Lisa Kessler - Moonlight

I screamed, and she faced forward again. “Proof enough? You have six hours. I need to make the transaction tonight while the wolves are running.”

She hooked her phone on her belt, closed her door, and pulled back onto the highway without a word.

“So you don’t trust Nero either?”

She didn’t answer me.

“Sebastian told me he wasn’t sure who he was working for anymore.”

She glanced at me in the mirror. “Sebastian’s a little slow.”

At least I knew she could hear me.

“So you think he should’ve known sooner?”

Her attention went back to the highway. “I’m not here to make friends. Sebastian taught me that lesson the hard way. I’ve gotta look out for myself. No one else will.”

“Do you even care why Sebastian doesn’t want you to take me back to them?”

“If there was any other way to get what I need from Nero, I’d do it. Believe it or not, holding you for ransom and shooting your friend weren’t highlights for me.”

“Maybe there is another way. Maybe we can find one…”

“There isn’t any other way.” She tightened her grip on the steering wheel. “I have my Taser handy if you can’t be quiet.”

Apparently I hit a nerve, but I definitely didn’t want to be Tasered so I closed my mouth and tried to come up with a plan.

Between Lana not answering her cell phone, and waiting on Malcolm to arrive, I thought my head might explode. I needed to go find her. I was about to borrow Luke’s truck when Malcolm pulled in the driveway. I met him at the car and reached out to clasp his forearm, but he pulled me into a hug instead.

“I’m still your dad, Adam.”

I returned the embrace and nodded with a smile. “I know.”

“So you have some important information for me?”

“I do, but let’s go inside first.”

I opened the door for Malcolm. Being the Alpha of our Pack commanded respect, and the line between father and Pack leader was always hard for me to differentiate.

“How is Aren?”

“He’s resting now, but he’s feeling a little better. Jason said he needs to keep the leg elevated and he casted his ankle.”

Our father raised a graying brow. “What about changing? It’s a full moon tonight. Do we need to keep him inside?”

I shrugged. “He’ll change anyway, and I’m sure it’ll be painful. If we pen him up we won’t be able to help him.”

Malcolm shook his head. “If we’re all wolves we won’t be much help to him anyway.”

“But we could at least be with him. I’m pretty sure when that leg starts shifting it’s going to hurt like a son of a bitch, and what if he starts bleeding again?” I didn’t want to think about how much anguish my brother would be facing tonight. Part of me couldn’t believe our father was willing to leave him behind.

Malcolm pondered, staring out the back window toward the barn. He finally nodded and turned back toward me. “You’re right. We’ll bring him along and hope for the best. Either way he shouldn’t be alone.”

I nodded, grateful Aren would be somewhat protected. Malcolm didn’t even know about the jaguars yet.

“You mentioned a threat to the Pack.” His eyes met mine, the physical weight of his stare pressing against me.

“The jaguar that killed Gabe is still at large. We found out he works for something called the Nero Organization. Apparently they train the jaguar shifters to become assassins.”

I stopped when I noticed my father’s expression. His eyes were distant as he looked out the window, his jaw clenched. I waited for him to speak, or at least notice that I had stopped, but he seemed lost in his thoughts.

“Malcolm?” The sound of my voice seemed to snap him out of his trance. He turned from the glass and stared at me with haunted eyes.

“Sorry. I hadn’t heard that name in years. I should’ve been watching for them, but I was too eager to believe they no longer existed.” He shook his head and sat at the dining room table suddenly looking years older. “I’m afraid I may have waited too long to tell you about my Pack.”

“You knew where these jaguars were coming from?” I sat down, and for the first time in my entire life, I saw fear in my father’s eyes. I felt like I just got sucker punched in the gut. My shocked quickly mutated into anger. “How could you keep Nero secret from us? You knew and you said nothing.”

“I thought we could keep them out of Reno.” He sat across from me in the chair. “Until Gabe.”

“Even after Gabe.” I couldn’t sit any longer. Rage pulsed though my muscles. I wanted to punch something. I needed to release the frustration. “You never said a word. You had information and let us chase these guys down blind.”

“When I was a pup my father was not the Alpha of our pack.”

I raised a brow. I’d never heard Malcolm talk about his childhood, but I’d always assumed my grandfather had been the Alpha male. In most Packs the Alpha was passed from father to the eldest son unless there weren’t any sons alive in his line. Usually that led to squabbles and Packs splintering off.

What any of this had to do with Nero I had no clue.

“Our Alpha was a powerful businessman. He was probably older than I am now, but you know it’s tough to guess actual ages in our kind. He had gray hair and wrinkles around his eyes, which I’d thought made him old.” He waved his hand. “None of that matters. What matters is that he was friends with a high-ranking military official. My father was one on the enforcers for our Pack, and his father was a Pack elder.”

My head was spinning as I built a mental family tree, trying to piece together the puzzle as my father spoke.

“My grandfather was an elder. He was at the meeting when Allen Caldwell first mentioned a chance for the younger members of our Pack to be part of an undercover military operation called Moonlight.”

Fuck. Sebastian had mentioned Moonlight to Lana. I tried to sort out all the new info swimming around in my head. “So Allen Caldwell was your Alpha?”

Malcolm nodded and clasped his hands together, wringing them slightly. “Yes. And I volunteered for the project.”

I ran my hand down my face trying to keep from saying something I couldn’t take back. “You worked for the Nero Organization?”

“It was called the Nero Project then. The man in charge was named Severino. I’m not sure if that was his first name or last name.” He paused rubbing his chin for a moment, then shook his head. “Anyway, Severino procured a government grant to investigate paranormal solutions to foreign hostilities. Allen told us that Severino knew we had extra-sensory abilities and that during the full moon we actually changed from men into wolves. He presented it to us that we could be an asset to our country.” He sighed and met my eyes. “I was young and resented being different. So I convinced my Pack brothers—Dominic, Nicholas, and Wyatt—to come with me to volunteer as part of the Moonlight Operation for the Nero Project.”

My father and our Pack elders had known about Nero all along. They’d kept this secret from us while we hunted jaguars. No one had ever mentioned Nero to me until Lana ran into Sebastian.

Malcolm went silent again, but with the afternoon sun getting lower in the sky I nudged him out of his thoughts. “What happened once you got there?”

“They separated us.” His gaze met mine, and I saw shadows of pain lurking in the gray-green depths of his eyes. He took a deep breath, opening his hands. “They wanted us to be assassins for our government, trained mercenaries who could infiltrate foreign governments and take out leaders who were deemed madmen. But they wanted us to work alone.”