Hidden Crimes (2 page)

“Sometimes,” Tony said as they trotted down
the warehouse stairs, “you’re totally the gay one.”

Nate knew some people believed this; he
was
particular. He didn’t give a shit about their
misconceptions, as long as Tony knew better.

The bright August sun turned the lush green
shade of the pavement trees into an oasis. Nate liked to think of
the neighborhood they lived in as upscale blue collar. Pretty
century-old brownstones shared the oak-lined street with small
bodegas and restaurants. Lots of folks who resided here had done so
for generations. The area was maybe a quarter wolf, but other races
had put roots down too. Even more than the street he’d grown up on,
this one felt like home to him.

Tony waved to the corner grocer while Nate
nodded. Mrs. Marinelli, the half-blind human music teacher, slowed
her ancient Volkswagen to let them sprint across the street. Spells
laid on the engine kept her from hitting people, as did the locals’
knowledge of who she was. Fortunately, she rarely drove farther
than ten blocks.

Tony twisted back to watch the sweet old lady
try to gun the car, which was refusing to accelerate into the path
of a squirrel. Leashed to his post and jealous, the grocer’s
friendly German shepherd barked wildly. “We really should take her
license. She’s ancient in human years.”

“Adam submitted a request,” Nate informed
him. “The neighborhood association’s been complaining.”

“Well, good.” Tony bounded up the next stoop.
They’d reached Adam’s well-kept brownstone, a mere two blocks from
Nate’s loft. “Not that I’d want to break the news. Mrs. M can swing
that purse of hers pretty hard.”

The street door wasn’t locked, so Tony simply
held it open, allowing Nate to precede him. “Too bad about the
curse that witch put on her. Otherwise, we could take up a
collection and have the elves fix her eyes.”

Nate grunted in answer, his mind on other
things as he climbed the stairs to Adam’s apartment on the top
floor. Rick and Tony owned the lower floors, and they all shared
the big roof deck. Since the brothers were Adam’s blood cousins,
this had the effect of making the building smell like Adam’s
private turf. Nate was Adam’s cousin as well, but only by marriage.
For him, meetings with his alpha, who was also his lieutenant and
therefore his boss, were always a bit tricky.

Nate, Adam, and Rick had attended the same
class at the Academy. Of the three, Nate’s scores in every form of
testing had been the best. Rick and Adam had superior body mass,
Adam being solidly six-one while Rick topped out at a muscle-bound
six-four. In spite of Nate being a lean six-footer, in most styles
of fighting he could take them.
He
won the sharpshooter
medal.
His
times for the quarter mile on two legs broke a
six-year record. Nate knew the RPD manual back and forth and
swiftly grew famous (or infamous, depending on who you spoke to)
for the precision of his reports. Despite these accomplishments,
when the mysterious werewolf trait known as dominance entered the
equation, Nate came up short on X factor.

The Resurrection Police Department was
overwhelmingly made up of wolves. Squads were organized along pack
lines, with leadership decided by ritual face-offs between members
in animal form. Given his superior talents and intense drive, Nate
had expected to be alpha. At worst, he’d braced himself to serve as
beta. When both Adam’s and Rick’s wolves had been able to master
his, it was a hard shock to him.

Adam was a good leader, and Rick was
certainly affable, but sometimes that shock still stung. Nate
didn’t want either man to guess he resented coming third—in part
for pride’s sake, and in part because he liked them. Schooling his
body language not to give him away was worth some concentration. By
the time he strolled into the Santini entryway, no one would have
thought he wasn’t completely self-assured.

Directly across from the open door was Adam’s
cramped kitchen. Inside, Rick and his parents were putting the
final touches on a giant pan of lasagna before it went into the
oven. Nate threw them all a
hey
, then turned to the living
room.

If he’d been a painter, he’d have tried to
capture the scene he found. Adam’s living space was the opposite of
his own. Here comfort trumped style, hand-me-downs supplanted
vintage, and no one got upset if the twenty-year-old curtains
clashed with the threadbare rugs. Somehow, the place was beautiful
anyway. Even empty of people, it radiated warmth. It soaked it up
from Adam’s goodhearted nature, from the bond he and Ari shared.
The presence of pack on the old-fashioned furniture made the air
glow gold. The wolf in him approved every inch of the Santini
residence, even if the human chose differently.

