Enough!” Peter snarled, slamming the other Alpha’s head off the brick outside the bar he’d already visited three times, shaking down goons he thought might have a tangential connection to Lake.

“Fucking shit, man, I told you I don’t know anything!” the coward cried, holding up his hands to protect his bloody face.

Peter shoved him to the ground in disgust. He had six hours before his phone rang. Every other night like clockwork, Lake’s stooge called him to announce his next target. The rules of the next round.

In the beginning, Lake had put John on the line, but he’d stopped and Peter wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not. Every time he’d put John on, it had been to let Peter hear him suffering, but he knew that Lake wouldn’t kill him. Not yet. It wasn’t how he worked.

It had been a goddamn month and a half, and he hadn’t heard John’s voice in two weeks, but the Alpha sent him pictures. The beta was holding up a newspaper with a date, and while the solemn look on his face had kept Peter up for nights on end, he didn’t look like one of Lake’s victims more than a month out. There were no fresh wounds on him. In fact, he looked almost healthier than he had before.

It had been three days since the last picture. No pictures, no voice, no nothing. Peter was getting tired of dealing with Lake’s right-hand man. He was getting tired of cleaning up all the other Alpha’s enemies, of spending the hours in between chasing him in circles.

He knew Lake had to be hiding out somewhere on the northwest coast. He had traced him that far, and exhausted every last connection he had in law enforcement and the underworld trying to narrow it further than that, but Lake was a thorough bastard.

Peter was caught in a corner and they both knew it. If he didn’t play Lake’s game, if he let his lethal scavenger hunt take the backseat to his own investigation even for a moment, John would pay the price. And yet, no telling what the beta was being subjected to as he killed day in and day out like one of Lake’s fledgling hires trying to prove himself worthy of a higher position than errand boy.

There were for damn sure a lot fewer criminals on the West Coast than there had been any time in the last sixty years, but the only one Peter had an interest in killing was, by all accounts, still thriving.

“Hey!” A familiar voice was the only thing that stopped him from killing a man who probably deserved it, even if not in this particular instance. He turned to find Jayce walking toward him, wearing a look that said he’d gone off the deep end as much as he felt like and it was painfully obvious.

The goon took his chance and scrambled out of the alley like the rat he was. Jayce looked Peter over, his brow furrowing in deep concern.

When the youngest member of the infamous and most wealthy family in the country had started sniffing around his haunts, getting involved with his old drag racing crew, he’d been the subject of endless hazing in the beginning. They’d all seen Jayce as the easy target he was, and Peter had stepped in one night when hustling the rich young idiot had taken a turn for the worse. He’d stepped in and used his clout to save Jayce’s life out of pity and been surprised that he had more in common with the trust fund brat than he’d ever imagined.

Yeah, Jayce’s lust for life on the wild side because of his privileged upbringing had always been a spot of contention between them, but the other Alpha had saved his hide on more than one occasion. Peter had gone from seeing him as a convenient ally to an actual friend over the years, or at least the closest thing he had. When Jayce had cleaned up his act and gotten serious about his role in his family’s company after taking a mate, their correspondences had grown few and far between, but Peter was happy for him. It was a life he’d never had the luxury of choosing, and now that Jayce’s head was finally out of his ass, he saw it for the gift it was.

When Jayce had called him out of the blue to ask for his professional services to take care of an Alpha who’d wronged his brother’s mate, helping him had been a no brainer. He just wasn’t expecting that his friend would be returning the favor. He was used to the few close personal connections he allowed being mostly one-sided, and giving help was a hell of a lot easier than taking it, but every day John was gone was a day he felt himself spiraling further out of control.

“The hell are you doing?” Jayce asked, nodding in the direction of the coward who’d just scampered off.

“What does it look like I’m doing? I’m tracking Lake.”

“At dive bars with low-level thugs who don’t even know where to score drugs?” Jayce demanded. “You’re chasing your tail and you know it.”

“What am I supposed to do? Just sit on my ass while he has John and…” He trailed off. Thinking about it was one thing. It never left his mind. He couldn’t bring himself to say it out loud. Through gritted teeth, he asked, “What the fuck would you do if you were me?”

“Go insane,” Jayce replied without missing a beat. “No doubt. But I’m here to make sure that doesn’t happen. We’re gonna find John,” he said, putting a hand on his friend’s shoulder. “I promise you that. You need to be in one piece when we do.”

Peter swallowed hard and nodded. He knew Jayce was right. Falling apart, taking his rage out on the first deadbeat to cross his path, it wasn’t doing anything to help John or lessen the pit of dread within his chest that stretched each day.

“My guy in the FBI says he might know a way around the number spoofing that could actually help us trace the call next time,” Jayce said, once he seemed to have decided Peter was in a place to listen. “Only problem is, you gotta keep him on the line.”

“Which means I run the risk of pissing him off,” muttered Peter. “And that he’ll take it out on John.”

Jayce didn’t answer, but his somber expression showed his agreement.

“There is another way.”

“And what might that be?”

“This whole time, we’ve been tracking Lake. His people, his hideouts. Thing is, I’m thinking we lure him out.”

Peter frowned. “How?”

“Hit him where it hurts. His drugs are all over this goddamn city, and it’ll be a hell of a lot easier to find the mother load than it’s gonna be to find him.”

Peter’s eyes widened. Jayce was right. A man like Lake had his fingers in everything, but if they could pinpoint a large enough shipment and burn it to the fucking ground, that would certainly call him out.

It would also definitely piss him off, but Lake had enough enemies, both among dealers and the police who hunted them, that he wouldn’t necessarily suspect Peter. Not if his former friend had an alibi.

Time to take Lake’s board and flip it upside down on him.