Promising Peter (Bad Boy Alphas) (Shrew & Company Book 6) (14 page)

“He’s not going to beat you up just for having talked to me. He’s not that…” She was going to say “invested,” but she was working on being less of a pessimist.

“Not that dangerous?” Dustin supplied.

Drea shrugged. “Sure.”

He guffawed. “Cute that you think so.”

“I’ve never seen him as that. Soren, maybe, but not Peter.”

“I bet you’ve never seen Bryan as dangerous, either.”

“Well, he’s my brother.”

“See. Your perception is skewed. If I had to rank those motherfuckers in order of their ‘Yo, scary, stay away’ factor, I’d put Peter right at the top.”

“What?”

Dustin let out a sputtering breath. “See, you’re blinded. Ask anyone else in the clan, they’d probably tell you the same thing. Don’t get me wrong, Bryan and Soren aren’t to be discounted—not even a little fuckin’ bit—but I think Peter has them trumped hands down as far as practicality goes. That’s a dangerous thing. Makes him less flexible.”

“And I’m nothing but flexible.”

Dustin leaned his forearms on the edge of the desk and nodded. “I think that’s why you can do all the right mental gymnastics to see him as safe and approachable whereas any other woman in the clan would only risk looking at him through a locked door’s peephole.”

“That’s really how you see him?”

“Shit, girl, that’s how he
is
. Damn.” He scoffed and leaned back in the seat, slouching low. “I hope one day I’ll stumble onto a lady who can do those kinds of mental acrobatics for me. Tamara said with all the shiesty shenanigans I have to my credit, no woman’s ever going to want me.”

“Aw, that’s not true. You have a lot going for you.”

“Like what? Beyond being sober, I mean.” Dustin rubbed down the sides of his goatee and fixed his gaze on the ceiling. “I imagine most folks who knew me before Bryan pulled me away from Gene only know me as ‘Smoky’—the guy who never had less than an ounce on him and who always smelled like he’d smoked at least that much for breakfast. At least, that’s what Bryan says.”

Drea pulled a notepad closer and picked up her pencil. “Who were you getting your weed from, anyway? Local connections or one of Gene’s dudes?”

“Gene’s hookups. They had better shit. I was the one coordinating half those drops, so I got first pick.”

“Bryan nabbed a couple of Gene’s drug associates last year and we’ve had less illicit substance in the area since then, but…would you happen to remember who those guys were working for? Remember hearing any names thrown around? I know it was a messy time. I’m just trying to see if I can get a hold of anyone from that part of Gene’s network so I can do some more background checking on him. I get the sneaking suspicion that much of what we know about him just isn’t true, and I want to know what his end goal was. Being a shapeshifter alpha isn’t exactly a glorious job.”

Dustin groaned and, with his eyes closed, massaged his temples. “Damn. It wasn’t like we ever swapped business cards or nothin’ like that. When I had to meet up with them guys, I rarely even told folks my name. They just knew to expect me. I do remember once being really impressed by the suit on one new guy who’d showed up at the drop spot one day. I mean it was
sharp
, Drea. Steve Harvey don’t even have shit that nice.”

Drea ducked behind her computer screen again so Dustin couldn’t see her eyes goggling. Suffice it to say that she and Mr. Harvey didn’t share the same taste in suits.

“Dude was real pissed for some reason when I met up with him. He was mad he had to make the run, I guess. I think he was a higher-up. Drove a
real
slick whip, you know what I’m sayin’? Yo!” Dustin grunted and shook his head. “Shiny black Escalade, tinted windows and everything. Truck was so fly, I had to walk around it twice to take in all the chrome. Balla shit.”

Drea pushed up a brow. Dustin was so white, he was practically see-through. He’d actually grown up a richie-rich in some California suburb. He had a tendency to say that he couldn’t help the skin he was born into and that he was going to “be fly in spite of it.” The Shrews and Bears had all pretty much come to terms with how he was. He wasn’t changing anytime soon. If ever. He claimed to be “down for life,” whatever that meant.

“I remember at the time,” he said, “I couldn’t help but to think, ‘Damn shame he’s got that sticker on the gate.’ Totally spoiled the aesthetic, know what I’m sayin’?”

“What kind of sticker? Like, a rental car sticker?”

“Naw. It was…” He cringed again and closed his eyes tight. “Ugh, naw, a company sticker, but not a rental company. Maybe his company.”

“Describe it to me.”

“I think red and white. Had black accents, and a C with an arrow pointing off it, made into the shape of a pill.” He opened his eyes and nodded hard. “Yup. I remember that, because at the time I was wishing I had a handful or two of pills to swallow. That’d been a real fucked-up day. Some dude didn’t pay me the money he owed me and a supplier called threatening me and shit.”

