Page 140 of Broken Wolf Heart
He lunges.
And I let go.
My wolf rips free, faster than ever before. Cleaner. Sharper.
We meet him mid-air.
And I don’t think about what happens next.
I just fight.
32
GREY
My father’s scent isn’t on the second floor, so I go back to the stairwell and race all the way up to the seventh, intent on working my way down until I find him. Flames consume the far side of the building, which is apparently where the explosives had been rigged, just waiting for us all to get inside before they detonated. Up here, the walls are already scorched, the floor buckling. This place isn’t going to hold for long.
Racing through the space, I stop short when I see Mia and Dutch in what used to be a conference room—now full of overturned tables and scattered debris. Charlie stands with them, but the rest of their team is missing.
Facing off with them is Rocco.
He stands at the far end, arms folded, flanked by two guards who look like they’re unsure if they should be fighting or running. The general’s face, so similar to Dutch’s in the shape of his nose and set of his mouth, is stone, cold, and unreadable. But his hands tremble either with fear or rage. Or both.
At the sight of me, Rocco snarls, but Dutch steps forward, clearly trying to continue whatever conversation they’ve already begun. “Mom’s across the street. She came to support our side. She’s with us now.”
Rocco sneers. “Sentimental bullshit. That bitch should’ve stayed home like I told her to.”
Dutch flinches. But he holds his ground.
“I’m not here to fight you, Dad.”
“No, you’re just here to betray me. To tear down everything I built.”
Charlie steps forward then, jaw tight. “Everything you built—you did it with bloodshed and pain. You made something that is killing our children to keep it. Don’t you want to fight for your son instead of against him?”
Rocco’s laugh is sharp. Cruel. “Of course you’d say that. You were always too soft for our pack. All this talk of letting women lead. Of feelings. You were never a real Diavolo.”
Rocco turns to Mia, and the fury in his voice spikes. “And you. You’re a disgrace. Your mother should’ve drowned you at birth.”
Mia doesn’t move. Doesn’t blink.
Charlie does.
He lunges—but Rocco is faster. He slams into Mia, claws out.
Dutch moves fast as a whip.
He intercepts the blow, shifting mid-air and crashing into his father, and they go down hard.
I start forward, but Mia blocks me. “Let him.”
Dutch’s wolf uses its teeth and rolls Rocco over just as Rocco shifts, snarling. Blood coats their jaws as their teeth tear into each other. It’s feral. Ugly. Not a fight—a reckoning.
But then Rocco gets his teeth around Dutch’s throat.
And Dutch’s wolf responds in kind. Fast, too fast, Dutchrakes his claws across Rocco’s eyes. The older wolf snarls and rolls away, exposing his throat. Dutch sinks his teeth into his father’s neck, through muscle and sinew all the way to bone.
The snap echoes through the burning hall.
