30. Steff

THIRTY

STEFF

The cops got there faster than I'd expected. It was only one cruiser at first. Leaving April to sit on her bed, I went downstairs to join Tate. The officer that came in didn't look older than twenty-one. The kid took one look in the box on the island and promptly sprinted from the house to puke his guts up in the front yard. Once he was done, he called in backup and a crime scene assessment team.

Within fifteen minutes, the house was buzzing with activity. It irritated me that they seemed more concerned with this situation than they had when Aiden had been kidnapped. One of the detectives that arrived to question us was one of the same guys who'd been there the night the dead body had been left outside the door of the security firm.

He took one look at me and Tate and raised an eyebrow. "Mr. James? Mr. Mills? I have to say, I'm getting a little tired of meeting you in these situations."

"Trust me, Officer. We're equally as tired," Tate said.

"Any idea who did this?"

"Yes," I said. "Ryland Fields. He did this, just like he kidnapped Aiden Knight."

The detective gave us a skeptical look before pulling out his phone. "Hey, this is Duggan. Can we send a cruiser up to the high school? I need us to do a… uh… welfare check on Ryland Fields. He's a teacher there. Let me know what you guys find." He hung up and looked at us again. "Happy?"

I nodded, relieved that they were doing something. Maybe this time the cops would actually be a help to us.

"Mind if I see the box?"

Tate led Duggan over to the kitchen. Duggan glanced inside and whistled. "That is… not pleasant. Who's in the picture?"

It was my turn to answer. "His name is Luca Karson. He goes by Luca. He's been hassling April for a while now. We're pretty sure Ryland did this to try to show April how much he cares about her. Sick fuck."

"Hearsay, Mr. James. I'll write it down, but currently there is no evidence of any of that. Can I speak with Miss Knight?"

I was reluctant to have April subjected to questioning with how distraught she was, but it was necessary. Nodding, I went up the stairs to get her. She was still sitting on the bed, a blank look on her face.

"Hey, babe. The… well, the cops want to talk to you."

"Okay," she said in barely a mumble.

Downstairs, Detective Duggan took her to the couch, out of the way of the crime scene unit. His face and voice became softer and more compassionate with April than it had been with us.

"Miss Knight, I'm sorry this has happened to you. Can you detail what happened this morning?"

April went through everything that happened. I got more and more pissed off as she talked. I wasn't mad at her, I was mad at Ryland, and even angrier at myself. I'd left her here to deal with this by herself. My bear had been acting more like a beast than a companion, so I'd gone on a run to try to reason with it. It couldn't keep trying to take over and claim April without her consent. The run was supposed to get some of the pent-up angst out of both of us.

I'd snarled and snapped at every rabbit and squirrel I'd seen as I'd gallop through the underbrush until we came to the open clearing where we liked to relax. We sat there, and I tried to reason with the bear, chastising it for mounting April that morning. It growled back at me, angry that I'd question its motives. I then reminded it of how scared he'd made her, and the bear had wilted in shame.

My body was aching from not sealing the bond with her, but I could handle the pain. The bear needed to as well. I made it a deal that we would talk to her about the claiming as soon as the danger with Ryland was over. The bear hadn't liked that and had grumbled and growled at me, desperate to do it right then. For the first time in my life, I'd been pissed at the beast that shared my body. I'd told it that April would actually be in more danger from the hunters if she were turned before Ryland was dealt with. Did it want her to die because it couldn't wait?

The bear had finally, grudgingly, accepted my deal. It didn't care for usual human things, but the thought of protecting its mate was one thing that seemed to break through its stubborn head. The beast finally settled and calmed down. The guilt the creature felt bled through, and I knew it had regrets for how it acted. Instincts could be a difficult thing to overcome. Still, we'd wasted all that time in the forest hashing things out instead of being with April.

As I came jogging out of the forest, shifting back to human form, Tate's truck had pulled up in the driveway. He'd gotten out and waved me down.

"Bro, April called. You freaked her the fuck out, man. What did I tell you about this?"

I'd opened my mouth to respond but was cut off by the blood-curdling scream from inside the house. That had both Tate and me setting off at a sprint. I nearly tore the door off its hinges as I plowed in, panicked to find what had caused her to scream like that.

