Page 16 of Broken Forced Mate
Now she’s back, engaged to an enemy operative, and every rational thought in my head has been replaced by the need to protect her.
Even if it means she’ll never forgive me.
That’s how far I’ve fallen.
The intelligence report sits beside the blueprints, confirming what my gut already knew. No record of Bastian Corvelli exists in any neighboring territory. The agricultural pack he claims to represent doesn’t have anyone by that name in their registry. His background is fiction, carefully constructed to pass casual inspection but falling apart under scrutiny.
Bastian Corvelli is a ghost. Which means whoever he really is, he’s dangerous enough to create an entirely false identity just to get close to Raegan.
Ash’s vision makes more sense now. The deception, the betrayal, the choices that will doom more than one person. Raegan said yes to a marriage proposal from a man who doesn’t exist.
I pull up the guest house floor plans on my tablet. Oren insisted on housing them in separate rooms, thank God. Old-fashioned propriety might be the only thing standing between Raegan and whatever Bastian’s real agenda is.
The guest quarters sit about two hundred yards from the main house, connected by a covered walkway that offers multiple approach angles. Two bedrooms, one bathroom, small living area. No security cameras inside, but motion sensors on all exterior doors.
I’ve disabled those sensors before during other operations. The process is simple if you know where to look.
The guest house was built a year ago when pack alliances started requiring more diplomatic visits. Oren wanted comfortable accommodations that offered privacy while maintaining security. What he created was the perfect safe house for visiting dignitaries.
Tonight, it becomes the perfect target for extraction.
My phone rings. Jay’s number.
“What do you have?” I answer.
“Ran facial recognition on your boy Bastian through our database connections. Got three possible matches, none of them good.”
“Tell me.”
“First hit came back to Jonathan Reed, wanted for fraud in the northern territories. Second was David Woral, suspected of involvement in pack territorial disputes two years ago. Third is the interesting one—Nathan Lineman, connected to a group that’s been recruiting disaffected pack members for some kind of separatist movement.”
“Any of them match Thornridge activities?”
“That’s where it gets fun. Nathan Lineman was spotted near Thornridge territory just before our friend Bastian started studying at Llewelyn.”
The timeline fits perfectly. Too perfectly.
“Keep digging,” I tell him. “I need everything you can find on all three identities.”
“Wyn, whatever you’re thinking—”
“I’m thinking about pack security.”
“Right. Just…be careful, okay? Oren’s already asking questions about why you stormed out of that meeting.”
After I hang up, I return to the blueprints. The guest house has one major advantage for what I’m planning—it’s isolated. The main house sits three hundred yards away, far enough that a brief struggle wouldn’t immediately alert anyone.
Not that I plan to struggle with her. Raegan weighs maybe 120 pounds, soaking wet. I can have her restrained and moving before she knows what’s happening.
The thought makes me sick.
I spent years protecting her from threats she never saw coming. Now I’m going to become one of those threats. But if the alternative is letting a Thornridge operative use her for whatever endgame they’re planning, I’ll live with being the bad guy.
I study the guest house layout again, memorizing every detail. Raegan was always a creature of habit, even as a teenager. She’ll shower before bed, spend time reading, and probably call her friends from Llewelyn to debrief about today’s disaster of a family meeting.
The bedroom windows face east, toward the desert rather than the main house. Perfect for an extraction route. My truck is parked in the maintenance shed, loaded with supplies for an extended stay off-grid.
Everything hinges on getting her out of that room without Bastian noticing. The man might be using a false identity, but his reaction to questioning today showed real training.
