“How long?”

“A judge is reviewing it now.”

“Kara said they were coming back.”

“I know.”

Silas moved toward the door.

I stepped in front of him.

He stopped so quickly his coat swung around his legs.

“If you go without the warrant, they call you a gang leader invading a medical facility,” I said. “They move the women and destroy the files while everyone argues about you.”

“If I wait, they may hurt her.”

“Yes.”

The word cost me.

“But if you make yourself the story, Kara disappears inside it.”

His wolf pushed gold into his eyes. The bond filled with a violent need to act, to tear through walls because walls had once held me.

I put both hands against his chest.

“Wait with me.”

“Evelyn—”

“Not for the system. For the women. Give Briar time to make the rescue impossible to bury.”

His hands closed around my wrists, not removing them, only holding on.

“You are asking a wolf to ignore prey behind a door.”

“I'm asking the Alpha to think past the door.”

That reached him.

He lowered his forehead to mine.

“Five minutes,” he said.

“As many as the warrant takes.”

“That was not the agreement.”

“It is now.”

Ronan's voice came through the speaker. “For the record, I support the terrifying accountant.”

“Bookkeeper,” I corrected.

“Even more terrifying.”

We waited nineteen minutes.

Silas paced exactly twelve steps each way. Briar coordinated state officers and an independent medical team. Miriam preserved every file. I kept searching invoices because numbers did not care that my hands were shaking.

Maeve called from the cabin so Sophie could hear my voice before bed.

“Did your date have dessert?” Sophie asked.

“The phone interrupted dessert.”

“Was it bad people?”

I looked at the room full of adults preparing to enter another locked place.

“It was someone asking for help.”

“Are you helping?”

“Yes.”

“Then you can have dessert tomorrow.”

Her certainty steadied me better than any promise that everything would be fine.

“Go to sleep, moonbug.”

“Tell Silas not to get holes in his jacket.”

Silas heard her. “I will attempt to preserve the jacket.”

“And himself,” I added.

“That too,” he said, though his tone made the jacket sound more negotiable.

One vendor appeared only twice: RED CEDAR BIOLOGICS.

The first payment was for genetic screening.

The second was for “specimen acquisition bonuses.”

Attached to the invoice were initials, ages, and blood classifications.

K.W., twenty-nine.

Beside Kara's initials, someone had written LATENT POSITIVE.

E.Q., thirty-one, appeared on the following line.

My name had been added before the mountain crash.

Silas read over my shoulder.

The sound that came from him did not belong in a human throat.

“Grant sold them my information,” I said.

“We don't know that yet,” Miriam warned.

“He knew Nolan had my blood. He paid North County. My initials are on their invoice before I tried to leave.”

The facts assembled themselves with the cold precision of a balanced ledger.

Grant had not created North County's trafficking system.

He had used it.

And someone beyond the county had offered extra money for women carrying wolf blood.

Briar's phone chimed.

“Warrant signed,” she said. “State police lead. Independent medics follow. Silas, you and three Reapers may assist with exterior access because your mechanics serviced the old utility road, but you follow my commands.”

“Agreed.”

She paused. “That was disturbingly easy.”

“My mate explained it better.”

Every face turned toward me.

The word mate no longer frightened me.

The timing did.

“Go,” I said.

Silas caught the back of my neck and stopped before kissing me.

“May I?”

I answered by pulling him down.

The kiss was brief, hard, full of everything neither of us could carry into the next hour.

“Bring them back,” I whispered.

“I will.”

“That is a promise you may not be able to keep.”

Pain crossed his face.

He corrected himself.

“I will do everything I can.”

The convoy left seven minutes later.

I remained with Miriam in the evidence room, staring at my initials on a price list.

For years, Grant had told me I was worthless without him.

Someone had placed a dollar amount beside my blood.

I intended to find out who.