Drea hurried over to the storage closet and found the bucket of markers she used to keep clients’ kids entertained when their parents were handling business in the office. “Draw the logo for me,” she told him. She gave him the bucket and grabbed some blank paper from the printer tray. “Do it with all the colors.”

“Coloring, girl?” He pushed up one sharply-groomed eyebrow. “You really think this is important?”

“Gut feeling? Yeah, I do.”

While Dustin drew and colored, Drea warmed up the scanner. She had a hunch. She didn’t like that hunch, but if she was right, Gene’s involvement with the Ridge Bears had less to do with his desire for power and more to do with money.

She also had a hunch that whatever Gene’s original mission was, he’d gone off the rails, and no longer had anything to lose. That was what made him dangerous.

She sent Dana a brief text summarizing her suspicions and set Dustin’s doodle onto the scanner glass.

She pushed the button, and then met his eager brown gaze over the top of her computer monitor. The poor guy really did have a rough time. He had done some questionably moral things while under Gene’s employ, but he was a nice, funny guy with a big heart who tried hard to not let his friends down.

Drea wasn’t going to let him down, either.

As the image loaded on her computer screen, she wriggled her eyebrows at him. “I forgot to mention this. I know someone who might be interested in a reformed Were-bear.”

“Any reformed Bear in particular?”

“Uh-huh. You.”

He perked up. “F’real? Well, what’s her name, girl? Where she at?”

Drea chuckled. “Well, see, the thing is, she’s not a Bear.”

“No?”

Drea shook her head. “She’s a Catamount. Part of Patrick’s group.”

“Shit, girl, which one? That group is mostly female. Could be any number of folks.”

“You interested?”

“
Hell
yeah.”

Shoulda known.
“She’s…the old leader’s granddaughter.” The same leader who’d screwed the group over and who was responsible for Patrick getting turned against his will.

Dustin groaned, and threw his head back. Just as quickly, he straightened up. “Wait. The one with the big green eyes and the bangin’ booty? That the one you talkin’ about? I thought she only liked Cats.”

“She likes Bears well enough. After all, Cats can’t really afford to be picky. There aren’t many of them, and she knows there’s some taint to her family’s name after what Billy did to the group. She’s certainly not going to eliminate any names from the very short list of potential mates.”

“And she likes
me
?”

“She thinks you’re funny, and…” Drea stifled a snort. She didn’t want the guy to take her amusement personally. “Sophisticated.”

“
Sheeee-it
. All right, now.”

“I’ll ask if she wants me to give you her number, okay?”

“Please do. I ain’t trying to be single this summer.”

“Me neither.” Drea needed to make sure Peter knew that, too. If she had her way, she’d be mated by weekend.

Peter, Bryan, Soren, and Eric hadn’t retreated so much as pulled back to give Gene a bit of room to hang himself. From their position in an abandoned farm stand on the neighboring property, they could still easily see the comings and goings on the farm with the aid of binoculars, though they would have to haul ass to catch up if Gene really did decide to hit the road again. They didn’t have to whisper anymore, though, so that was one benefit of the distance.

Soren, squatting in one corner and squinting at his phone screen, said, “I wouldn’t normally suggest calling for law enforcement backup, but I think in this case, doing so would be justifiable.”

“What are you thinking?” Peter asked.

“Well, for one thing, the owner—his ex—she’s a registered local business. She’s got the sign at the road and a toll-free number and everything. If she’s not answering her phone for hours on end in the middle of the day, it’s logical that someone would be suspicious about why.”

“Especially people who’ve done business with her and are used to coming by at certain times,” Eric said. “Yeah. My neighbors near the lodge would do that to me if I suddenly stopped answering the phone.” He rubbed the scruff on his chin and peered out the little ventilation window toward the paddock. “He can’t possibly take any additional hostages. He’s just one man, and aside from his propensity to cut people, there’s a chance he’s not as dangerous as he lets on. Plus, the parents of those kids are going to start showing up soon when their kids don’t go home. He’s going to be vastly outnumbered. The thing we need to be most concerned about right now is getting close to the house without any of the kids or the lady getting hurt. We want zero casualties.”

“Dana and the girls are nearly here.” Bryan squinted at his own phone. “They parked down the road. They’re going to hoof it. They’ve been in situations like this before where they’ve had to extract children from a scene before a firefight, so they’ll be better at strategizing on that front than we are.”

Tamara slipped quickly into the small building with Dana and Maria on her heels. Tam looked from Peter to Soren, saying nothing, then said “hello” to Eric, and went to Bryan.

Peter rolled his eyes.

