“Um, I’m still missing some vital bit of information here,” Uncle Rick said, his anger almost overshadowed by the confusion written in every line of his brow. “Can someone give us the short version?”

My father crossed thick arms over his suit jacket. “Dean is holding my daughter at gunpoint, evidently handcuffed,” he answered, as Taylor and Di Carlo took up positions between my Alpha and my uncle, drawing a very obvious line in the proverbial sand. “And if he doesn’t let her go right now, this is going to get very ugly.” His voice deepened into a noticeably feline growl on the end, and I realized that some part of his throat had Shifted. And didn’t his pupils look a little…vertical?

“Okay, let’s all just calm down,” Blackwell said, and I looked up to find the old man leaning on his cane. And if I wasn’t imagining it, the web of wrinkles on his face looked deeper than ever. He looked…exhausted. “Everyone have a seat and I’m sure we can get to the bottom of this.”

“Do I get to sit, or do I have to stand here with this pistol poking a permanent dent in my spine?”

“Of course you may sit.” Blackwell made his way slowly toward one of several armchairs and motioned for me to take the one on his left.

Malone scowled at having his authority subverted and set his mug on the nearest end table, rushing to get back into the game. “Dean, put the gun away. I don’t think she’s going to try anything in a roomful of toms.”

Dean hesitated, and only removed the pistol from my kidney when Malone gave him a second warning. “Fine. But I hope I’m not the only one who remembers that she once tried to eat my face off in front of a room full of Alphas.”

“Oh, please, that was for show!” I turned on him the minute I heard the gun safety click into place. “To scare you into telling the truth.” I forced a smug smile, all for him. “And it worked even better than planned….”

Dean wanted to say something. Or hit me. That much was obvious. But he couldn’t hit a girl incapacitated by handcuffs. At least, not in a room full of witnesses. Though in that moment, I wished with every fiber of my being that he would, so they could all see what a monster he really was.

Blackwell cleared his throat pointedly. “Ms. Sanders, if you don’t mind?” I nodded curtly and made my way—awkwardly, with my hands still bound behind me—to the couch he indicated, while most of the other Alphas found seats. But my father and his three allies remained standing, in obvious and silent protest.

Councilman Blackwell propped his cane on the side of his chair and turned to Malone. “Calvin, what on earth is going on?”

But before Malone could speak, Lucas burst through the front door and jogged several steps into the room. “Uncle Greg, they took Faythe and…” My cousin trailed into silence as he took in the rest of the room, including me, handcuffed on the couch. “Oh. I guess you figured that out already.”

“Welcome to the party, son.” Uncle Rick shot him a wry smile.

“Sorry…” Lucas retreated to one corner of the room to watch with the other enforcers.

Malone retrieved his mug from an end table and took a sip, clearly savoring both the moment and the attention. “Marc Ramos and Faythe are being held on charges of trespassing, assault, kidnapping, and accessory to murder. I’m charging Jace Hammond with all the same crimes, except for trespassing. Faythe will stay here until the start of her trial, then she’ll be swiftly tried and sentenced, if that proves necessary.”

“You have no right to hold her,” my father growled. “There’s no precedent for this.”

“Nor is there any policy forbidding it. Not that that matters anymore. You might recall that a vote this morning gave the council the authority to hold dangerous criminals until they can be tried and sentenced. I believe it passed by a six-to-four margin.”

My father and his allies were the dissenting votes, obviously. At lunch, my dad had said they’d objected to the vague language.

“The operative word there is dangerous, Calvin. Faythe isn’t dangerous.”

Malone nearly spit coffee all over his white button-down shirt. “A show of hands if you believe that!”

No hands were raised, and I wasn’t sure whether to be frustrated or extraordinarily pleased.

“Dean…” Malone gestured for his new golden boy to take the floor.

“Councilman Sanders, your daughter threatened to gut me. Without a knife.” Dean’s faux look of concern could barely conceal his glee at finally getting to deliver a line he’d obviously been waiting for. “Alex was there—he’ll vouch for that.”

I followed Dean’s gesture to see that Alex Malone had slipped into the room at some point and was now watching me in obvious anticipation.

And suddenly I felt like the world’s biggest idiot. Again.

“They set me up!” I stood from the low couch—not a simple feat without the use of my hands—and my father gestured subtly for me to sit before someone mistook my sudden motion for another sign of aggression. It took every bit of self-control I had left to make myself drop back onto the couch, but I did it without compromising the indignation I hoped still shone on my face. I glared at Dean, and silently tamped down the urge to let my teeth Shift. “You goaded me on purpose, trying to get me to lose my temper!” Of course, I’d been doing the same thing, so I was really less upset about being set up than about the fact that his ruse had succeeded where mine had failed. “And you’ve been threatening me ever since I got here!”