The male cast a fearful glance at the beast, who growled at him in return.
Vinnie crouched at the fox’s side. “I don’t have to tell you just how pissed that wolverine is right now. He wants at you again. And trust me when I say that if I let him have you, it won’t be a case of him clamping his jaws around your throat until you suffocate. No, you won’t get a quick death. You’ll endure the beating of a lifetime that won’t stop until he’s bored—which could take a long, long time, because he likes his food to be alive, screaming, and shaking with terror.” Vinnie gave a baffled shrug. “I don’t see the appeal in it myself. But the heart wants what the heart wants, right?”
Tate circled the fox as he said, “The beast won’t just take a chunk out of you here and there. No, he’ll settle in and dine on you. They can eat all day long and never seem to get full. Did you know that wolverines eat skin, bones, and even teeth? They’re all ‘waste not, want not.’ So … care to tell us who you are yet?”
Still tremoring from head to toe, the fox licked his split lip and then winced. “My name is Augustin.”
“Augustin,” echoed Vinnie with a bland smile. “I like that name. I don’t hear it a lot these days. Well, Augustin, what did you want with our Bree?”
“It was just a job,” he replied, his voice shaky. “My boss sent me to take her. I had strict orders not to hurt her, just to retrieve her.”
Vinnie’s jaw hardened. “Retrieve her?” Like she was a damn object. “Just who is your boss, and why did he send you after one of my cats?”
“He doesn’t want her. His client does.”
Standing upright, Vinnie folded his arms. “Explain.”
“I work for a retrieval agency. My boss is a lone shifter. All his employees are loners. People come to him when they need something found or returned to them. We’ve never had anyone ask us to retrieve a person before. I don’t know what the client wants with her.”
“The client’s name?”
Augustin shook his head. “I don’t have it. My boss will.”
“And who is your boss?”
“Giuseppe Marino.”
Vinnie had never heard the name before. He glanced at each of his sons, who both gave a slight shake of the head.
“Giuseppe wasn’t going to take the job,” Augustin quickly added. “He said he didn’t want to risk making an enemy of your pride. But the client offered him forty grand.”
Vinnie whistled. “Forty grand. A price like that can make a man do stupid things, I suppose. You were very helpful, Augustin. Don’t you think so, boys?”
Tate nodded. “I do. I really do.”
“He didn’t even make us pry the info out of him,” said Luke.
Vinnie scraped his hand over his jaw. “I suppose I should reward him with a quick death. He earned it by being so cooperative. But … he’s also responsible for the rake wounds that were all over Bree’s cat.”
Augustin’s eyes widened. “She savaged my face!”
“You shot her with fucking tranqs,” clipped Tate. “What did you think she’d do?”
“She was supposed to pass out instantly! My boss said that two would be enough to take her down! I didn’t expect to have to fight her!”
“Then both you and your boss are dumb,” said Vinnie. “Pallas cats don’t go down easily.”
Augustin tried to rise but was in too much pain. “I didn’t want to hurt her,” he told Vinnie. “It was self-defense. I never would have harmed her if she hadn’t attacked me.”
Vinnie leaned toward him slightly. “And I don’t give a rat’s chubby ass.” He nodded at the wolverine, who’d been watching the fox closely. “The bastard’s all yours.”
Rumbling another of those nightmarish growls, the wolverine stalked toward the fox. Moments later, agonized screams once more echoed through the alley.
CHAPTER SIX
Waking up to a throbbing headache and a queasy stomach did not bring joy to Bree’s world. There was also a godawful taste in her dry mouth, and she was so damn thirsty her throat hurt. Awesome.
Memories slithered through her foggy mind. The back alley. The fox. Being shot with goddamn tranquilizers.
Anger chafed at her nerves, but she didn’t have quite enough energy to work up to mad. She would. Later. For now, her cat was seething enough for them both.
Bree knew without opening her eyes that Alex was in her bedroom. His scent mingled with the comfortingly familiar smells of fresh bedding, light perfume, and lavender-scented cleaner. Beneath those were very faint traces of other scents she knew—ones that belonged to Elle, Vinnie, Valentina, James, and a small bunch of others.
Her cat’s fur puffed up. It unnerved the feline to know she’d been surrounded by so many people while unconscious and vulnerable to an attack.
Forcing open her heavy eyelids, Bree winced as light stabbed at her eyes and exacerbated the dull throb in her temples. Bad move. But she hadn’t expected to be greeted by sunlight; hadn’t thought she’d slept until morning. Then again, maybe she shouldn’t have been so surprised. She was hit with three damn tranquilizer darts, for shit’s sake. They might have taken time to knock her out, but they’d done their job eventually.
Letting her eyelids flutter partially open, she found Alex sitting in the chair beside her bed, his dark, watchful gaze fixed on her. A hazy memory flashed in her mind of his wolverine charging at the fox and effortlessly taking him down. Hmm, it seemed she had him to thank for the fact that she hadn’t been kidnapped.
She swallowed, frowning at the audible click of her tongue. “Hey,” she croaked.
“How’re you feeling?” he asked, his voice flat.
“Like I was drugged. What time is it?”
“Just after 7am. You’ve been out of commission for a few hours, though you did wake at one point.”
Keenly aware that she was naked beneath the covers, she rubbed at her dry eyes. “I did?”
“Yes. About an hour after you shifted back to your human form while in your sleep, you woke and ordered everyone to get out and leave you in peace. Well, it was more like a mumble, but the words were clear enough. Hearing you dish out attitude seemed to relieve everyone, so they were then happy to head home.”
“Why didn’t you leave with everyone else?”
“I didn’t want to.”
Giving a half-assed answer was just typical of wolverines. Since she had much more important questions on her mind, she didn’t push for a proper response. “Who was the fox? Why did he come for me?”
“He was hired to take you.”
She listened as he told her about good ole Augustin and the retrieval agency. “Well, retrieving things for people is a better way for loners to earn money than by becoming a hired gun. Shame they had to spoil that by dabbling in kidnapping.”
“Vinnie ordered a search to be done on Giuseppe Marino. He plans to pay him a visit today and get the client’s name. It’s probable that it’s the hyena, John Jones.”
“But why?”
“Maybe he just wanted to interrogate you and force you to tell him where Paxton is. You said the hyena’s convinced he’s alive.”