t get papercut when your house of cards falls down.

  Okay, okay.

  That was a lie.

  Deep down, I hoped he got decapitated by the Queen of Hearts.

  Angling my head toward Bishop, I flicked my gaze skyward. “Can you make sure we get this on film?”

  “Reece has been recording since we hit the streets,” he assured me. “There will be a record of this.”

  That both simplified and complicated things. Ambrose wasn’t a natural talent, mor
e like unnatural, but he was a part of me, so I figured that counted. Which meant using him could bite me on the butt when the footage was reviewed, and it definitely would be. I just didn’t have much choice in the matter.

  “Okay then.” I spread my arms. “Ready when you are.”

  Credit where credit was due. The guy was fast. He charged me while the change took him, and the beast in him burst free in a crimson wave that threatened to crest over my head and crush me beneath him.

  Whirling aside with seconds to spare, I laughed at the near miss to rile him. I was determined to win this without laying a finger on Lon. More than defeating him, I wanted to humiliate him. Ruin him. Destroy his credibility as a fighter and prove he had no right to call himself an alpha.

  Petty? Yes. But so was killing Claudia for the crime of having a heart within hours of it being broken.

  Bon appétit, I thought at Ambrose. Make it convincing.

  Ambrose wove in and out of Lon, gulping chunks of his innate magic with each violent strike, forcing him to struggle to hold his form. For my part, I spun aside, almost dancing and still avoiding his clumsy lunges by miles. The crowd was enthralled. Or terrified. Or some combination of the two. Their eyes were wide, their lips parted, and they shivered and shook as if a taste of violence had made them hungry for it too.

  A sour tang hit the back of my throat, and I gagged as Ambrose shuddered against the disgusting flavor.

  Shifters weren’t to his tastes, but I hadn’t fed him since the battle, so he wasn’t passing up free food.

  A low growl poured from Lon, the biggest threat he could muster, as crimson magic dripped from his fur.

  Lurching toward me, Lon gathered his strength to pounce. I sidestepped his graceless jump then booped him on the nose with the tip of my finger. That perked him up, and he snarled, throwing more weight behind his next wobbly attack. I hopped to the left to avoid his teeth, and Bishop cackled with delight.

  The urge to mime waving a flag while shouting Toro almost overcame me, for which I blamed all the cartoons I watched as a kid, but I behaved for the cameras.

  Pity for Lon, Ambrose enjoyed his job. Too much at times. This was one of them.