Dreaming of the Wolf (40 page)

Jake shook his head and tore off after the scent of the two intruding wolves.

Peter was the sheriff, and Heston was a new deputy. The rest of the men, even Sam, were deputized whenever they needed to go on a manhunt
or
wolf hunt. So there wasn’t any need to call in anyone else to apprehend the human bastards. And if they died in the shoot-out, they died. Simple as that. Lawmen had a right to protect themselves. In Silver Town, that’s just what they did.

As for the wolves…

Jake was hot on their trail. Or at least one of them.

He finally discovered the wolf backed up against a pine tree and growling at him. Jake didn’t know if it was Mario or someone else, but he didn’t care. The wolf represented trouble for Alicia and for their kind. If he was ever arrested, and since he was either Mario or one of his men and eventually would be, he couldn’t be allowed to live. Still, Jake couldn’t, with a human conscience, just outright kill without the wolf first attacking.

They’d figure out something else to do with him, but what, Jake wasn’t sure. It wasn’t the first time he’d been glad Darien and Lelandi were the pack leaders. Tom and Jake and others of the pack advised them, but ultimately, decisions of this nature were left up to Darien and Lelandi.

The gray wolf continued to snarl and growl at Jake, his nose wrinkled in a hideous display of ferocity, his canines fully exposed, the fur on his back standing on end.

Another couple of shots were fired off some distance in the woods. Jake wasn’t sure if that prompted the wolf to attack, or if Jake’s failure to look ferocious made the wolf believe Jake was not someone to fear. But the attack came and Jake tore into him, showing the wolf he wasn’t one to mess with as his teeth tore at the wolf’s neck. The villain shook him loose and skittered away with a yelp.

Then he uttered a low growl right before he dove for Jake for a second time. He wasn’t a skilled wolf at attacking, which meant he probably hadn’t used his wolf instincts in wolf-to-wolf combat much, if ever. Although some instincts would come into play in a fight to the death.

But the guy was much heavier than Jake, and the damned beast actually knocked him off his feet with the second charge. Adrenaline coursing through his blood, Jake scrambled to get to his feet, knowing he could have been dead meat if the wolf had known how to attack him just right. Not wanting the wolf to learn from his mistakes or to put Jake in too vulnerable a position again, he attacked the bigger wolf this time. But it was like slamming into a damned brick wall. Jake dodged before the wolf could take a bite. The man reminded Jake of a bully with more brute strength than brains.

The wolf looked pleased, like he was smiling at Jake, and that pissed Jake off. Sure, the guy was a bigger wolf, but he wasn’t going to win this battle. Not with Alicia’s life at stake.

And with his attack on Jake, the deal was off. The pack leaders wouldn’t decide this guy’s fate. He was Jake’s for the taking.

Jake lunged at the wolf, going for his throat again. The wolf’s and Jake’s teeth clashed in a wicked snapping of canines. Enamel hit enamel with resounding whacks, snarls ricocheting off the trees like a wolves’ warning to others to stay away. Then like two fighters in the ring, neither of them making any headway, they both fell away.

Two wolves were out here, Jake reminded himself. Two wolves and he had to get the other also. He had to end this now. Easier said than done as he again attacked and the wolf matched Jake’s skill with more brute force.

Jake whipped around in a circle, and before the wolf realized he was attacking again, Jake grabbed him by the throat. The wolf tried to yank away and nearly succeeded. But Jake held on, tightened his grip, and crushed him.

He didn’t wait to see what happened next. It didn’t matter whether Mario or the other man lay dead on the ground and would return to his human form. One was still on the loose as a wolf, as far as Jake knew. And his time to locate the bastard was growing short.

Jake tore off, trying to track the footpad scent of the other wolf who wasn’t part of their pack. That’s when he realized the wolf had gone straight to the damned front door! The shooters were the diversionary force. Damn it!

Alicia was alone and unprotected.

