The Hunt Begins
POV: Kael
"She's turning onto Bayou Road," Rico's voice crackled through my earphones. "Right where you said she would."
I gripped the steering wheel of my SUV tighter and pressed the gas pedal. After three weeks of watching Aria Castellano, I knew her routine better than she did. Coffee shop until nine, then straight home on the back roads because she couldn't afford the highway tolls.
My wolf paced restlessly inside my chest. It didn't like what we were about to do.
"Remember," I spoke into my radio, "we take her alive and unhurt. Father's orders."
"Copy that, Alpha," came the replies from my three pack mates spread out through the swamp.
I should have felt pleased. Tonight, we would finally make Vincent Castellano pay for the twenty-three lives he'd taken from our families. His precious daughter would become our prisoner until he agreed to end this fifty-year war.
But watching her through my glasses for weeks had been... strange. She wasn't what I expected from a mob princess.
Aria Castellano worked two jobs, ate cheap noodles for dinner, and drove a car that barely ran. She helped old ladies carry food and always smiled at the homeless man outside her coffee shop. She didn't act like someone raised in a world of murder and crime.
She acted like she had no idea who her father really was.
"Target is two miles from the ambush point," Marco reported from his place in the trees.
Lightning crashed overhead, lighting up the road ahead of me. Perfect shooting weather. The storm would cover our scent and hide any sounds we made.
My phone buzzed with a text from my father: Bring me Vincent's daughter. Make him watch her suffer like we've suffered.
I deleted the message without replying. Marcus Ravencrest had been planning this payback for five years, ever since the Bayou Massacre. He wanted Aria to pay for her father's crimes with blood and pain.
But my wolf whined every time I thought about hurting her.
"What's wrong with you?" I muttered to myself. "She's the enemy. Her family killed Emma."
The image of my little sister's death hit me like a punch to the stomach. Emma had been only sixteen, excited about her first date, when Vincent's men attacked our family meeting. I found her body bobbing in the bayou water, her white dress stained red.
My hands started shaking with rage. This was why we were here. This was justice.
"Alpha, she just passed checkpoint one," Luca's words brought me back to the present. "She's driving slow because of the storm."
"Good. That gives us more time to position ourselves."
I could see her car's taillights in the distance now, tiny red dots moving through the rain. In ten minutes, this would all be over. Vincent Castellano's daughter would be our prisoner, and my father would finally have his payback.
So why did my chest feel like someone was squeezing my heart?
"All units in position," Rico reported. "Waiting for your signal, Alpha."
I pulled over and shifted into park. Through my window, I watched Aria's beat-up Honda approach the spot where my pack waited. She had no idea that four werewolves were hidden in the darkness, ready to change her life forever.
My wolf started howling inside my mind, a sound of pure agony that made my teeth ache.
"Alpha?" Marco's voice sounded concerned. "You've been quiet. Everything okay?"
I closed my eyes and tried to remember why I was doing this. Emma's funeral. My mother crying for weeks. My father's rage getting stronger every year. The pack looking to me to lead them and make our enemies pay.
But when I opened my eyes and saw that little Honda fighting through the storm, all I could think about was how scared Aria must be driving alone in this weather.
"Kael?" This time it was Luca. "She's almost at the target zone. We need the signal."
I picked up my radio with hands that felt like they weighed a thousand pounds. One word from me, and Aria Castellano's normal life would be over. One word, and she'd become a player in a game she didn't even know she was playing.
My father's voice rang in my memory: Show me you can lead this pack. Show me you can be ruthless when it counts.
"Alpha, we need orders now," Rico urged.
Through the rain, I could see Aria's car getting closer. In thirty seconds, she'd be past the trap point and safe. In thirty seconds, I'd have to explain to my father why I let Vincent Castellano's daughter run.
But something inside me was yelling that this was wrong.
"All units," I said into the radio, my voice barely steady. "Execute the plan. Force her off the road, but be careful. No one touches her until I get there. "
The words tasted like poison in my mouth.
"Copy that, Alpha. Moving into position now."
I watched through my window as shadows moved between the trees. My pack brothers, following my directions even though every instinct I had was telling me to call them back.
Aria's car was fifty yards away from the attack point now. Forty yards. Thirty.
That's when Rico stepped into the road, his werewolf form huge and scary in her headlights. I saw her car swerve and slide on the wet street.
My heart stopped completely.
Because in that moment, staring at the frightened girl who was about to become our prisoner, I remembered something I had buried deep in my mind for five years.
I remembered her face.
Not from the surveillance pictures. Not from watching her work at the coffee shop.
I remembered her from the night of the Bayou Massacre, when she was eighteen years old and I was bleeding to death in the swamp.
I remembered the human girl who had saved my life when she should have let me die.
And now I had just told my pack to destroy hers.