Maria went straight to Eric and let him pull her into an embrace. “Did you get a count of how many kids are in there?” Maria asked.

“Unless they’re swapping out clothes and muddling our count, the best we could discern from this distance is that there are three, in addition to the owner’s son.”

“Gene’s son, you mean,” Dana said. “Poor kid. And four’s not awful compared to some situations we’ve had to defuse, but I’d prefer they not be involved at all.” She peered out the window and unsheathed one of her guns from its holster. The weapon wasn’t one of her usual firearms, as far as Peter could tell, but one that had been modified to shoot tranquilizer darts.

“You want me to hold onto that?” he asked.

“Sure,” Dana said through gritted teeth. “I likely have the keenest vision of anyone in this room right now, so if I have to take a shot from a distance, I won’t be using that little peashooter.” She bent and unzipped the large duffel Tam had deposited near the door and lifted a rifle from the bottom. A high-power scope was mounted at the top, perfect for lining up sniper shots.

She held up a couple of bullets—one silver, and one Peter had never seen the likes of before.

Peter took the second and rolled it in his palm. “What is that?”

Soren peered over his shoulder.

“Doc had some friends of hers specially develop new ammo for us,” Dana said. “She calls them Tranquilizer Darts 2.0.”

“Doesn’t look like a dart. Looks to me like any other bullet.”

“That’s because it has to be fired like one, but it doesn’t go through the body the same way. The chemical reaction that occurs when you fire the gun weakens the outer casing, and when the bullet impacts the subject you’ve fired at, the point retracts and falls away so the trio of injector prongs are exposed.” She rubbed her thumb over the pointed end and ground her teeth. “It’s like a bee’s stinger. Clings to the flesh so the prongs have time to deposit the drug.”

“And because when a person is shot, their compulsion isn’t to knock something away but to put a hand over the wound…” Maria said.

Eric grunted. “Right. If they press a hand where they’re hurting, they’d be helping to move the drug along.”

Dana nodded. “The bullets have been tested and have been successful at shorter ranges, but if push comes to shove, we’ll take him where we can get him.”

“We want him alive,” Tam said, looking squarely at Peter.

His turn to grunt. “I know that was the
plan
,” Peter said, “but sometimes, plans change on the fly.”

“Oh, we’re doing this by the book, and I’m going to tell you why.” She plopped her hands onto her hips and raised her chin at him. It wasn’t daring posturing—and he’d certainly seen enough of that from Tam to be able to recognize her version of it—but stubborn resilience. Typical Ursu. “We have a very smart lady back at our office.”

“Do you?”

“Mm-hmm. She’s far too good for you, but that’s neither here nor there. The point is, she’s been asking lots of people lots of questions that no one else thought to ask before. The answers didn’t matter before, I guess, because we’ve been running in barebones survival mode for so long and we haven’t had time to do much of anything that didn’t involve a confrontation of some sort.”

“And what did this smart lady who’s too good for me find out?”

“Well, first, she found out that quite a bit of the illicit substance Gene was bringing into the area was manufactured by a drug company with a very special interest in freaks like you and me.”

“Yeah?”

“Mm-hmm.” She nodded and smiled sweetly. “They disguised their activity by hiding what they were doing among the rest of the drug trade. They were sending drugs into the area knowing all that weed and meth would get into the hands of depressed Bears and Catamounts and whatever else. They certainly were responsible in part for depressing them. And they were
very
interested in seeing how their drugs would affect them.”

“What were they lacing the drugs with?” Soren asked.

“We don’t know,” Dana said. “We haven’t had the chance to test any samples yet, but we do still have some from that last seize Bryan did a few months ago. Dustin helped Drea figure all this out. He told her that one of the suppliers was a man in a truck with a particular sticker, and she did a reverse search on that image and found the exact drug company the logo belonged to.”

“Why do I get a sinking feeling?” Bryan asked.

“Because you’re smart,” Tam said. “We know a lot about that drug company. It was the same drug company that killed so many women in that fucking SHREW study and that nearly killed
us
.”

The rumble coming from Bryan’s chest was pitched so low that it tickled Peter’s inner ears and made the hairs on his arms stand up. He rubbed them down.

“What we don’t know,” Maria said, “is how long they’ve been at this. They could have started this experiment at around the same time they were running the SHREW study.”

“To what end?” Eric asked.

“This is just my paranoia talking,” Dana said, “but I believe the two studies were supposed to complement. One meant for shifters and other people with supernatural abilities, and one meant for humans. I believe now that the end goal of the SHREW study was to actually
create
artificial shifters using drugs, but obviously that’s not what happened. You can’t make a shifter like that.”

