“It doesn’t bother you that he hasn’t helped her? He could have done something, Roni. As a kid, he was helpless. But later on, he could have stepped in and defended his mother. He could have gotten her away from that bastard. But he didn’t. He left her with him. That doesn’t bother you?”

Eli spoke then. “Nothing’s ever that simple, Nick. There could be more to his story than that. Maybe his mom hadn’t wanted help. Maybe his dad had beaten him too.”

“According to Donovan, there was never anything to suggest that Marcus or his sisters suffered.”

“Doesn’t mean it didn’t happen,” said Roni. “Now do us all a favor and concentrate on your own life instead of busying yourself interfering with mine.” She’d known Marcus was a guy with secrets even before he’d mentioned his “twisted story,” so finding out he had some skeletons wasn’t at all a surprise.

What was a surprise was that Marcus hadn’t whisked his mother away from his father—that just didn’t fit with the protective wolf she knew. Sure, his mother might have refused to leave, might have turned on Marcus for trying to interfere. But Marcus was persistent by nature; he would have pushed and pushed until she agreed to leave, or until his father vowed never to touch her again.

Or maybe Roni was reading him wrong; maybe she didn’t know him at all.

In any case, there was always more to every story. Roni knew better than most how people’s stories could be distorted the more it traveled through the grapevine.

Besides, what right did she have to judge another? What was so special about her that gave her the right to condemn or pass judgment on what another person did or didn’t do?

“How about we move off the subject of Fuller?” proposed Derren. “He’s not what’s important right now.”

“Fine.” Nick exhaled heavily. “Listen, Roni, I’ve been thinking and . . . I think we should tell Mom about the vid being on the website.”

“What?”

“Hear me out. She can help you with this; she’s someone you can talk to about it. You’ve got Shaya too, obviously, but—”

“No way.”

“Telling Kathy won’t help anyone,” Derren told Nick. “All it will do is make her hysterical and, in turn, make Roni miserable because of the subsequent increase in coddling.”

“But she can talk to Roni, be a shoulder for her to—”

Roni jumped to her feet, growling. “You tell Mom, and I’ll slit your throat.”

Nick raised his hands, palms out. “Calm down, Roni.” He said it like she was a psycho who was hanging on the edge. “I know you’re upset about the vid—”

Calmly but coldly, she insisted, “Get out.”

“But you’ve got us. We’re here for you.”

“Get out.”

“All we want is to help you, be here for you. Come on, come with us—you don’t have to lock yourself away. We won’t judge you for crying.”

Crying? “Fuck this.” And she shifted.

The dark-gray wolf growled, and everybody froze.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Leaning back in his seat, Marcus rubbed at his aching eyes. He’d spent most of the day on Rhett’s computer, watching many of the vile videos on snm.com with Ryan and Tao, searching for any familiar faces in the hope that it might speed up the process of identifying the sadistic bastards who’d uploaded them. It had taken everything Marcus had to shut off his emotions and observe each one of the vids with clinical detachment.

Unfortunately the faces had been cleverly concealed. They had come to realize that the jackals’ kills all appeared to happen in the same place: a dark, square room that was empty except for a bloodstained mattress. However, they had no idea where it was.

Rhett had quickly discovered that the IP address of the site had in fact been masked—and it had been done exceptionally well. Both he and Donovan were working on it, in addition to attempting to trace the IP addresses of the others—in particular, the person responsible for uploading the video of Roni. Unfortunately, said person had done it anonymously, but it wouldn’t keep him hidden forever. They’d track him down somehow.

Marcus was glad Roni wasn’t with him. She wouldn’t have been able to detach herself from the victims’ plight, not when she herself had been through something very similar. However, as much as he was glad she hadn’t been around, he’d also sort of . . . missed her.

People who didn’t know Roni well would never believe it, but she was good company. She was entertaining, though he was sure she didn’t mean to be. She was outspoken and direct, which he liked and could appreciate. And although she was wounded in her own little way, she hadn’t let it destroy her confidence or hold her back; she kept on going, and he could respect that. He respected her.

His wolf, too, had missed her company and was pushing at Marcus to find her. Marcus would have been happy to oblige—particularly since he was aching to be inside her again, and particularly since he had a very important question for her regarding the video evidence—but the multiple calls he’d made to her cell phone had all gone straight to voicemail. She hadn’t returned his calls or text messages.

He’d considered contacting Shaya to check that Roni was okay, but it seemed wrong to go around Roni like that. She wasn’t a child that needed monitoring, and she wouldn’t appreciate being treated like one. He was well aware that Roni enjoyed having space, and he’d need to respect that.

“What the fuck is wrong with these people?” Tao was referring to a clip of four jackals physically assaulting a bound and gagged juvenile bear shifter. “How could someone truly be that sick?”

“We’re looking at evil—pure and simple.” That came from Ryan.

“You need a break?” Tao asked the enforcer. Ryan simply scowled at him before returning his attention to the computer screen. Tao exchanged a worried look with Marcus. Neither of them had wanted Ryan to join them. Their fellow enforcer had once been taken by a rival pack, kept prisoner, and tortured for information on the Phoenix Pack. The kidnappers had learned squat, because Ryan hadn’t broke, no matter what they did to him.

Marcus didn’t even want to think of the things they’d done to him.

Ryan never talked about it, and nobody ever brought it up. But the wolf had enough scars to hint at some of what had happened. If watching these clips brought back memories, he certainly wasn’t showing it. But then, Ryan was pretty detached in many ways.