***

Not having time to dress any further, except for putting on the red panties and bra, Alicia dropped her jeans and looked around the bedroom for her purse, not remembering where she’d left it while everyone was still moving furniture. Kitchen? Living room? That’s where her pepper spray and stun gun were tucked away.

Jake’s gun! But where was it now? After he’d taken it into her apartment to use as protection, she didn’t remember him doing anything with it. Had he returned it to the glove compartment?

With the sudden rush of footfalls toward the bedroom, it was too late to go for the gun. She raced to the window and had only managed to unlock it when someone barged into the bedroom.

She whipped around and stared aghast at Mario Constantino. He was naked, tall, and big, but mostly naked. She was so startled at the sight of him in the raw that she didn’t react fast enough. He took two quick strides into the room and struck her in the temple with his meaty fist. A stab of pain shot through her temple before blackness cloaked her and she crumpled to the floor.

***

Jake whipped around to the back of the house and slipped through the wolf door, then raced down the hall to the bedroom where he heard someone rummaging around.

When he peered into the room, he saw a naked-assed Mario Constantino dumping all of Alicia’s things from the boxes onto the floor. Alicia was dead to the world, lying on the bed.

Jake growled low and threatening. Mario swung around, and Jake swore the bastard was about to have a heart attack. He quickly looked back at Alicia.

Yeah, you’ll pay, bastard.

Mario’s mouth dropped open as his attention returned to Jake. “Hell, you’re a wolf? The artist?”

So Mario had thought Alicia had turned into the wolf. That was the reason for him looking back at her on the bed.

Jake growled even lower, pushing Mario to shape-shift. But the bastard wouldn’t. Maybe he couldn’t.
Damn
him
. Jake couldn’t let him live.

Jake advanced, still growling, his hackles raised and his posture as menacing as he’d ever been. Angry didn’t begin to describe how he felt about Alicia and the way this bastard had hurt her. Or what Mario planned to do with her in the future, if Jake let him live.

Mario was scowling and livid, probably because he’d been caught, but he still didn’t shift.

Jake drew closer, growling, threatening.

Mario grabbed one of the half-empty boxes and threw it at Jake. He dodged it and turned his focus back on Mario as he shape-shifted into the wolf. Like the other wolf, he was bigger than Jake, but this time Jake wasn’t going to give him time to make the first move.

He went for the wolf’s throat and sent him crashing into the closet door, but Mario somehow managed to scramble over one of the cardboard boxes and slip away. Relentlessly, Jake went after him again. Jake bit at him, got a mouthful of fur, and broke the skin on Mario’s shoulder. Mario yelped and skittered away. For being a tough bastard as a Mob leader, he was a cowardly wolf.

He probably felt much more capable with a gun in his hand. Or having others doing his dirty work for him.

Jake leaped over the cardboard box in his way, and Mario tried to reach the door.

But there stood Alicia in her red push-up bra and silky red thong, her hand against her temple, unsteady on her feet, her face pale, her expression pained. Mario stopped for an instant. With her free hand, she shut the door, sealing his fate.

Worried Mario would hurt Alicia, Jake tackled him from behind. Mario whipped around with Jake clinging to his back, holding on with both paws, trying to get a better grip on his neck.

The voices of men hollering outside caught Jake’s attention, but he remained focused on Mario and bringing him down. He heard the box springs squeak and figured Alicia had collapsed on the bed before she passed out again.

Mario was still trying to wriggle free, and Jake kept losing his grip on the massive wolf’s neck.

“Where’s Jake?” Darien hollered outside the back of the house.

“In the house,” Sam shouted back. “He’s fighting someone as a wolf.”

Not
for
long
.

Mario stumbled over a box and got his feet tangled in Alicia’s jeans, and Jake bit him hard in the throat. Killing him. For Alicia. For her mother. For her father.

***

The next day, Alicia’s temple was black and blue from where Mario had struck her. She was seated on the couch in Darien’s home with Jake’s arm around her. Darien, Tom, Lelandi, and Peter offered her moral support as two federal agents sat down to talk with her.

