Page 21 of Fierce Claim

He takes Riley’s spot at Vera’s side and wraps his arm over Vera and Mathew, meeting my eyes. He still looks unsure, but it’s clear that Riley giving him her spot does him good.

“Riley, would you like some clean clothes?” I slowly stand up, and she nods.

“I would appreciate that, yes. Thanks.” She leans on her elbow as she looks at Jorge, Vera and Mathew, like a very proud brand new Alpha pack member.

She’s very dangerous, but she’s also very soft in other ways, ways that don’t always make sense right now. I’m sure that things will clear up once we get to know each other better.

And I’m very curious what we’ll all learn about her. She seems to be a very interesting person.

I sit on the bedroom balcony, enjoying the warm early summer breeze. It’s the end of the afternoon, and the daily noises from the rest of the house make for a great background track as I check through the list of names that Erika sent me.

These are the five names that both our organisations don’t recognise. Which means they’re probably fake, but even if that was the case, there should be some trail to follow. These names should be connected to at least some people we do have information on, as nobody seemed to be surprised when they used them during their introductions.

And none of the names our organisations identified belonged to the bastard who recognised Mathew. Which means that he’s one of the people on this list. Fuck.

I put my phone aside and close my eyes. Every time I think of what the bastard said, what he called Mathew, fury builds in my chest and it’s hard not to want to kill him all over again.

I shouldn’t have killed him so quickly. If I’d kept him alive I could have had my fun with him, I could have tried to get information out of him and then killed him very slowly after. I’m sure Vera would have liked to try out some new interrogation techniques and maybe Mathew or Riley could have taught us a few new ones. We could have turned it into a pack bonding experience and used it to find out what the Hearts are up to at the same time.

But keeping him alive wasn’t an option in the moment. My immediate instinct was to eliminate the threat as quickly as possible, which I did.

It’s only after it was all over, that I realised we should have kept him alive...

“What did the beautiful sky do to get you this upset?” Mathew puts two bottles of water on the table next to me and sits down in the chair on the other side. He’s freshly showered, wearing his luxurious robe, which falls open as he stretches out in the chair, giving me a great view of his body.

“It’s not the sky that’s the problem, it’s me.” I sigh, picking up one of the bottles and taking a sip.

“Okay, what did you do?” He turns to me, curiosity in his eyes.

“I should have kept the bastard who recognised you alive. He would have been a good source of information.” I lean my head back again. “If I hadn’t acted so rashly, we could have had a lot more information right now.”

“If you hadn’t killed him, he would have died in the fight anyway. Someone would have taken him out.” Mathew stands up, going over to the railing and leans on it, his robe billowing around him. “We don’t keep people alive in these situations, unless we plan for it ahead of time.” He turns to me, grinning. “I’m pretty sure that that’s standard procedure for Vera and you too.”

“True.” I get up, wrapping an arm around him as I lean against the railing next to him. “Still. We have no idea who the guy was and neither does Erika. If I’d kept him alive, we would at least have his name. If he knows you from before, he could have information about how the Hearts work right now. He could have been our way in, or at least an informant.”

“Or he could have snuck out during the fight and tattled on us, putting us in more danger.” Mathew looks up at me, frowning. “We only leave assholes alive if we plan for how to deal with them before everything kicks off. Otherwise, they die. We don’t leave witnesses behind, especially not if they’re from one of the Suits.”

“Right.”

Mathew’s voice softens as he leans against me. “We’ll find out who he is. We’ve got a list of names now and we know he’s somehow connected to the Hearts. And we have an idea of when he might have been in contact with me before.” Then he grins. “We still have all the information from the bastard whose organisation I took over. He had plenty of connections with the Hearts. Looking through some of that might help us. We have his face, and know some of his buddies’ faces, we just have to connect their faces to their names. And we’ve got a list of options for those too.”

“Sounds like you’ve done this before.” I kiss the side of his head, nuzzling his soft hair.

“This isn’t our first time doing this, but it’s been a while. People got the ‘do not go near me’ message pretty quickly when I took out some bastards who thought that using my past against me would be easy.” He lets out a humourless laugh. “And the higher-ups in the Hearts also didn’t appreciate them spreading any rumours about me. Losing one of their ‘Kings’ was bad enough, they didn’t need anyone else getting ideas that they could escape. The Hearts are generally happy to let me be, as long as I keep my mouth shut and don’t actively bring them trouble.”

“I’m very glad you got out. Or we might never have met you.” I pull him against me. “And that would have been a shame. I like having you at my side and my life would have been a lot less interesting without you.”

Even if this isn’t a quiet and easy life, I don’t care. It’s my life.

10

Vera

“Can you wait outside?” Riley nods to the hotel room door and Jorge pulls a face but does what she asks.

As soon as the door closes behind him, Riley pulls a suitcase out of the closet and opens it. Everything is packed so tightly that the moment she undoes the zipper, stuff starts falling out and I frown at the knitting needles, yarn and what looks like two half-finished socks and the sleeve of a sweater, also half-finished. And that’s just what fell out. I have no idea what else she’s got stuffed in there but it looks like a lot.

I carefully sit on the bed. “Why do you keep sending him away?” Jorge looks pained every time she does, but I have no idea if she even notices it.

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