RILEY
At a hundred and fifty miles an hour, Riley flew into Denver in only an hour. She made one stop in the city, and it was an important one.
The US SSTF Denver Headquarters was fairly well-hidden, but not the hardest thing to find either. Brenton had made the mistake of leaving both the address and the phone numbers to several contacts working there for her to easily find. She had access to his office for her own work with the diner and her gallery. She just took pictures of the things she needed when he wasn’t in the room.
She stopped her bike on the sidewalk, pushed inside the building and dropped the packet on the front desk, where no one was sitting at the moment. She threw another stack of papers over it, appointment lists and such. She would have to tell them where she put it later.
She walked back out, confident in what she was about to do. She got back on her bike and screamed off before anyone could even think to ask her what she was doing.
Another hour and she would be at Abel’s new precious Colorado home. Her fury was a raging fire now, and she would give it what it needed.
Only one more stop and then it would be the final act of this dance. For over a month, Brenton had the pride playing defensively. She was about to change their tactics whether he was okay with it or not.
A gas station off her exit was exactly what she needed. She paid in cash, filling the gas can up. It would have to be enough. She also filled the tank on her bike, having run it low.
Her last stop was Abel’s home. She hoped he wasn’t there yet. She hoped he was out partying with the board members he thought were on his side. They wouldn’t be after tonight.
She pulled into the driveway and didn’t just see one car in the driveway, she saw several.
“So, they are partying here…” Riley growled, grinning. She felt her anger turn mean and dangerous. This was going to be so much more entertaining. And they would all get the fucking message.
No one fucked with the Kingson Pride. Whether that was out of fear of Brenton or anything else, it didn’t matter. Tonight, she was the one sending the message.
She parked a little way out and made a phone call.
“Special Agent Corban, may I ask who’s calling?”
“This is Riley Stern. I’m a member of the Kingson Pride.”
“Ah and why is the Kingson Pride calling so late? We promised to keep them updated on every compound we found and the future of the investigation.” The man sounded very worried.
“I am not calling for the pride. I’m calling for something a little more personal. I left a packet of information on your front desk at the Denver Headquarters. You should look through it immediately. You’ll find that I figured out the shifter who was at the compound that my pride was held in. You know, the one who wanted to buy me and my pride for his own sick purposes. I’ll meet you at dawn at the Kingson Estate if you wish to talk about anything; but I won’t be available for the rest of the night, so don’t try calling me back.” She kept it professional and fast, not giving the agent time to respond at all.
She hung up on the man’s stuttering and walked towards the home. She pulled out the full gas can and slowly poured it around the perimeter of the house, right beside the walls in the grass.
This shit didn’t even have outdoor security, yet. His mistake. At a couple windows in the front, she could hear the party.
“Finally, getting out from under Brenton’s boot! Cheers!” A man laughed.
“We tried to tell him that he needed to improve his image, but he told us to fuck off. So, he can fuck right off. Kingson, Inc doesn’t need a Kingson CEO. We’ll rebrand.”
She wanted to laugh. They won’t be foolish like this a second time. She sent a quick group text message to her pride.
Riley: I’m fixing a problem tonight, be back by dawn, see file on bar in kitchen. <3 We’ll talk when I get home. Turning phone on silent.
After this night, the board members would be more worried about burning than ever betraying anyone again. She stood at the front door, struck a match, and lit the gasoline on both sides of her. The yard caught on fire first, then the bushes and even a tree that was too close to the house. Vines up the side of the building were also on fire within a minute.
She stepped back, grinning. Oh yeah, her fury burned just like this. She pulled her bike closer and sat on it while she waited. None of them would die. They would all make it out if they paid attention to the growing fire outside.
It took five minutes for them to begin running out. She pulled out her Glock 17 and waited. They didn’t notice her, freaking out over the fire. Abel was coughing as he stumbled out last.
“Abel Cartona, I hope you enjoy this as much as I will,” she called to him, causing all of them to turn around.
He was pale as he turned to stare at her. She had thrown his words back at him, telling him that she knew exactly who was in that room with her in the hunter’s compound. She caught his scent on the wind and enjoyed the fear in it.
“But I’ll get back to you in a minute, Abel. I need to address the board members of Kingson, Inc. You betrayed Brenton for a monster. Right now, law enforcement is viewing videos of him molesting a woman in a hunter’s compound who was strapped to a bed and muzzled so she couldn’t cry out. You will go to the meeting tomorrow and resign, or I will let Brenton take you off the board the hard way. Brenton is reading all about you guys right now so don’t think you can show up tomorrow and pretend you weren’t here. You all can go now. Abel, you stay right where you are.”
The board members took off. They were a bunch of old men faced with a woman who wasn’t afraid to threaten their lives. Perfect. She hadn’t expected them to be here tonight. She had hoped that when Abel was arrested, they would have gotten the message, but this worked too. This actually worked even better.
“Riley Stern…” Abel whispered. “Please don’t kill me.”
“No, Abel. I couldn’t even beg you to stop, so you don’t get to beg me,” she growled. Cars were leaving, and she was being left with an open driveway to leave in. She would be able to get away fast. Abel was terrified by whatever expression she had on her face. “Then you told them that they could hunt me, so here’s what's about happen. I was given five minutes by the hunters to make enough distance for them to have a more fun game. I called the US SSTF right before I set your house on fire. I am giving you this warning, so you have even more time than the hunters gave me.”
“I’ll do anything, Riley!” Abel was desperate. He didn’t have the skills or the resources to escape the SSTF, she knew that. No lawyer in the world could fight what he was going down for, and no shifter of any species would let a lawyer even consider trying. “I have money, please!”
“You can tell me if you gave the hunters the pride’s information. If you didn’t, you can tell me who did.” She smiled. “Sorry, but fifteen million isn’t going to buy me off, Abel. You might have been able to buy me for it, but that much money won’t save you now. No amount of money will anymore.”
“I don’t know! I just used it to my advantage! I had an inside source with the state troopers!” Abel told her, his voice shaky, and she shrugged. “I had been working the board of directors for even longer.”
“Then you should start running, Abel.” She pointed her gun in the air and fired one shot off. “Go.”
He ran and jumped into his car, spinning tires as he set off. She watched him drive away and thought about what she had just done. He would be caught and go away for a long time. She didn’t know how prison worked for shifters, but she could imagine it wasn’t very good for anyone, shifter or human.
She felt a tear run down her cheek and touched it. She’d won. She did something really fucked up to do it, but she won.
It was worth it.
It was enough.
The image of the burning house was everything her anger needed to finally cool without festering in her soul. She could hear the sirens of firetrucks and local cops now. She started her bike up after putting her gun away and tore off down the road. She had to get home and face the pride. Maybe an arrest. She couldn’t ignore the fact that she had started a wildfire in the forest behind Abel’s house. The fire department would be there fast enough to stop that, thankfully. She didn’t really want to go to jail, but it would have been worth it.