When his gaze found Ari and the baby in the
overstuffed rocking chair, a smile he couldn’t have repressed
tugged up his features.

The pair was adorable: Ari with her spiky
and—at the moment—strawberry colored hair, the baby with her dark
little tuft and her big round eyes. Built on the same slight lines
as her human mother, the two-month-old’s footie sleeper was printed
with unicorns.

The previous year, Ari had earned Nate’s
respect by helping the squad take down a bad guy. Earning his
admiration had required no more than being attractive and female.
Her turning out to be a devoted wife and mother won over parts of
him he didn’t have names for.

“How are my favorite girls?” he asked, a
shade of something extra in his trademark lady-killer croon.

He crossed the small cluttered room to Ari’s
shabby throne, his excellent peripheral vision marking everyone who
was there. Ari’s human friends Max and Sarah held hands on the love
seat. Maria and her husband Johnny leaned forward on the couch,
apparently ready to grab their five-year-old by the scruff if he
forgot his P’s and Q’s. Ethan knelt on the window seat, craning to
see the birds, but he glanced back at Nate’s approach. Adam, alpha
of them all, stood behind Ari’s chair. One hand rested on its back
while the other held a barely touched bottle of elf ale. He was
casual but imposing, a smiling but alert paterfamilias.

Having reached his goal, Nate bent to stroke
the baby’s head and kiss Ari’s cheek gently. Married lady or not,
she was too pretty not to get his flirt on with.

“‘Your’ girls are fine,” Ari said dryly,
shifting Kelsey around to her shoulder to pat her little back.
“We’re waking up from our nap and feeling extremely grateful we’re
not cooking.”

“Nate might be grateful too,” Adam said with
his own dryness. Ari had her talents, but cooking wasn’t one.

Emotion swelled in Nate without warning, the
feeling so intense he suspected it was his wolf’s. Being with pack
pulled his beast closer to the surface. The sensation wasn’t
unpleasant, just unnerving. Instincts drove his wolf’s reactions,
responses that weren’t under Nate’s direct control. He tried to
simply go with the wave of warmth, but it was difficult. He needed
these people. He loved these people. Sometimes, though, he knew
he’d never be all he could as long as they were around.

“Boss,” Nate said to his alpha, his tone
touched by throatiness.

“Nate,” Adam acknowledged.

Unaccountably tense, Nate’s hand tightened on
the bag he was carrying.

“Is that a puh-resent for Kelsey?” Nate’s
honorary nephew Ethan piped. The five-year-old was finally learning
to say his
r
’s. The poorly hidden hope in his expression
told Nate he should have brought a gift for him too.

“It is,” he said, joining the boy on the
window seat. “Since she’s so little, do you suppose you could help
her open it?”

Ethan considered this, then held out his arms
to accept the bag. The tissue paper seemed to entertain him. The
blanket he pronounced boring, though he did walk it over to Ari,
where he plunked it grumpily on her knees.

“Ethan,” his mother scolded. “Don’t call
other people’s presents boring.”

“You told me not to lie,” Ethan returned
reasonably.

Nate wasn’t sure the boy understood why the
adults laughed. Fortunately for Nate, their amusement smoothed over
the awkwardness his expensive gift might have stirred. Subordinates
weren’t supposed to show their superiors up.

“Very thoughtful,” Adam said, sending him a
level look over his wife’s spiky scarlet head. Nate was pretty
certain he’d spotted the spellwork.

“It’s beautiful.” Ari’s fingers stroked the
white velvet. “If Kelsey won’t take naps on it, I will.”

“It’s spelled,” Nate felt compelled to
explain. “Whatever gets on it will wash out.”

“Well, that’s convenient,” Ari said, her
brows beginning to rise.

“I have a present for Kelsey too,” Tony
interrupted, thrusting out his bedraggled package.

“Wow.” Obviously not expecting such a fuss at
a simple dinner, Ari took the gift. When she dug through the
crumple to find the contents, her face split into a grin. “A bunny!
Oh Tony, it’s adorable!”

“It’s not magic or anything,” he said, his
cheeks flushing at her pleasure, “but the saleslady promised it
doesn’t have any parts Kelsey can swallow.”

“It’s perfect,” Ari assured him. “I don’t
know what I did to deserve you all being so nice to me.”

