Ryenne watched her father warily. She wanted to grab him by the throat and demand he take her to her mother, but she wasn’t ready to give up what she could learn by pretending to be the dutiful daughter.

“Okay, then.” He stood in one fluid movement, placing his drink on the coffee table. “Come. Let’s see your mother and I’ll show you the lab.”

He strode to the door and Ryenne followed. She turned away from the keypad but watched her father’s fingers move in the reflection on the lacquered closet door. One-zero-two-nine. Her brother’s birthday.

In the hallway, he called the elevator and they stared at each other awkwardly.

“Why is Mom here?” she asked just as the elevator dinged and the doors opened.

He stepped on, waited for her to join him, and pushed the button labeled Lobby. “When you showed up unexpectedly, it gave me the chance to come clean to you and to try to finally build a relationship with you. It’s what I’ve wanted for so long. And I decided this was a good time to make amends to your mother as well.”

“But she was in the hospital. She was in an accident.”

“I know,” her father said in a dark voice full of menace. “I took care of the perpetrator.”

Ryenne’s eyes grew wide.

“You didn’t have your people try to hurt her?” she asked.

He shook his head with force. “Absolutely not. I want nothing but the best for your mother. It’s what I’ve always wanted, which is part of why I’ve stayed away so long. The O’Briens were acting on their own, not under my authority. In fact, I told everyone to leave you and your mother alone. Now that I’ve made an example of Joe, no one will try again.”

She remembered the picture of Dad and Tess in his office and the letter she read. “Wait. Aren’t you and Tess married?”

Her father shrugged. “Not officially, but we have been living together as a couple, on and off, for many years. She helped me through an especially difficult time. When I first turned, I was on a rampage and Tess helped calm me.”

Ryenne could relate. She had hoped Lucien would serve that role. It hadn’t turned out the way she wanted.

“You and Tess are clearly an item,” she said, turning her thoughts away from Lucien. Thinking about him now was too painful. “Do you love her?”

“Of course, in my way,” he said, cryptically.

“But you killed her brother.”

Her father sighed and watched the numbers light up over the door as they descended. “They needed to be taught a lesson. They cannot go against my wishes and they cannot harm you or your mother.”

They rode the rest of the way down in silence.

The elevator doors opened on a gleaming marble lobby. Dad gestured toward windows at the front that showed the sun was setting. “Those are made of bulletproof glass. They are also shatterproof and were tested in Israel against explosions.”

Great. No one would be coming to help Ryenne that way.

Dad punched another button and the doors closed. They stopped at sub-level three and stepped out into a well-lit lobby. Directly across from the elevators was a huge room which she could see through waist-high windows that rose to the ceiling. On the other side was a lab with gleaming counter tops, microscopes, beakers, jars, burners, and plenty of cabinets with locks.

“What is this?” she asked.

“Ryenne!” her mother said from her right.

Ryenne whipped around and there was her mother, in a sundress and sandals, looking better than Ryenne had seen her in at least a week.

“Mom, are you okay?

“Yes, I’m fine.” Her mom stroked the hair out of Ryenne’s face. “And you? I’ve been so worried about you. Why did you storm off?”

“You know why, Mom.” She didn’t want to get into it here, in front of her dad and Tess, who waited behind Mom with a sour expression on her face. There was also the black man she’d seen in pictures and multiple times before—he smelled like lion—and another man and woman Ryenne didn’t recognize, who smelled like wolves.

She tilted her head. “Who’s he?” She indicated the lion shifter.

Her dad stepped forward. “This is Robert, a friend of mine from Tanzania. We’ve been working together for years.”

Ryenne thought back to the times she had seen him. “Has he been watching us?”

“In a manner of speaking,” her father said, spreading his hands out in a placating gesture. “He was protecting you and your mom.”

Ryenne wanted to ask, from what? But she remembered the O’Briens’ extracurricular activities. “What is she doing here?” she asked instead, gesturing at Tess. “She tried to kidnap Mom and to kill her.”

Tess, eyes flashing, hung her head.

“Yes, well,” her father said, “the situation is complicated.”

Complicated, my ass, Ryenne thought.

“Ryenne,” her mom whispered.

Ryenne shook her head slightly. Her mom couldn’t say anything here that she didn’t want the others to overhear. She tapped her ear farthest away from the others, hoping her mom would get the hint that they were surrounded by shifters who could hear everything.

“Now this...” Her dad swung his arms out to encompass the lab on the other side of the windows. “This is our newest pride and joy. We are developing substances to help us in our business. Our latest is a compound to slow healing. I think it might be useful to military and police organizations around the world in areas where they have high levels of rogue shifter activity and crime.”

Ryenne’s mouth dropped open. Her father was spinning the anti-healing gunk as a positive? Something to help the greater community?

“We have tested out our Equalizer in small batches and it works, but it could use Willow’s finesse. Before we bring the Equalizer to market, we want to know we can mass-produce it. So far, the formula has proven to be a little unstable and we haven’t been able to produce it in large enough quantities to offer it for sale.”

Money. It had to be about money, Ryenne realized. Lord Enterprises was a business, after all. Using it on their enemies was just a bonus.

