SIENNA COULDN’T BELIEVE what Hawke had done. She simply couldn’t believe it! She’d just returned to the SnowDancer den after lunch with Kit and had intended to update Hawke on what the young soldier had told her about the mood of the city in the aftermath of Naya’s attempted kidnapping the previous day.
Kit had also shared some personal news in confidence, but he hadn’t asked her to keep it from Hawke. People didn’t expect mates to keep secrets from each other. And Sienna knew Hawke wouldn’t say a word if she told him it couldn’t go any further. In truth, she’d been planning to unload on him, because while she was happy for Kit, the leopard was one of her closest friends and she felt a selfish desire to tell him to delay things a little longer.
Only her mate wasn’t here for her to talk to. He’d left her a message on their private comm, inside their quarters. A message. “I’m going to kill him,” she muttered, stalking down the den corridor near the infirmary. “I’m going to wring His Alphaness’s neck, then I’m going to kick his—”
She halted before she slammed into her uncle Walker’s chest. “I have to go,” she said, trying to swing around him.
He stopped her by the simple expedient of putting a single hand on her upper arm. Sienna froze. She would never disrespect the man who was her father in every way that mattered. “Uncle Walker, I need to leave,” she said, her skin vibrating with her urgency. “Hawke’s gone out to confront Ming!”
“It’s a business meeting,” Walker said.
Sienna sucked in a breath. “You knew?” Betrayal was a slap across her face. “Why didn’t you tell me?” Even though she was furious with Hawke, she could understand his boneheaded behavior. Her alpha mate was so protective of her that, sometimes, he acted before he thought. And when it came to Ming LeBon, he was more feral wolf than civilized man. That didn’t excuse what he’d done, but it at least made sense.
But for her uncle to go along with it when he knew exactly how good Sienna was at taking care of herself? She stared uncomprehendingly at the planes of his face, his expression calm in the face of her rage.
“Hawke is incapable of thinking clearly with you anywhere near Ming.” Walker held her gaze with the unusual light green of his. “But you would’ve insisted on going with him.”
“Of course I would’ve insisted!” Sienna fisted her hands. “Ming is a combat telepath!” He could smash Hawke’s natural shields open with far less effort than almost any other Tp on the planet, kill him within seconds.
“Judd’s with him.”
Relief and betrayal punched into her in equal measures. “Him, too?” she demanded. “Was I the only adult Lauren who wasn’t informed of Hawke’s plans?”
Walker closed both hands around her upper shoulders, held her still when she would’ve broken away. “Hawke did this with a cool head, Sienna.” The faintest hint of a smile. “Cool enough to know it’d be better to ask for forgiveness than to convince you of the sense of his plan.”
“Don’t patronize me, Uncle Walker!” It roared out of her. “I’m not a child anymore! I’m his mate.”
Walker looked at her for a long moment, long enough that she started to want to fidget. But instead of wearing her down in that way only he could do, he inclined his head. “Yes,” he said. “Hawke should’ve spoken to you. As for Judd and me”—his expression shifted, revealing a tenderness that destroyed her—“we can’t help ourselves. You’re a piece of our heart.”
All her anger crumbled.
Falling into his arms, she let his warmth and love and strength surround her, ground her, her face pressed to the smoky blue of his shirt, her eyes hot. Walker had been the calm anchor in the ugly storm of her childhood after her mother died, the one person she’d known she could count on even when she was caught in a monster’s grip. He was the one who’d made the Laurens into a family, refusing to let go no matter what. Never once had he betrayed her.
“I’m sorry for yelling,” she said when she could speak past the surge of emotion. “I’m just worried about Hawke.”
Cupping the back of her head, Walker said, “Can you sense any trouble through the mating bond?”
She shook her head, the realization calming her enough that she could think past her worry and anger. “Why is he even talking to Ming? Hawke hates him, wants to tear him into tiny pieces with his bare claws.”
“Let’s walk outside. I’ll tell you his reasoning.”
“Whatever it is, I’m still going to strangle him when he gets back.”
• • •
HAWKE knew he’d be heading straight into his mate’s fiery temper when he returned to the den, but that didn’t matter. Not when what he did here today would spell the start of the end of Ming LeBon.
Being in the same room as the former Councilor and his cold metallic scent and not gutting the other man went against his natural instincts, but the wolf understood what it was to protect pups. And right now, hard as that was to swallow, Ming’s stabilizing presence was protecting a heck of a lot of pups in Europe.
That would change.