Now, we stood there watching her answer questions about something she never should have had to deal with. If I'd been here, I would have demanded I be the one to open the box. I would have seen the disgusting mess inside it. If I hadn't been out in the woods arguing with my damn bear, she wouldn't have had to endure this. I wanted to drive a fist into my own face. It had almost broken me to see her crumpled on the floor, terror and disgust on her face. All I could think was that I was a piece of shit.

Detective Duggan finished speaking with April and stood, walking back to Tate and me. Before he could speak, his phone rang. "This is Duggan." His face went slack, and he threw a suspicious glance our way. "Okay. Go ahead and check his house. Get a picture out there so all the patrols can look out for him."

He hung up and looked at me. "Mr. Fields didn't show up for work today. Didn't call the principal or anything. Full no-show. Principal is pretty pissed about it. There's a crew heading to his house to look for him. Looks like you all may have been right." He nodded toward the security panel by the door. "We'll need to see those videos. Try to make an ID on whoever dropped the package."

Tate nodded. "I'll have my team email the link to you. All the footage is stored on our cloud."

Duggan nodded. "Thank you. I'll leave the crime scene team to finish up. I'm going to go help look for this Ryland guy. Call us if anything else happens. Understand?"

We both nodded. Though, I wasn't sure that we would call. It was bad enough that Ryland had revealed himself. Did we really want the cops to find him? Who knew what kind of information he had on us? He worked for the hunters, and they wanted to expose our existence. That would cause panic and perhaps a full-blown witch hunt—or shifter hunt, in this case. It might be better if we dealt with it ourselves. Better and safer.

Blayne arrived fifteen minutes later, carrying a laptop under his arm. The crime scene team was outside trying to take fingerprints from the porch railing and doorbell. I doubted the guy would have been that dumb. Tate and I pulled Blayne into the spare bedroom and closed the door behind us.

"What's on the video?" I asked, desperate for answers.

As he booted up the computer, Blayne shook his head. "Not totally sure yet. When Tate texted me what happened, I only took the time to download the videos to my laptop. I watched a few minutes before I came, but not the whole thing. Pulled some other feeds from Steff's house, but they didn't seem to have anything useful. We'll see what we can find."

Within seconds, Blayne had the program up and running and forwarded to the time-frame we needed to see. He pointed at the delivery guy. "This is worrying. He's got that hat pulled down and he keeps looking at this clipboard. Not typically unusual, I guess. The problem is this." Blayne sped the tape up, and I saw exactly what he was saying. "He's angling his hat to keep his face hidden, but he's doing it at exactly the right angles. Almost like he knows precisely where the cameras are and at what angle the lenses are set. It's like he's seen her system or something."

"Not possible," I said. "We had our own team install that, and there's no way the hunters could have gotten into her house to look at her monitor."

"Right?" Blayne frowned, looking confused. "If not, he's really good at guessing."

The video showed the delivery guy walking up the steps, and something else stuck out. The body, the height, and the musculature? None of them matched Ryland's body type. I pointed this out and Tate nodded.

"They knew Ryland would be recognized first thing. Probably one of his minions. I checked before I came over. None of the normal delivery services had trucks anywhere near April's place. Same with the post office. The dude most definitely is not a legit delivery driver," Blayne said.

Something else didn't seem right. There was something familiar about the way he moved. The mannerisms. It tickled the back of my mind, and I wondered if I'd seen this hunter before. They tended to hide in plain sight. Ryland was a teacher, for God's sake. This guy may have been a teller at the bank I used, the guy who made my sandwich at the local deli, or even the mechanic who changed my oil. The thought chilled me.

Tate waved a hand at the screen. "Okay, this is useless. What other angles do we have? Anything?"

Blayne sighed. "Like I said, I've got the cameras from Steff's place next door, but they were even less help. The guy came from the opposite side and left the same way. Again, like he knew there were cameras over there. Not a difficult thing to assume knowing where Steff works."

"Okay, think outside the box," Tate said. "Street cameras? Other security systems down the street? Any of those we can access?"

Blayne grinned up at him. "You want me to hack them? That's illegal, you know."

Tate and I glared at him.

Blayne nodded. "Got it. Illegal, here we come."