Dad opened a door with yet another keypad and ushered them inside. The two unfamiliar wolf shifters stayed outside. Robert stood just in front of the door, blocking the exit.

She and Mom exchanged a glance, then surveyed the lab and the handful of people in it. Three people in lab coats worked at the desks. Ryenne’s mother walked up to a young woman wearing safety glasses, her hair in a ponytail.

“What are you working on?” Mom asked.

The young woman glanced at Ryenne’s father, who nodded. “I’ve isolated the least stable components of the mixture and I’m experimenting with different ways to stabilize them.”

Her mom walked to an older man, with gray hair and glasses, and a trim mustache, who worked nearby. He was stirring a liquid in a glass beaker on top of a Bunsen burner. He also glanced at Ryenne’s father.

“It’s a kind of vitamin,” her father answered before the older man could speak.

“To enhance shifter powers,” Tess said, her nose in the air.

Ryenne’s dad glared at Tess. Somehow Ryenne thought she wasn’t supposed to know about this latest development. On one hand, he was trying to make money off of governments to handle the shifter problem, but on the other hand, he was working to increase shifter abilities, creating more of a problem and therefore more of a need for his anti-healing gunk.

Her stomach turned. She had thought coming to the Fangs would give her a way to connect with people like her and, of course, with her father. But she hadn’t expected her father to be a greedy criminal mastermind.

They couldn’t be allowed to do this. Human communities would suffer at the hands of rogues with increased abilities. And the anti-healing gunk, what her father called the Equalizer, gave everyone—shifter and non-shifter alike—a way to torture shifters. None of this was okay.

Their inventions would further define the differences between humans and shifters. It could even lead to a war with no winners. While Ryenne might be a shifter now, she was still on the side of humans. Humans like her mother and Gavin.

She had to find a way to stop him. Preferably without getting her mother or herself killed.

“What we’re doing here is revolutionary,” her father said.

Yeah, he could blow up the world. She had to get out of here before she lost her lunch and proved she’d never join the Fangs.

“This has been wonderful, Dad, but Mom hasn’t been well and she probably shouldn’t be out of the hospital. I think she needs to rest. Can we go back to the hospital now?”

“If we turn her, she’ll heal a lot faster,” her father said. “In fact, she’d be as good as new by this evening.”

Ryenne struggled to maintain her composure. Her mom reached for her hand.

“What’s wrong?” Dad asked. “You chose to join us, Ryenne. I thought you were ready to accept this life. Don’t you want your mom to have the benefits that you have from being a shifter?”

Ryenne smiled but in her head she was thinking, Benefits? You call bloodlust and constant carnal urges benefits? She had to think fast of a way out of this, at least for her mother.

“We’ve been a little busy getting me through the change,” she said. “Mom and I haven’t talked about this. You said you brought her here to make amends for the past.”

“True,” he said. “How about this? Willow, you can go up to my apartment and rest. Later, we can all have dinner together and I will explain everything about the last fifteen years and, hopefully, my hospitality can serve as a portion of my apology.”

A loud clanging noise reached them from somewhere above.

“Go investigate,” Dad told Robert. “I’ll bring Willow up to the apartment myself.” He turned to Tess, who stood sullenly in a corner of the lab. “Bring Ryenne up in the other elevator. I trust you won’t let anything happen to her.”

“Of course not, Mike.”

Ryenne watched as her mother and father, together for the first time in fifteen years, disappeared into the elevator. Robert went around a corner and out of sight. Ryenne was left in the hallway with Tess.

“Why is the lab hidden three floors underground?” Ryenne asked.

Tess jabbed the button on the elevator. “In case there’s an accident down here, it won’t take out the entire building,” she answered.

“But if this level exploded, wouldn’t it cause the structure of the building to come down?” Ryenne asked.

“No, the room is reinforced,” Tess said. “The explosion would be contained to the lab. But if we were on an upper floor, there would be exterior floors and windows to worry about. It was easier to encase the room down here.”

Once inside the elevator, Ryenne couldn’t help but dig at Tess. “It must really burn your ass to have my mom here, stealing my dad’s attention away from you.”

Tess ignored her. She was good at that.

“Let’s count all the ways you tried to keep my parents apart,” Ryenne said. “You sent creepy letters. You tried to kidnap her. You put her in the hospital.” Ryenne ticked off each item on her fingers. “Not only did you not keep my parents apart, but it caused the death of your brother.”

Cracks began to show in Tess’s armor.

“How ironic that the loss of my brother brought you and my dad together, and the loss of yours might tear you apart.”

“Mike and I are fine,” Tess ground out between her teeth. “This is a small setback. We’ll come out stronger on the other side.”

“My father killing your brother is a small setback?”

“That’s not what I meant,” Tess snapped.

“Oh, my mother is the setback. Ha. Nothing you tried has worked so far. He’s clearly still in love with her.”

“No, he isn’t. He loves me.”

Ryenne leaned back against the wall and crossed her arms in front of her chest with a satisfied smile. “Then why have you been sleeping in Brooklyn instead of here?”

Tess huffed out a breath and clamped her mouth closed. She didn’t say another word to Ryenne during the ride up to the top floor.

Ryenne kept her smirk firmly in place.