CHAPTER 70

I had a few problems. The first was that Gunner didn't like phones. He didn't carry a personal cell, each of his meeting were planned in person through one of his many underlings. So just giving him a call to warn him of this hit was out. I was just going to have to track the guy down physically.

The second problem was that I didn't actually know where Dockside was. It was near the docks, obviously, but the club moved from time to time to keep from being discovered by the authorities. I hadn't been by since the last move and so had really no way of knowing where exactly it was. That left me with one option, which was to use my wolf's senses to locate one very specific werewolf over a large area.

Unfortunately, fate also seemed to be plotting against me, because as my cab closed in on the South Boston Waterfront I spotted marked vehicles and a traffic roadblock.

"Looks like they've got the entire place blocked off," my cabby commented. "Your time's still runnin' you want I should keep trying to get through?"

I narrowed my eyes at the closest vehicle with a red flashing light. CPB...Customs and Border Patrol. My stomach sank. That was not good news. If our people had been caught in a sting operation...

"No, just let me out here," I handed the cabby his money and pulled myself from the back seat, trotting across the stopped lanes of traffic toward the sidewalk. One man, sitting in a lifted black hummer blared his horn at me. As if I were the one holding up traffic. Asshat.

I gave him the finger and when he started shouting obscenities through his open window I turned around, letting my wolf out a little while striding toward him. He was a young man, probably still in his teens and high on the stench of mommy and daddy's money. Thought he was better than everyone and invincible.

I smiled at him.

His eyes grew wide and he scrambled for the window controls, his face paling as it slowly crawled back into place. Both he and the horn went silent.

That's what I thought.

I turned back around and made it to the sidewalk without farther harassment.

I could easily sneak by the barricade and get into the waterfront area, but there was no guarantee Gunner was even here, there were miles and miles of waterfront throughout Boston.

*Think we can sniff him out?* I asked my wolf. *At least we could cross this area off our list?*

I cringed, because if we had to travel the entire Boston waterfront trying to catch his scent we could easily be at this for hours on end. But then again, I glanced at the CBP officers who were pulling over anyone attempting to get into the waterfront, that might be preferable if it meant our people weren't somehow caught up in this mess.

My wolf let her senses out, scanning for the particular scent that was Gunner, a sort of mix of honey based soap and cinnamon gum, topped with metal and the slight salty scent of the sea.
She froze. I was about to ask her what was wrong when a wave of emotion hit me, so strong I doubled over, just trying to breathe. Pain and anger...fury coursed through me, blocking all rational thought. Blocking me from my task of finding Gunner.

He was here. Or he had been, as recently as a few hours ago. The man from the shipping facility. The one that had been in the garden shed the night of my parent's murder. The scent of cigarette and steel and blood. I searched the area, looking for any clue, any sign.

I was blinded with rage, and I turned, away from the waterfront, following the trail. It left the waterfront proper and traveled along Summer Street. It picked up a jog, ignoring pedestrians who glared at me as I burst past them.

The scent was fading, in most places it was gone altogether, especially the crowded areas, every so often I had to stop at an intersection and pace back and forth until I caught a whiff again. I was so focused, so driven that I'd jogged all the way to Belmont before I paused to wonder what the hell I was doing.

I slowed to a walk, my breathing accelerated but even. Sweat poured down my face, and I must have looked like something out of a horror movie because people were crossing the street to avoid me.

*We can't let him get away. Not this time.* My wolf growled, urging me to continue.

*You're right,* I agreed. *But we just ran across the entire city without a plan, without considering that this is too much of a coincidence.*

My wolf's rage dimmed a little bit.

Why would his scent be there now, at the waterfront, of all places? Especially a place where I'd been driven to go after bugging Leanne's equipment. A scent that I hadn't smelled even once in Boston in the last five years. A scent that I wouldn't be able to resist.

*You're right,* my wolf told me sending her senses as far as she could. He was a distance away, in some building, his scent mixed with dust and decay, and three others, all human.* It's a trap.*

So did they have Leanne convince Anthony to make a hit on Gunner knowing I would learn about it and go to warn him? Or had they detected the bugs and just made use of the situation. The woman on the phone with Leanne had mentioned they had teams looking for me.

*I don't know*, my wolf answered my thoughts,* but it doesn't change anything. This is our chance to get vengeance. We'll be more cautious knowing it's a trap, but we still have to go.*

There was something more than urgency in her voice. A brittle determination, stemming from the gaping wound of our past. It was dark, and it was hungry, and if I didn't feed it I had a feeling I might break my wolf altogether.

*There are lives at stake, if we don't find Gunner.* I told her, my own emotions fogging my brain. Anthony had told me to let this go, to focus on the people I had now. Given this dilema I couldn't help but wonder if he was right.

*I need this.*

Her quiet dignity was what got me. She was her own being, her own entity. We shared a body, but she had her own ideas, and her pain, though we shared the reason for it, was entirely real. I tried not to think about how many times what I wanted, my life, my desires had come before her own.

The last few days had taken a toll on both of us, but she was so strong that I'd never had to worry about her pulling through. For the very first time I realized that she was fragile, and a little bit broken.

And if I could help her, just a little. If I could help both of us. Didn't I owe it to her and myself to try?

The hit was planned for two a.m. It was currently somewhere between two and three in the afternoon. We had twelve hours. And if the CBP were casing the place it was possible the hit would be called off anyway. We might never get another chance at this man. Never get a chance for answers.

Why *were* my parents murdered? The question had been eating at me for five years.

*You're right,* I told my wolf. *We have to do this.*