Blayne had done similar things in the past and already had some back doors in place to access the city street cameras. It took him another twenty minutes to find any nearby security systems and access them. Our systems were better designed than anything you could typically buy. Blayne's knowledge of our programming made it almost too easy to break through their firewalls.

Once he had access, he ran through the timeline, looking for flashes of movement that looked like our guy. The first thing we got was from a neighbor down the street. It was only a distant image of his back as he walked away.

I pointed at the screen. "Is he walking toward that truck?"

In the top corner of the screen there looked to be a truck parked in a grassy area off the street. Blayne tried zooming in on the image, but it became too distorted. Instead, he scanned through the city feeds. The grassy area was opposite a small park that was at the edge of my and April's neighborhood.

"I think we've hit the jackpot," Blayne said.

There was a camera attached to a light pole that overlooked the swings and slides of the park. In the upper portion, the truck was clearly visible. We could even read the license plate. It was freaking crystal clear. We didn't even need to run the plate, though. I recognized the truck. I'd seen it nearly a year ago when we'd chased the hunters off Harley's property. They'd all jumped into the back of this exact truck. I recognized the big red scrape down the side that looked like it had sideswiped a car at some point. There was no denying it. This car belonged to the hunters.

"Can you zoom?" I asked.

"The video wasn't zoomed when it was recorded. I can zoom individual frames, though, click through them. It'll be pretty much the same. Hang on."

In seconds, Blayne was flicking through blown-up images of the driver side. It was like watching the world's slowest flip book. Each image showed a half second of time. It seemed to take forever until the delivery guy got to the driver's side door. The brown suit appeared. The face was still turned away from the camera, though.

I cursed as each frame clicked by without showing his face. Then, blessedly, the guy screwed up. He turned to glance over his shoulder. Probably checking to see if anyone was watching him leave. His face was finally visible to the camera, and it was crystal clear. My body went stiff and the hair rose at the back of my neck.

"Wait? What the fuck?" Tate whispered behind me.

"What the fuck indeed. What the hell is going on, Steff?" Blayne asked.

I didn't answer. All I could do was stare at the face on the screen. My blood seemed to be alternating between freezing and boiling. My brain wanted to split apart, because it made absolutely no sense. I shook my head at my friends as I stared at Kellan's face on the screen.

It made no sense. How could Kellan be working with the hunters? How could he do something like this after what they did to Aiden? There was no way the kidnapping was fake. I'd seen how it had affected Kellan. He'd been a step away from shock. No one was that good of an actor. What the fuck was going on?

"I need to take care of April. We… I guess we need to think about this. Before we act, I mean," I said, backing out of the room.

Blayne looked worried, and Tate looked pissed. I didn't blame him. If Kellan really was working with the hunters, it meant he was helping the people who wanted to kill Tate and his family. It worried me. What would happen the next time Tate saw Kellan? Jesus, what would happen the next time I saw him?

Without another word, I left the bedroom and found April still on the couch. The crime scene team was packing up and heading out the door. She looked a little less distraught, but I could tell she was still traumatized. My bear stirred within me, wanting to comfort her.

We didn't even speak, all I did was rub her back and lead her upstairs to bed. I got her shoes and pants off and helped her slip under the covers.

"Take a nap, if you can. Hopefully, you'll feel better when you get up."

April barely managed a nod. "Thank you, Steff."

Tate and Blayne left not long after, and I was alone with my thoughts. It was hard to believe that my oldest friend could be involved in this crazy conspiracy. My heart was telling me that there was no way I could entertain the thought. My brain was telling me the opposite. I went over how easily he'd accepted the fact that I was a shifter. The way he'd told me that he'd guessed something was off about me, even when we were kids. That he'd known I wasn't quite human. He was supposed to be my friend. Christ, he was basically my brother. The idea that I could be betrayed by another brother like this almost sent me over the edge.

That night, I threw a frozen pizza in the oven and tossed together a simple salad. April came down after being in bed for nearly six hours. Somehow, she looked both rested and exhausted. We ate in silence. I didn't want to broach the subject, so I waited for April to say something first.

After finishing her salad, she sighed. "I can't stop thinking about it, Steff. Those… things in the box? Luca was a son of a bitch, but no one deserves that. They maimed him. The cruelty and heartlessness? How can anyone be that way?"