She wasn’t just saying this. As she turned
between Nate and Tony, her cornflower eyes shone with tears. Nate
couldn’t decide if he was touched or uncomfortable. Ari was an
Outsider, a human from the non-magic world that surrounded
Resurrection’s fae-created reality. Nate knew pieces of her story:
that she’d been born telekinetic and her powers had freaked out her
conservative parents, that she’d lived as a street kid in Manhattan
before accidentally stumbling past their borders. Given her
reaction to his and Tony’s gifts, Nate concluded she hadn’t been
wallowing in love and care out there.

Seeing this, he understood why Adam strove so
fiercely to make her feel cherished.

Ethan saved the moment from getting too
sentimental by throwing his sturdy body theatrically on the floor.
“Ugh,” he declared. “Babies get all the presents!”

Nate scooped him off the carpet before his
father could swat his butt. “Brat,” he said, giving the boy a toss
that made him giggle. “Why don’t you and I play on the roof until
dinner is ready?”

“Yes!” Ethan crowed. “No poopie girls
allowed!”

“
Ethan
,” his parents scolded in
unison.

“Let him be,” Nate advised, aware they were
embarrassed by their son’s jealousy. He turned his attention to the
boy. “Maybe Grant will play catch with us.”

Grant was the gargoyle who nested on Adam’s
roof. Like most of his race, he was smarter than he let on. Despite
being as big as a minibus, he was the safest, most protective
friend Ethan could have had.

“I love Grant!” the boy declared, flinging
his arms around Nate’s neck.

Nate had to smile at that. Jealousy
notwithstanding, Ethan’s heart had plenty of love in it.

They’d almost reached the door when Adam’s
pager buzzed. Nate turned back and caught Ari giving Adam a look
that blended resignation and wry humor, one that said whatever this
was, he’d better be careful.

“Noo,” Ethan moaned, knowing what the sound
meant from his own cop father.

Adam lifted one finger to keep Nate waiting
where he was. “It’s the precinct. Don’t go out until I see what’s
up.”

~

The call from dispatch regarded a Russian
wolf named Vasili Galina. Vasili had the questionable fortune of
being the mobster Ivan Galina’s younger brother. Vasili had worked
as Ivan’s right hand man until two months ago, when the siblings
had fallen out. The cause was money and a woman, both of which Ivan
claimed Vasili stole from him. Aware that Ivan was called “the
Terrible” for a reason, Vasili had gone on the run.

Sadly for him, Resurrection was an island,
surrounded not by water but normalcy. A few centuries earlier, the
fae had created the Pocket city from the stuff of their dimension.
Inside, werewolves were common. Outside, supes were at the mercy of
much more numerous, monster-fearing mundanes. The Galina line
hadn’t set foot past Resurrection’s borders since emigrating from
Siberia. As a result, Vasili was intimidated by the idea of fleeing
there.

If Adam’s squad could catch the less ruthless
brother before he grew desperate enough to try, they had a decent
chance of getting him to rat on Ivan. Because Ivan knew this,
they’d been in a race over who’d find Vasili first. This evening,
he’d been spotted in the warehouse district, slipping into a
tobacco shop owned by the disputed girlfriend’s cousins.
Surveillance had been watching the location for weeks now without a
sighting. If Ivan’s men were less patient than the RPD’s, this
could be a real opening.

Excited, but doing their best to keep a lid
on it, Tony, Adam, and Nate hurried one floor down to Rick’s
apartment to strap on their vests and gear.

Rick’s place was a messier version of Adam’s.
His front hall closet was fitted out as an arms cabinet. Barring a
yen for a rocket launcher, whatever they wanted in the way of
short-notice weapons he kept locked up there. Nate had a similar
arrangement in his loft, though of course his locker was
neater.

None of them needed an explanation as to why
it was better to do this here than in front of family. Maria’s
husband Johnny they left behind with the lasagna. Johnny worked
Special Tactics—operations you needed troops for, not just a gun or
two. He wouldn’t join a call like this unless matters turned
extreme.

“We’ll take Rick’s car,” Adam said,
double-checking the clip for his gun before sliding it into his
under arm holster. They were packing electrum bullets, the
silver-gold alloy being effective against most supes. “His Buick
has four doors and won’t stand out like the response van. I don’t
want to spook Vasili or clue Ivan that we found him. Nate, you’ll
be at the wheel.”