Lycan Packs 1: Lycan Instinct (28 page)

“No,” Luc admitted. “It would’ve helped knowing how your lady lion came by the rental info.”

Rafe thought of Mackenzie, how her once passion-filled cries had turned to angry accusations, and how those warm blue eyes had become cold, dark sapphires. He’d caused that change, seen the hurt. He’d made her luscious lips curl into a furious sneer.
Lady lion
. The description fit. His mate had teeth.

Rafe stiffened beneath the fierce flood of pain, longing, and self-disgust. He wanted his mate, wanted to force her to listen, to accept him. His alpha instinct wanted to dominate, but he knew she wouldn’t accept any highhandedness. Look how she reacted when he’d done what he thought was best? Did she understand? No, she’d dropped those damn walls between them again without giving him a chance to explain.

Denied, he took his frustrations out on his brothers.

“If you’d found the bastard before now, that information would be irrelevant.”

Luc growled. “Fuck you. I’m not a damned miracle worker.”

Rafe took a menacing step forward. In a typical move as mediator, Gabe stepped between them and handed Rafe a balloon of brandy. “Calm down,” he told them, looking at Luc. “I don’t want to replace office furniture again.”

“Calm down? Tell that to him.” Luc pointed at Rafe. “What the hell’s gotten into you anyway?”

Rafe sipped the brandy, feeling the bite of the liquor as it warmed his throat. It did nothing to soothe the angry current running through him.

“I’m tired of excuses.” He pinned Luc with a steely stare. “You had a chance last year, too, and failed to stop him in Atlantic City. Now, a new detective with no experience tracking Lycans finds the trail before anyone here.” And put herself in the line of fire, he thought.

Luc’s hands balled into fists. “Excuses? I’ve waded through every sleaze-pit in the city while you’ve been sniffing around that human detective like a lost pound puppy. Not to mention having to stop the search every time you needed a ride or clothes or her car transported somewhere. You should’ve thought of that before putting us all in danger over a piece of a—”

“Luc,” Gabe cut him off and shoved a beer in his hand. “Watch it.”

“Don’t tell me to watch it. I’m not his goddamned flunkey, so don’t expect me to leap every time he yells, ‘Mush!’”

An opening door stopped any retort from Rafe and made Gabe sigh in relief, until he saw the worried expression on the messenger’s face. He took the note and waved him away, watching the grateful messenger scramble to close the door between them. After reading it, Gabe took a deep breath before announcing, “The GPS on Lyons’ car’s gone offline. Any idea how that happened?”

Hadn’t taken her long to find the device, Rafe thought, or get rid of it. He swirled the brandy in his crystal balloon. His insides had been churning in like fashion since he’d left Mackenzie’s. He wanted to curse her for ripping him apart, leaving him shaken and hollow inside. Instead, he cursed himself for marking a human as his mate, for foolishly falling in love with a self-reliant woman.

He surprised them all by sending the snifter crashing into the wall where it shattered in a mirror image of his heart.

“I’d say he has a clue,” Luc said after a moment, his tone half-amused, half-mocking.

“Luc, find her. Stay close. Wherever she goes, you go.”

Lucian smirked. “In other words, mush?”

“God damn it! I don’t have time to soothe your alpha ego. Do your fucking job. And if it’s a choice between your life or hers, you better choose correctly.”

“Rafe, that’s—” Gabe began, but Luc’s snarl cut him off.

“Son of a bitch.” Luc launched himself at Rafe.

The battle Gabe had hoped to avoid ensued. Fists and bodies flew as Rafe and Luc grappled. A lamp crashed to the floor. The table it had sat on splintered under their weight.

Rafe proved why his position as pack alpha was not an honorary title. He was the first to gain the upper hand, but it was not easily obtained. Unlike past challenges, his opponent this time was his brother, and they were equally matched.

He’d wanted a fight, a chance to release some of his pent-up aggression. So he’d pushed them until one finally responded.

He’d asked for it. Now he had to deal with it.

Luc showed remarkable skill, forcing Rafe to use every ounce of energy and strength to combat him. He took a blow to the gut that stole his breath, and punched Luc hard enough to send him slamming into Gabe’s desk, where he toppled a priceless jade statuette.

Cursing in a rather creative way, Gabe hauled Luc back and narrowly dodged a right hook for his efforts. “Stop it! He didn’t mean it that way.”