“And I think Gene knew that,” Maria said. “Drea was able to get some folks at the company to talk, especially once she set Astrid on them. Astrid can get anyone so tongue-tied that they can’t remember what they weren’t supposed to be saying. Drea and Astrid couldn’t get much info, but just enough to find out that Gene
did
work for that company in the time leading up to his takeover of the Ridge Bear group.”

“So you’re thinking he identified us as a likely subject group to run a study out of, but how does that account for all the other shit he did?” Bryan asked.

Tam shrugged. “Things got muddy. This is all speculation. We haven’t had time to put all the pieces together, but my opinion is that he wasn’t supposed to be so conspicuous. He was likely just supposed to join up with the group, like others in his position at the company did in other shifter groups. We’ve already identified who that person was in the local wolf group, and their alpha and his lieutenants are trying to squeeze information out of him now. They owe us a favor. Yay.”

Peter folded his arms over his chest and ground his teeth for a bit. “He got greedy. Gene, I mean.”

“That’s what we think,” Dana said. “He saw an opportunity in the Ridge Bears because they were so laid-back. He wasn’t
supposed
to be running a horrific little dynasty out of the mountains. He just saw an opportunity and ran with it. The people at the drug company claim they haven’t had any contact with him in months, but we don’t buy that. With ethics as questionable as theirs, I can’t believe they were completely in the dark about his activities. I think they knew what he was doing and just didn’t care.”

“I changed my mind,” Soren said flatly. “I don’t want to get law enforcement involved.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Dana said. “They know we’re here. I have a habit of filling folks in when I think shit’s gonna hit the fan. I have a network of contacts. They all know that there are people like us who exist and that sometimes, we have to handle situations using means that aren’t officially sanctioned by the law. There’s a fine balance we have to strike. Morality and legality don’t always intersect.”

“We’ve got paramedics nearby and on standby in case we need them,” Maria said. “The most important thing for us to consider right now is getting those kids out of there with as little trauma as possible. Explaining to them what happened is going to be hard enough, and we’d like to avoid having to put a supernatural spin on the story.”

“Understood,” Peter said. “So…what’s the plan?”

“It’s Drea’s plan, actually.” Dana loaded two of those odd new bullets into the rifle and pocketed the silver ones, probably “just in case” some shifter lost his shit.

Peter was certainly feeling like he would. He was even more convinced that life was a gift far too good for Gene.

“I should pay her more,” Dana mused.

“What is the plan?”

“She’s repeatedly calling the farm’s main line right now and, of course, the lady of the house isn’t going to answer. So, it makes sense that someone would just take a chance and drop in.”

They all went still at the approaching rumble of a truck engine.

“I believe that’s the sound of your conveyance, folks.”

The truck idled at the road in front of the stand.

Peter peeked out the window and found a rig parked in the roadway. He moved to the door and opened it a crack. The truck had a flatbed trailer with some tarps covering huge lumps on the back.

The guy who jumped down from the driver’s seat was none other than the New York State Coyote pack’s alpha, Jim West.

He jogged over in comically bright farmer’s attire—plaid shirt, trucker hat and all—that probably hadn’t even been broken in. “Got down here as fast as I could.”

“We’re just getting here ourselves,” Dana said.

“Ready to do this? I’m happy to go to the door. Gene will probably follow her, or at least be nearby so he can hear the conversation.”

“While he’s distracted,” Tamara said, “we’ll try to get in through a different door. Soren can pick a lock faster than anyone I’ve ever seen, and Maria has a freakish knack for calming kids. We’ll send those two together, and the rest of us can cover the other sides. We’ll break windows if we have to, but if Gene is the punk we think he is, we probably won’t have to do that. If we’re right, he’s just going to fluff up his ruffle like a frilled-neck lizard and make himself look big, but he’s only going to be able to hurt one person at a time. Let’s make sure his next victim isn’t one of those kids.”

“So this comes down to us acting before he does,” Peter said. “And being mindful that he’s not the sort of man who plays by the rules.”

“That’s an understatement,” Maria said. “He’s a psychopath. If there were a stronger chain of evidence in this mess, there’d be huge grounds for yet another class-action lawsuit against the drug company, but what’s been happening here isn’t anything a reasonable officer of the court would believe. We can’t expose what they’ve been doing without exposing what we are to the public.”

“That doesn’t mean we can’t get them to pay up.”

Tamara squinted at him.

“What?” he asked.

“Behave.”

“I am. I was just making the point that we don’t need courts to enforce a retribution scheme. I happen to know certain individuals who could ensure CarrHealth issues fair compensation to all wounded parties.”

Especially Andrea. By the time Peter was done with them, they were going to have to sell everything that wasn’t nailed down to prove just how sorry they were.