Page 63 of True North

“Actually, I’m going to head home. You can take off, if you want. Your job as bodyguard is officially done for the day.”

He cocked his head to the side, studying me closely. “You sure?”

“Absolutely. It’s basically a straight shot from here to my house. No reason for you to tail me for that. Go. Enjoy the rest of your night. I’ll be fine.”

He nodded, reaching around to pull his phone from his back pocket. “I’ll shoot Pope and North a text, giving them a heads-up.”

I moved toward him, planting an appreciative kiss on his cheek. “Thanks a lot, Rake. You’re a good friend.”

That smirk returned, and I couldn’t help but think that the woman who’d eventually land this guy was going to be all kinds of lucky. “Never have to thank me for something like this, gorgeous. Wraiths take care of our own. That includes you and your man.” I really liked hearing that. It made me feel like my family had expanded by the dozens. “Text when you get home, let me know you’re good.”

I threw him a sassy salute as I backed up toward my car. “You got it, boss.”

He chuckled, muttering, “Smart ass,” before starting up his bike. He waited until I was pulling out of the parking lot before breaking off and heading in the opposite direction.

Taylor Swift was crooning from my speakers as I cruised down the back roads between my former office and house when the flash of blue and red police lights filled the cab of my car. Taylor’s voice was cut off by the chirp of his siren, and I couldn’t help but smile as I flipped on my blinker and slowly pulled over to the side of the road.

I rolled down my window, prepared to let North have it for pulling me over like this. But I should have known he would play a little prank like this.

The glare from his flashlight made it impossible to see anything but his shadowed frame as he grew closer. “You know if you write me a ticket right now, you can kiss goodbye any hope of sex for the next week, right?” I teased, turning to peek my head out of the window.

The glow from the flashlight finally moved as he spoke. But it wasn’t North’s voice. “Stupid whore. I’m gonna make you all pay.” Before I could do anything, Tolliver Brady smashed the large flashlight into the side of my head.

Those were the last words I heard before everything went black.

North

By the time my day finally wound down, I was exhausted in a way I hadn’t been since my days in the academy.

Brady’s mismanagement of this department had gone deeper than I expected. I knew I was going to have a mess on my hand, especially having to rebuild an entire department from the ground up, but it was even worse than I could have imagined.

“Jesus, man. Glad as hell it’s you and not me,” Archer said helpfully as he sat across from me and kicked back in his chair, tossing his feet up on my desk. My first order of business had been to get all the ugly-ass furniture Brady had in here out. The bonfire out back when I burned it all to the ground was so big, I should have invited the town to roast marshmallows.

I hadn’t gotten around to replacing everything yet, so for now, my office was barebones, with a cheap desk and chair I’d pulled in from the bullpen.

I looked at the documents piled high on my desk. “From the looks of it, he funneled most of the department’s budget into his own pocket. Didn’t use a goddamn dime of it to make improvements around here.”

Archer raised a brow and gave me a look that screamed yeah, no shit, man. “You’re surprised about that? I mean, look around you. This place is falling around our heads.”

I shoved the papers away. If I kept looking at them, I was going to go cross-eyed. “Yeah, and I’m going to fix it.”

“Can you maybe start with the coffee machine? Maybe I’m being picky, but I prefer my coffee not to taste like black mold.”

I was in the middle of laughing when one of the deputies, a woman named Jones, stepped into my office, sporting a frown. “Chief, one of the cruisers is missing.”

My spine went stiff. Even Archer straightened, putting his boots back on the ground and turning to look at the newcomer. “What do you mean? We took count of everything earlier today.”

After the bonfire, a few of the other guys and I had to take inventory of everything from weapons, to cars, to goddamn paperclips, to make sure none of those crooked fucks had taken off with anything they weren’t supposed to have after I fired them.

She shook her head, her expression showing she was just as perplexed as I felt. “I don’t know, Chief. It was here this morning, but now it’s gone. I tried looking at the security footage to see who took it, but none of the cameras work.”

I let out a sharp curse. “No fucking surprise. Brady didn’t update shit around here. That system should have been replaced two goddamn decades ago.”

Just as I said that, my cell started to ring. I pulled it from my pocket, my brows pulling into a frown at the name flashing on the screen.

“Cheryl? Hey, what’s up?”

“Have you heard from Iris?” she asked, the worry in her voice turning the blood in my veins to ice.