One was a pretty blond with a short bobbed haircut and a smart black suit-skirt and pretty hazel eyes. The man was dark haired and dark eyed, also wearing a black suit. Both were probably in their early thirties and both professional, yet instead of appearing as though they wanted to grill Alicia, they seemed…

She wasn’t sure. Sympathetic, maybe?

That didn’t make any sense to her because she figured they would tie her into Mario’s death and his henchman’s, too. Peter had rounded up the men who had been the diversionary force for Mario at Jake’s home and turned them over to the federal authorities because they’d been involved in killings across state lines, racketeering, money laundering, and even lucrative Medicare scams. But a couple of the men had to heal from their bullet wounds before they appeared in court, Danny being one of them.

“Miss Greiston,” the woman said, identifying herself as Agent White and the man as Agent Stone, “we want to commend you for bringing Constantino and his men down.”

Alicia looked at Jake. He smiled at her and tightened his arm around her shoulder in a warm embrace.

“Your father, Antonio Frasero, started the work.”

“He… was working for you?”

“Yes, as an informant. He was working for Constantino, but only to get the goods on him. That little black book you found in your mother’s safe-deposit box? It had all the records we needed to put the whole lot away for life.”

Again she looked at Jake.

“I gave it to Peter to give to the authorities,” Jake said. “The sheriff must have turned it over to the Feds.”

“But helping you got my father killed,” Alicia said to the woman agent.

“We gave him a deal. He was working for another crime boss when we caught up with him. We had enough on your father to give him a life sentence for his own crimes. He’d only been married to your mother for a couple of years, and you were not even two years old. They agreed he’d work for us so he’d stay out of prison.”

“But my mother was dating other men.”

“Only undercover. They were Feds whose job was to make it appear Antonio wasn’t her husband or too close to her while watching out for her. We knew Mario would go after her if he thought Antonio was selling him out.”

“Which Mario did.”

The woman took a deep breath and exhaled. “She loved your father and didn’t want to see anybody else any longer. She wanted to pretend she was Antonio’s lover when she was really his wife. We couldn’t convince them how dangerous it was. Mario must have thought she knew about Antonio’s working with us and had them both murdered. Then you came along. You wouldn’t have anything to do with Antonio, so we figured you were safe. But then when your mother was murdered, you tried to arrest Mario and…” Agent White shook her head.

“Why didn’t you protect Alicia when you must have known Mario would want her dead?” Jake asked, his voice sounding irritated.

“We couldn’t keep track of her. We put bugs on her car four times, and each time she located them and put them on other vehicles. We bugged her apartment, but she never returned home. She took off from the motel in Breckenridge and vanished. We only learned of it when you had the clerk contact the police to say she had disappeared. We assumed she had vanished on her own and figured she was safe.”

“Until?”

“She was connected to Ferdinand Massaro’s murder. We learned later that he was informing her as to Mario’s locations. He was one of our informants until something happened. All of a sudden he went rogue. We think it had something to do with Mario trying to have him killed.”

Agent White cleared her throat and said to Alicia, “In any event, we just want to say that even though your father started out on the wrong side of the law, he helped to put away several who would have continued their criminal activities by keeping all the records he did. And we have you to thank for handing over the little black book that made it all possible.”

“My mother was the innocent in all this.”

“Yes,” Agent White said sympathetically. “But she loved your father and couldn’t give up on him.”

Alicia understood some of what had gone on while she was growing up. The men who had been her mother’s boyfriends had only been Feds pretending to be something they weren’t. The ones who witnessed her weddings.

Had her father ever thought she was marrying the wrong men? Her mother hadn’t. She must have thought the guys Alicia had married were good sorts because they didn’t have anything to do with the Mob. But now Alicia understood why her father had wanted to keep his distance from her, probably to keep her safe but also to keep her from learning who he truly was—all about his checkered past. And yet, somewhere deep down, she suspected he wished he could have been the father to her that he might have been, had things been different.