Wolf's Hunger (Mafia Monsters #5) - Atlas Rose Page 0,80

my Wolves to survive.

I lifted my gaze to his empty secretary's desk and strode toward the door. Harlan’s voice spilled out through the open door of his office. “I don’t care what it takes…I want those men doubled along both sides of the river, do you understand me, Commissioner?”

I tried to control my breathing, tried to focus on the folder in my hand, tried to tear myself away from the war waging inside me as I neared his office.

He met my gaze as I entered, and his eyes widened, sparkling a little brighter as he motioned for me to come in. He didn’t seem to notice my wrinkled suit, or the fact that my eyes had dark circles and were bloodshot. He just smiled at me, like I was exactly who he wanted to see, as he muttered a command into the phone and hung up.

“Carina,” he started, then glanced at the open door before rounding his desk and closing it softly behind me. As he returned to his desk, he continued, “You gave me quite a scare last night, venturing across the river like that. You know how much I—”

“I came back, didn’t I? Of my own accord, I came back.” I tried to swallow the sour taste in the back of my throat.

“Yes, I suppose you did.” He moved closer, not stepping completely around his desk, but perching on the corner to my right.

Too close…too close. My skin jumped with the contact as he brushed a stray strand of hair from my shoulder. “You came back to the office. Why?”

I turned, finding his brown eyes as he looked at me like I was some kind of broken thing in need of saving. Maybe I was broken, shattered to pieces, unable to fit back together the way I was. The way I used to be. “I saw the planning room,” I started, catching the flicker in his eyes. “I saw the whiteboards, saw the sheer amount of manpower that’s going into hunting down the hunters. But I think you’re making a serious mistake.”

Yesss, Chaos whispered. I felt that dark urgency like never before, pushing me, forcing me, making the words spill from my lips and fall to the floor. Thunder rumbled outside the building walls, making Harlan wince.

He didn’t know. He didn’t realize…I was that storm.

Keep going, that Unseelie growl sent a charge through me, a stab, a cut…the tip of the blade pressing against my heart.

“A mistake?” he asked. “What kind of mistake?”

The folder in my hand trembled as I closed my eyes. I couldn’t do this…couldn’t say the words. Chaos pushed harder, pressing against my skin, forcing my eyes to open. My voice turned deeper with her presence, more guttural. More beast. “You’re failing to see the bigger picture here, the more dangerous Immortal than this city has ever known.”

Harlan leaned closer. “And who is that?”

“Ruth Costello.”

The corner of his lips curled into a half smile, until he realized I wasn’t joking. “Ruth isn’t an Immortal.”

“Isn’t she?” I murmured. My hand shook as I opened the file and took out the one page I'd sworn I’d hide. “This report from the bloodstains that night in the warehouse says otherwise.”

He lowered his gaze to the sheet in my hand as his skin paled. “There has to be—”

“Denzel Costello wasn’t her real father. This DNA test proved it and what I’m about to tell you is because I spoke to her a few days ago, right before you descended with your army, guns all blazing. Her real father was part of a secret and incredibly powerful organization known as the Inner Circle. A group of Immortals who govern all the others. Her father…her real father, was the Vampire Caedes, and that makes her a very powerful individual indeed.”

“If she has Vampire blood, then why isn’t she a Vampire?”

It was the same question that’d haunted me since I'd found the report from the warehouse. “I don’t know. But her blood, and what she says, match. You’re looking at the wrong type of Immortal, Harlan. You’re focusing on the scapegoat while the real danger lurks all around us in the shadows. Always quiet, always hidden. I’m offering you the Vampires of Crown City in exchange for the Wolves.”

“For your lovers, you mean?” he snapped.

“Yes,” I said carefully. “You know and I know they didn’t kill Murphy. You’ve had the lab run the tests, you saw that the cuts and the DNA didn’t match.”

“We haven't matched them yet,” Harlan forced through his