“The hell he didn’t.” Breathing heavily, Luc wiped away the blood dripping from his nose.

Gabe’s look urged Rafe to admit to the misunderstanding. “And you say I have a touchy trigger on my temper. Tell him you didn’t mean that the way it sounded.”

Rafe remained silent. He licked a drop of blood from his split lip.

“You heard him correctly,” Luc said. “You’re just too damn slow to realize it.” He smirked when Gabe turned an angry glare on him. “Think about it. When have you ever known our big brother to misspeak?”

Gabe shook his head stubbornly. “Rafe wouldn’t choose a human over his pack, Luc. Where’s your loyalty to the alpha?”

Luc gave a bark of laughter. “Loyalty? Maybe you should ask the alpha where his loyalty to the pack was when he mated with a human. It sure as hell wasn’t above his shoulders.”

A worried frown appeared on Gabe’s forehead. “Mated? He’s not mated... He wouldn’t, not without pack approval.” But when Rafe didn’t move to deny Luc’s claim, the truth sparked Gabe’s temper.

“Off-limits, my ass. She’s the ‘last person you’d want to find out about our secret’. That’s what you said. What happened to that? A human, a detective, for Pete’s sake.”

Rafe faced his brothers and pressed further. “A detective who’s kept my identity a secret since she learned about it.”

“For how long?” Gabe asked. “You can’t have a human as a mate.”

“I don’t see why not. Lycans have mated with humans before.”

“
Not the alpha
. You expect a
human
female to hold the position as alpha mate? You’re asking for trouble. The pack would never approve of a human—”

“Mating requires the alpha male’s approval, not the entire pack.” Rafe let his words sink in. Since he was the pack alpha, he didn’t need their approval. “She may not be Lycan, but she is my mate.”

“You’re choosing her over the pack?” Gabe’s hands fisted, punctuating the mix of anger and disbelief in his question.

“Not at all.” Rafe saw Gabe relax a bit at his words, but the reaction was short-lived. “As my mate, she’s part of this pack.”

Luc snorted. “Does she know that?”

Rafe bit back a retort and kept his face blank. Truth was Mackenzie didn’t know, so what could he say? Lucian, as was his way, hit a bull’s-eye and brought them back to the crux of the problem.

“She’s already proven trustworthy in keeping our existence a secret. She’ll come around to the rest.”
She had to
. His heart and future within the pack depended on it. “Meanwhile, I want her protected. As my mate, she’s in more danger now than ever before.”

“You picked a hell of a time for mating, brother.” Luc propped a hip on the desk, crossing his arms.

Rafe watched him for a long moment. Belligerence vibrated in every coiled muscle. His youngest brother made clear his disapproval of Rafe’s chosen mate. “If you are unable to give her the loyalty you’ve shown me, say so now.”

The two brothers eyed each other silently while Gabe went to the carved liquor cabinet, which somehow had survived the earlier brawl. The snap and fizz of a cola sounded as he poured himself a Bourbon and Coke. Taking a sip, he joined Luc to lean against the desk.

“You care for her, we know,” Gabe said, “but do you trust her? Do you trust her to understand L.I.’s mission, to accept it? You ask for our loyalty, but will we have hers?”

Mackenzie spent most of Sunday at the station, where she buried herself in work. Other detectives gave her a wide berth and, no doubt, breathed a sigh of relief when she called it a night at one in the morning. Telling herself she had a job to do, she returned before sunup. It had nothing to do with avoiding memories of Rafe in her apartment. She’d block out everything else but the job. What other choice did she have?

By the time Cooper reported for duty, her anger, once an inferno, had burned down to a numbing simmer and left a charred ache in its wake.

“Hey, Mac. What’s cooking?”

She bared her teeth. “Not a damn thing. Get off my desk, Coop. There’s a chair. Park your butt in it.”

“Whoa. What the hell’s gotten into you?” He put some space between them and took the chair.

She squeezed her eyes shut a second. “Sorry. Someone ate my M&Ms,” she lied. “Have you run the name on the rental car?”

“No. It’s bogus, Mac. You and I both know it.”

“Run it anyway. See if there were any airline tickets in that name. Start with the week prior to the first murder. Origination, New York or New Jersey. Maybe Nevada? Get with airport security and check security tapes. If the name turns up, I want a picture of the guy.”

“Damn, Mac. That’ll take a while.”

