behind them on the street in the Escalade, hazard lights on, with Emma waiting outside to help Jono into the front passenger seat.
“Let’s go,” Jono said once he was buckled up.
The drive to Estelle and Youssef’s territory in the Upper Manhattan neighborhood of Hamilton Heights felt like it took forever, but that was mostly the pain talking. Jono watched the buildings flash by, swallowing against the nausea that came and went.
Leon stuck to the speed limit, slowed for yellow lights rather than run them, and in general, drove like an old person. Jono figured the body in the boot was the reason for Leon’s caution. He couldn’t say it bothered him. Getting pulled over by the police would make the morning even worse, and they wanted to avoid that mess.
“Are we just dumping the crate on their porch?” Emma asked from the back. “What about cameras?”
“I’d wager they don’t want the police digging any deeper than they already are,” Jono said.
He didn’t have much of a plan other than return the body to the people who hired the Krossed Knights. If he was thinking clearer, maybe he wouldn’t have opted to act so rashly, but he was done with Estelle and Youssef in every way.
They didn’t deserve to claim New York City as their territory, and Jono was going to make it clear he wasn’t taking their shit anymore.
Leon parked in front of a brownstone sometime later, the street the god pack lived on quiet despite the weekday morning hour. He put the hazard lights on and stayed where he was behind the wheel. Jono and Emma got out, and he left her to retrieving the crate from the boot. Despite her petite size, Emma carried the crate as if it weighed nothing. She followed Jono to the front door of the rival god pack’s territory.
The brownstones clustered on the block belonged to the god pack of New York City through leases passed down to every alpha, but Jono would never want to live here. He preferred his flat with Patrick, and all the memories they were making in it over the buildings that seemed to have fear embedded in their very foundations. The smell made Jono’s nose twitch, along with the magic Estelle and Youssef had bought to secure their home.
Fenrir stirred deep in his soul, and Jono knew whatever wards their pack had bought, none of it would hold in the face of a god’s anger.
Jono reached the porch, and rather than knock, he kicked open the door. The wound in his side and the poison still in his body made him a little shaky, but Fenrir steadied him. The door broke off its hinges and crashed to the floor. The sound of it landing on the floor seemed to notify everyone left in the home of their arrival.
Jono didn’t wait for anyone to come. He stepped aside just enough for Emma to drop the crate inside, the dish gloves she wore almost too big for her hands. She never lost her grip though, and kicked the crate further into the building. It crashed into someone’s legs as they arrived, but Jono didn’t care about that. All he cared about was the person who appeared in the doorway.
“Hope you haven’t eaten yet because we’ve brought you breakfast,” Jono said to Estelle.
She glared at him, standing behind her home’s threshold and looking one breath away from murder. Her auburn hair was loose around her face, wolf-bright amber eyes snapping with fury. “You’re trespassing.”
“Jamere took offense to the hunters you hired working in his territory. I took offense to you being a cowardly bitch. Carmen brought your mess to me, so I’m returning it. Next time you want to fight, come find me yourself. Quit hiding behind proxies and paying others to do your dirty work.”
“Oh, fuck,” someone breathed behind her. “This guy is in pieces.”
The smell of blood grew thicker, mixing with the faint hint of decomposition that was starting to build up around the body. A mundane human wouldn’t be able to pick it up yet, but werecreatures could. There was no mistaking the dead for what they were—just like there was no mistaking the sulfur curling through the air in the hallway.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Estelle said.
“Of course you don’t. But the video we have of a confession courtesy of the Manhattan Night Court says otherwise.” Jono smiled, half listening to Fenrir howl through his mind. “New York City doesn’t belong to you and