If Hawke had to nudge Ming slowly out of power to make him viable prey, then so be it; the wolf was willing to listen to the human in this hunt. Because both parts of him knew that sooner or later, Hawke would tear out Ming’s throat. For threatening Sienna’s life, for hurting her when she’d been a child, for all those Ming had tortured and murdered.
“As I noted in my message, Mr. LeBon, SnowDancer has made a competing offer.” The words were spoken by a slight human male seated behind the desk by the windows. Stenson was doing a good job of keeping his cool, but Hawke could smell the sour tang of nerves on the mustachioed man with pale white skin.
It wasn’t every day that a small computronics company fielded two buyout offers: one from an ex-Councilor turned de facto ruler of a large chunk of Europe, the other from the biggest changeling pack in the country.
Hawke, his back to the window, stood to the right of the desk. Sitting next to Ming in the spare guest chair on the other side of the desk wasn’t an option. Judd stood outside the office door, but Hawke could sense him, knew the other man was protecting his mind from psychic threats. Whatever tricks Ming had, he’d have to mobilize into full battle mode to use them against an ex-Arrow and an alpha wolf.
“SnowDancer isn’t known for its interest in cutting-edge computronics.”
Hawke shrugged at Ming’s frigid comment. “Those who survive are those who adapt.”
“I’ll increase my offer by ten percent.”
Stenson glanced at Hawke.
“We’ll beat that,” Hawke responded. “By one percent.”
Ming made another counteroffer; Hawke countered it by another one percent. They went on like that until Ming got the point: SnowDancer was determined to buy this company and gain control of its innovative ideas.
That Ming hadn’t already stolen the company’s secrets was thanks to some very clever structuring. Stenson was in charge of the company’s finances and did the deals, but he knew nothing of its technological breakthroughs beyond what he needed to facilitate the financial side of things. The company had also succeeded in keeping secret the identities of its developers.
No Psy could pluck out secrets from a mind if he or she didn’t know which mind to target.
“It appears the company is yours.” Ming left without further words.
Hawke bared his teeth.
When Stenson flinched, he realized the gesture had been more lupine aggressiveness than human smile. Ah well, the man would have to get used to dealing with wolves sooner or later.
Since Yuki and the rest of SnowDancer’s legal eagles had already checked the details, Hawke finalized the deal with his signature, then held out his hand to Stenson. “Happy to be working with you.”
The bewildered man shook his hand. “You won’t be restructuring?”
“Expect a SnowDancer team to drop by, go over things with you. But at this stage, we plan to leave you to go about your business.” Hawke had bought the company primarily to frustrate Ming and ensure the ex-Councilor couldn’t get a foothold in this part of the world, but it actually was a good investment. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have another deal to complete.”
Five minutes after that, he’d cut Ming off from acquiring the majority share in a financial entity based out of Liechtenstein, and an hour after that, while Judd drove them back up to the den, he made it clear to a corporation that they would lose their biggest client—SnowDancer—should they agree to work with Ming LeBon.
This was war and people had to choose sides.
When he hung up, Judd raised an eyebrow. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were a ruthless CEO.”
“I am a ruthless CEO.” It was his official description on all the businesses that ran under the SnowDancer banner. “You’re the one who recommended we watch for Ming trying to infiltrate SnowDancer territory through business interests.” It was why Hawke had known what Ming was up to—he’d had SnowDancer’s Cooper and DarkRiver’s Bastien arrange a network of eyes and ears in the region’s business circles.
“I never expected you to take to business combat like a fish to water.”
“It’s not my preferred way to fight”—a slight understatement—“but it’s nice to know I just cost Ming millions of dollars.” Cutting off a little more of the evil bastard’s power base.
“How far will you go?”
“All the way.” As long as he played a strategic game, SnowDancer had the strength and the financial reach to not only keep Ming out of this territory, but to break the ex-Councilor’s grip on Europe. “I should’ve figured it out earlier, but I was so set on tearing off his head that I didn’t think about other options.” Now that he had, Hawke was starting to enjoy the hunt. “I’m going to bring him down so low that he has no allies and is running for his life on the streets. Then I’ll tear off his head.”
Judd’s eyes glinted. “Losing power would be worse than death for Ming.”
Hawke showed his teeth again. “Then the bastard’s going to be in a lot of pain starting today.”
His phone buzzed with an incoming message from Cooper confirming that SnowDancer now owned a ten percent share in a company Ming relied on for supplies for one of his other corporations. Give me six more months, Cooper had written, and we’ll have a fifty-one percent share. The best part is that SnowDancer will make a profit long term even as we freeze out LeBon.
Hawke’s wolf threw back its head inside him and howled in triumph.