“Then I suggest you get on it.” She locked her PC. “On second thought, hand it off, but get someone on it now. See if anyone matches this guy.” She handed him a copy of a college class photo. “He’ll be older now.”

“Who’s this?”

“Anton Sagristano, AKA, Tony, Antonio, Anthony. Word is he goes by numerous aliases, typically using names with initials A.S. or T.S.”

“Tony Soprano.”

“Bingo. He’s wanted for questioning in several states, including New York, New Jersey, and here.” She tossed him an article she pulled off the Internet the night before. “That’s a news report on a crime family busted for running a scam on the health-care industry.”

“Health-care industry? I thought their specialty was labor unions, casinos, and trash pickup.”

“The mafia’s branching out. What can I say?” She pointed at the article. “Their company overcharged group health-care providers and used private medical records to blackmail patients. Took authorities a couple years to make the bust.”

Cooper whistled. “With this many clients, I’d lay odds the extortion business was lucrative. Connections?”

“I’m still running possibles between the company and the victims.”

“What about Stone?”

She thought about lying but couldn’t. She’d jeopardized her career enough by covering for Stone, and what had it gotten her? “Not between Stone and the New Jersey crime family, but Sagristano? Yeah. He was engaged to Stone’s sister.”

Cooper sat back, inclined his head. “Another piece falls into place.”

“Not so fast. They never married. He worked for the Lykos Institute for a few years but left under less-than-desirable circumstances.”

“They had a falling out?”

“Big time. He’s wanted for questioning in connection with the disappearance of Stone’s sister.”

“Murder?”

“Nothing proven. No body. Legally, she’s still listed as a missing person.” Mackenzie recalled Rafe’s comment about the danger of disintegration if a Lycan changes without enough energy to overcome injury. If that was the case, it was unlikely they’d ever find a body. “Sagristano was about to be fired when he disappeared on the same day as the sister.”

“Girl runs off with boyfriend because big, bad brother disapproves.”

“Maybe,” she said. “But the boyfriend’s reappeared on radar. Not a blip on the sister.”

“Okay. I can’t see Stone tag-teaming with a guy he thinks killed his little sister, but I’m still not ruling him out. What about connections to Caprini?”

“Not ironclad, unless he’s the tail we picked up after leaving Caprini’s house. Sagristano’s name appeared in papers obtained in the raid on the health-care business.”

“How do you know that?”

“I spoke to one of the investigators on the New Jersey case last night. Sagristano’s from New York but went to college here. Biomedical studies.”

“Hey, isn’t that Stone’s brother’s specialty?”

Nodding, she held up a hand. “Which only explains why he worked at L.I. Before New Jersey authorities lost him, Sagristano was last spotted enjoying a toast with a guy fitting Caprini’s description in Atlantic City.”

Cooper got up. “I’ll tag Michaels to check flights for Caprini when she runs the other by the airlines.”

“Good idea. I haven’t gotten that far yet.”

“Maybe not, but damn, you’ve been busy. You trying to make me look bad, or does your personal life really suck that much?”

The ache in her chest throbbed. “I don’t have a personal life. What do you say I let you redeem yourself and we pay another visit to Caprini?”

“Works for me. Meet you at the car.”

“In thirty.” On the way to the garage, she took a detour by the lab, where she argued, threatened, and prodded the techs out of a promise to get the DNA results on the wolves to her no later than noon. Then she stopped by Taylor Phillips’ office and queried the profiler about possible connections between all three murders. Her gut had told her the three were related. Her instincts, however, had proven to be wrong before. All she had to do was look at how easily Rafe had fooled her to realize how flawed her gut could be. Surface clues indicated different killers, which Phillips supported.

Climbing into her car a half hour later, Mackenzie found Cooper already strapped in, his fingers drumming a rapid tattoo on the dash. After she cranked the engine, he tossed her a bag of candy, which made her laugh.

“Don’t eat ‘em until after we see Caprini though. You may need the tough-as-nails, cop-bitch attitude.”

“Great to be appreciated.”

The receptionist stuffed what looked like a compact in her purse and raised her nose in disdain as soon as Mackenzie and Cooper, with shields visible, crossed the threshold. “Officers, Mr. Caprini cannot be disturbed.”

“It’s detectives,” Cooper said, propping a forearm on the counter. “And who said anything about disturbing him? We’re here to ask him a few more questions is all.”