bet your ass that’s a yes,” Nick answered Poppy. “That’s where he’s headed. But we need the other two to testify against him.”
“Could you not just get my uncle to do that? I’m pretty sure we can get him to turn on his kids. But Carl and Carson are very loyal to their brother. I’m pretty sure they’re back at the cabin, dicks in their hand, with no idea what to do next.”
“Maybe you don’t know your family as well as Nick would like to believe.” The man who spoke stepped out from the shadows, making Poppy jump.
It was no easy feat, sneaking up on a shifter. Poppy clutched her heart, but she recognized the man immediately. “Holy fucking shit. You’re Micah Lewis.”
“That’s Agent Lewis,” the man corrected.
He was indeed in his fifties, with silver threading his once blond hair. He had keen eyes for a human. He was clearly used to being at the top of the food chain and felt out of place amongst the shifters. It was written in the wide set of his hips and shoulders. He was literally trying to puff out his body to appear unafraid. Prey did that all the time in the animal kingdom, and they still got eaten for their troubles.
“I can see you’re trying to read me. Don’t. You won’t get much from me. I’m a pro at lying to shifters.”
“How is that even possible?” Poppy asked, her eyes going to Nick and Bennett for an explanation.
“We aren’t the only ones who have been playing with serums and shifter blood.” The look Bennett gave Agent Lewis was nothing short of hate filled. “But that’s a problem for another day.”
“Oh,” was all she said. “So wait, I was never going to be forced into marrying you?”
“Extortion and sex trafficking. That’s how we were going to get the Cain brothers arrested. When you defied your uncle and said no before fleeing, you ruined an operation that took me years to build.”
Shaw leapt out of his seat. “Watch it,” he growled.
Agent Lewis looked bored. “She was never going to be in any danger. We had plans to put you in the WITSEC.”
“I would have liked to have been made aware of that. You could have approached me. Had I known that you were trying to one-up my family, I would have helped.”
“Hardly,” the agent snapped back. “It was impossible to get a read on you. You had disobeyed your uncle with the nursing degree, but you still played the good little niece. I couldn’t trust you.”
“I don’t like you,” she said.
“The feeling is mutual,” he spat back. “I am not in the business of getting mixed up with shifters, and I don’t particularly like the fact that you lot have interjected yourself in my operation, but what can I do now? Curtis is in custody, and we’ve got two lunatics out there who are hopped up on a designer drug that can definitely affect shifters.”
Poppy felt her jaw drop. “Carl and Carson are drug addicts now?”
“Yes,” Agent Lewis confirmed.
“Not in the way he’s making it out to be,” Bennett cut in with an angry eye roll. “It basically gives you the rush of shifting without actually shifting. It’s the dumbest thing ever.”
“And yet, we cannot let this get on the market. Could you imagine what it would do to humans?” Lewis shivered.
“So how do we get the two remaining bozos?” Poppy asked.
Agent Lewis smiled disconcertingly. “It’s quite simple. We use you as bait.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Shaw
“No!” Shaw shouted. “Absolutely fucking not.”
Was this man insane? He wanted to use his mate as bait to lure two deranged shifters who were hopped up on a new, weird shifter drug? What nonsense was that? Even without that piece of it, Shaw would have been dead set against putting Poppy right in the crossfire.
An intense burning hatred pressed against his brain for Agent Lewis. His tiger was clamoring for the man’s blood.
“No, it’s okay,” Poppy said. “I kind of figured that’s what would happen.”
“Doesn’t mean I have to like it,” Shaw cut in bitterly.
Poppy squeezed his hand. “It’s my fucked-up family that’s at the center of all of this. I would like to fix it for all of the people they’ve harmed.”
“How noble,” Lewis said, with that bored, arrogant air that made Shaw want to punch him right in his smug face. “Here’s how it will all play out.”
For the next ten minutes, Lewis outlined a plan that wasn’t half bad, but thankfully, Nick was there to make some