"I know. It's crazy." There was no way I was going to tell her that our one lead was Kellan. "We're working on it. Hopefully, this will all be over soon."

"I'm not hungry anymore," April said. "Can we sit on the couch? I just want to be held."

Eager to help her in any way I could, I took her hand and we snuggled up together on the couch. We sat that way, in silence, for several minutes. The weight of what I knew was crushing me, but if April found out? It would totally destroy her. She'd already experienced something today that would have made anyone question their sanity. I had to keep the secret, at least until there was no other way around it.

"Are you okay?" April asked.

"Me? What about me?"

"I'm still worried about you. The way you've been acting. How do you feel?"

It made me feel like shit, that even with everything going on, April was still worried for me. I nodded, "I'm better. I'm sorry I left you here alone. It'll never happen again. I promise that."

Her head moved against my chest. "Good. You had me worried. Also… I've made a decision."

My bear immediately rose to attention, eager to hear what she had to say and hoping beyond hope that she was going to ask to be claimed. My human mind fought against it, irritated that the bear worried so much about that, even after the agreement we made.

Keeping my voice neutral, I said, "What's that?"

"There's no question anymore. I can't go back to that life. Not now. I'm retiring. I'm sure of that now."

I sighed and relaxed. My bear was disappointed, but still glad that she wouldn't be leaving. It wasn't the news it wanted, but it was better than the thought of her leaving.

"I think that's a good choice. I respect it, and support you."

We watched TV, but neither of us really paid any attention to what was on. After a few hours, we decided to go to bed early. April, even after her long nap, fell asleep almost instantly. I stayed up for hours, mulling over everything that had happened that day. My eyes finally slid shut for good after midnight.

The next day, April's parents came over. Knowing her dad was there, I felt it was safe to leave April alone to go meet with the guys. April's dad was a scary dude, and if anyone tried anything, he'd rip them apart.

They were both on high alert when they got there. Apparently, the news about Luca was all over the media. The only details they had was that he'd been assaulted. That was putting it mildly. There was no mention of the box or April's involvement. The police were keeping things pretty tightly wrapped up, which was a good thing.

When I got to the office, the guys were already there, and our entire staff was out patrolling the town. Everyone except Kennedy, who was at her usual place at the reception desk. The guys were in the conference room. As soon as I walked in, I saw Kellan's face on the big screen at the front of the room. It was the zoomed-in picture we'd found the day before.

"Okay," Miles said. "What do we do about Mr. Knight here?"

"First off. Which brother is this? I know it's one of them, but they're identical. Kris or Kellan?" Tate asked.

I sat down and shook my head. "One hundred percent Kellan. I've known those guys for decades. They're identical, but there are ways to tell them apart." I pointed at the screen. "For this, it's the eyebrows. Kellan's are thicker. Plus there's that scar above his left eyebrow. We thought we'd be cute when we were thirteen and pierce our eyebrows. Kellan went first. When Kris slammed the needle through, Kellan jerked. The whole thing ripped out. Left a nasty gash. After seeing the blood and listening to him scream, Kris and I decided against it. That is Kellan. Without a fucking doubt."

Seeing the picture again made the pain heat up inside me again. Fresh and painful. It hurt almost as bad as when my pack turned me out. In some ways, it hurt worse. When my pack kicked me out, it had only affected me. This? It affected all my friends, me, and our families. Plus his own son and sister.

"How do we play this out?" Tate asked.

"I need to be the one to confront him. Alone," I said. "I've known him the longest. It's my mate he fucked with. It has to be me."

"Okay," Blayne said. "We do it your way, but we station nearby. If something goes wrong, we have to be able to get to you and help quickly. We can get a wire on you. Get the confession. It's not for the police—we all know that it's probably for the best if they don't find Ryland at all. God knows what information he might release if the cops get to him first."

"Right," Miles said. "Get whatever information you can out of Kellan that helps us find the hunters."

Kellan was a means to an end. That didn't mean he wasn't going to have to answer for what he'd done. We had to focus on the bigger picture, but his time was coming. It would destroy April to find out about her brother's betrayal, but we had to play this out to the end. We had to be smart and go along as though we didn't have any suspicion of Kellan at all. Not until I confronted him with the evidence and pressed him for every single thing he knew.