The hope that flickers is almost worse than despair. Hope means disappointment waiting to happen. Hope means letting these men risk more for me when I've already cost them too much.
"I never meant to bring this trouble to your door," I whisper, the words barely audible over the hum of the air conditioning. "You had a good life before I showed up. Peaceful. Now you're talking about spending your savings, selling your mother's things..."
"Willa." Austin moves into my line of sight, crouching beside my chair. His hazel eyes are fierce with determination that looks wrong on his gentle features. "You didn't bring trouble. Blake did. There's a difference between running from a fire and being the arsonist."
The metaphor hits too close to home. I flinch, remembering smoke and flames and the certainty that I was going to die in that house.
Ms. Pierce clears her throat, drawing our attention back to the immediate problem. "I'll need a retainer to get started. File our response, begin discovery. But I want you to understand—small-town politics make these cases unpredictable. If Blake's pack has the influence I suspect, we could be looking at an uphill battle."
"Then we climb," Cole says simply. "Whatever it takes."
The next twenty minutes blur together in a haze of legal terms and strategy discussions. Ms. Pierce outlines our options with clinical efficiency—contest the filing, counter-sue for attempted murder given the fire, seek restraining orders for harassment. Each option comes with its own price tag, its own risks, its own ways Blake could twist the system against us.
Through it all, the men never waver. River takes notes in his careful script, asking pointed questions about precedent. Austin mentally calculates what he can liquidate, his lips moving slightly as he does math in his head. Mavi's already on his phone, thumbing through contacts with the kind of focus that probably terrifies criminals.
And Cole—Cole just holds my hand, his thumb rubbing steady circles on my knuckles like he's trying to wear a promise into my skin.
When we finally leave, the late afternoon sun feels too bright after the office's artificial lighting. I blink against it, disoriented, and suddenly they're around me. Not surrounding me like I'm fragile, but positioning themselves like a shield against the world. Cole at my right, River at my left, Austin and Mavi flanking us like guards.
"Lunch," Austin declares. "You barely ate breakfast, and stress on an empty stomach is asking for trouble."
"I'm not hungry," I protest, but River's already steering us toward the diner across the street.
"Tough," Mavi says, holding the door open. "We eat, we plan, we fight. In that order."
I catch Cole's reflection in the diner window as we enter. The strain shows in the tight line of his jaw, the way his eyes scan the street like threats might materialize from thin air. He's carrying the weight of this, same as me, but he won't admit it. None of them will.
They're too busy protecting me to protect themselves.
And that terrifies me more than any legal threat Blake could manufacture.
The blue glow from six monitors turns my security office into an underwater cave, all shadows and electric current. I've been at this for four hours now, following digital breadcrumbs through databases I'm not supposed to have access to anymore. Funny how people forget to revoke permissions when you leave law enforcement on good terms. Funnier still how many favors stack up when you've spent years being the guy who catches the bad guys nobody else can find.
My third cup of coffee sits cold and forgotten beside a legal pad filled with connections that make my skin crawl. BlakeHarrison isn't just an abusive alpha—he's part of something systematic, something that stinks of organized crime wrapped in pack politics. The kind of operation that destroys lives and calls it business.
The phone rings, and I snatch it before the second ring. Can't wake the house. Can't let them see me like this, consumed by the hunt the way I used to get when a case hooked its claws in deep.
"Cross," I answer, voice pitched low.
"Mavi, you magnificent bastard." Jake Torres, formerly of the Montana State Police Financial Crimes unit, sounds entirely too cheerful for midnight. "You were right about those insurance claims. Three properties in the last five years, all owned by Iron Ridge pack members or their associates. All mysterious fires. All paid out in full."
"Let me guess," I say, fingers already flying over the keyboard to pull up property records. "All investigated by the same adjuster?"
"Gregory Mitchum. Who just happens to be mated to Blake Harrison's cousin." Jake's voice drops. "This is big, Mavi. RICO big. Why didn't you stay with the force? We could use you on this."
"I've got my reasons." My eyes flick to the baby monitor on my desk, Luna's sleeping form just visible in the green-tinted screen. "Send me everything you can without getting yourself fired."
"Already in your encrypted folder. And Mavi? Be careful. These aren't the kind of people who play nice when cornered."
The line goes dead, and I'm already opening the files. Financial records unfurl across my screens like a map of greed. Blake Harrison's name appears again and again—property transfers, insurance beneficiary, co-signer on loans that defaulted right after insurance payouts. It's money laundering 101, so obvious it's insulting.
But it's the other names that make my blood run cold. Three women. All omegas. All married into Iron Ridge pack in the last decade. All dead within two years of their marriages.
"Accidental fire." I read the coroner reports with growing fury. "Accidental drowning. Accidental fall."
Accidents. Right. Just like Willa's fire was supposed to be an accident.
The door creaks open, and I'm halfway to my feet before I catch Willa's scent—honey and hay and that undertone of anxiety she can't quite shake. She's carrying two mugs, steam rising in delicate spirals, and wearing one of River's old t-shirts that hangs to her knees.