Kidnapped by the Werewolf Mafioso

Chapter Sixteen

AKIKO

The hunt begins with stolen intelligence.

"Your father's security rotates every four hours." Greg spreads surveillance photos across Giancarlo's desk while his brothers type furiously on laptops that glow with stolen data. "But Vivienne... she keeps different hours. Leaves the hotel alone between 2 and 4 AM."

"Where does she go?"

"Different location each night. Warehouses, abandoned churches, places with..." Larry pauses, whiskers twitching with unease. "Places with old blood soaked into the foundations."

Ritual sites. Of course she'd need consecrated ground for whatever she's planning with that kitsune blood. My hand moves unconsciously to my chest where the ninth tail hides, coiled between heartbeats like a sleeping serpent.

"She's building to something." d**k pulls up thermal imaging that shows heat signatures in patterns that hurt to look at directly. "These aren't random visits. It's a sequence."

Giancarlo's hand finds the small of my back, thumb tracing circles that ground me even as his touch sends electricity up my spine. The mate bond hums between us, still raw from days of feeding its hunger. Even now, with war planning spread before us, I want to climb into his lap and lose myself in the taste of him.

Focus, little fox. Rei materializes on the desk, scattering papers. Vengeance first, mating after.

"Both during, if we're lucky," Yui adds with a giggle that sounds like breaking bells.

"I need to follow her tonight." The decision feels right, settling into my bones with satisfying weight. "Alone."

"No." Giancarlo's refusal comes immediate and absolute. His wolf bleeds through, turning his eyes arctic. "You're not going anywhere near that woman without backup."

"She knows your people. Knows their scents, their patterns." I turn to face him fully, letting him see my determination. "But she doesn't know what I've become. Doesn't know about the yokai or how the bond has changed me."

"The answer is still no."

I slide my hand up his chest, feeling his heartbeat accelerate. "You promised me choices. This is mine."

"That's not fair." But his resistance wavers as I press closer, letting him feel the heat that never quite leaves my skin now. The were-raccoons suddenly find urgent business elsewhere, leaving us alone with tension that crackles like lightning.

"Fair?" I nip at his jaw, gratified when his hands tighten on my waist. "Was it fair when she poisoned my mother for months? When she carved those suppressant channels into children at the convent?"

His control splinters. One moment I'm standing, the next I'm pressed against the desk, his body caging mine. Papers crumple beneath me as he claims my mouth with bruising intensity. I taste copper—he's bitten his own lip trying to maintain control.

"You're going to be the death of me." The words rumble against my throat where he's marking me again, teeth finding the exact spot that makes my knees liquid.

"Only temporarily." I arch against him, feeling his immediate response. The expensive suit does nothing to hide how badly he wants me. Again. Always. "Let me hunt, Gianni. Trust me to know my prey."

He pulls back enough to study my face. What he sees there makes him exhale slowly, control reasserting itself with visible effort. "Conditions."

"I'm listening." Though concentration proves difficult when his thumb traces the edge of my dress, finding skin that burns for his touch.

"Quinn shadows you in the general vicinity. Not close enough to interfere, but close enough to extract you if needed." His other hand tangles in my hair, grip just shy of painful. "You wear a tracker. And if she's meeting anyone else, you abort. No heroics."

"Agreed." Too easily, perhaps, but I need this. Need to stop being reactive, need to take control of my own hunt.

"And when you get back..." His voice drops to registers that vibrate through my bones. "You tell me everything while I'm inside you. Every detail, every moment, while I remind you who you belong to."

Heat pools low in my belly. "Possessive wolf."

"Deadly fox." He kisses me again, slower this time, thorough in a way that promises exactly how he'll claim me later. "If anything happens to you—"

"You'll burn Chicago to ash. I know." I slide from beneath him, smoothing my dress. "But nothing will happen. I'm not the scared girl on that auction platform anymore."

"No," he agrees, eyes tracking my movement with predatory focus. "You're something far more dangerous."

The yokai swirl around me as I prepare, their excitement feeding mine. Noriko frosts the windows with symbols of protection. Tetsu produces items from his briefcase—a blade that reflects no light, smoke pellets that whisper names, a vial of something that smells like moonlight and regret.

"For the not-mother," he says formally. "May her hunt bring honor to the bloodline."

I dress for shadow work—black that swallows light, soft-soled boots that make no sound, hair pulled back to reveal the mate marks I wear like jewelry. Let her see them. Let her know exactly what I've become in the days since she thought she'd won.

"Two hours until she usually leaves." Giancarlo hands me an earpiece smaller than a pearl. "Quinn will be on the other end. If you need extraction—"

"I won't." But I pocket the device, understanding his need for contingencies. "Kiss me for luck?"

He crowds me against the wall, the kiss anything but lucky. It's claiming and desperate and full of promises that make my thighs clench. When we break apart, we're both breathing hard.

"Come back to me." Not a request.

"You bet your sweet ass."

The Fairmont Hotel squats like a Gothic tomb against Chicago's skyline, all old money elegance hiding modern security. I perch on a building across the street, the yokai spreading out to scout while I wait. The city below moves in patterns I'm learning to read—supernatural predators and human prey dancing their eternal waltz.

At 2:17 AM, she emerges.

Vivienne looks exactly as I remember from glimpses through convent windows. Elegant in the way of poisonous flowers, blonde hair swept into a chignon that emphasizes the sharp architecture of her face. She moves with purpose, heels clicking rhythms that spell confidence.

She doesn't know I'm watching. Doesn't know her stepdaughter has evolved past her careful calculations.

I follow at distance, yokai flowing ahead to scout her path. She takes a circuitous route, doubling back twice, but it's habit rather than caution. She doesn't sense me ghosting through shadows, doesn't feel the weight of eyes that burn with seventeen years of suppressed rage.

The warehouse she enters reeks of old blood and older magic. I scale the exterior, finding a skylight that offers perfect vantage. Inside, she's not alone.

Three figures wait in a circle drawn with what looks like salt mixed with darker things. I recognize the pattern—it's similar to what the convent used for their most severe suppressant rituals, but inverted. Not to contain but to extract.

"You're late." The man who speaks wears expensive suits like armor, but I can smell the decay beneath. Vampire, old enough that his human mask fits poorly.

"Precision takes time, Garrett." Vivienne sets a case on a makeshift altar. "The blood you procured better be genuine."

"Three million dollars worth of genuine." He watches her unpack with hungry eyes. "Though I still question the wisdom of forcing manifestation. Kitsune tails aren't meant to be ripped free."

"They are when they belong to me by right." The venom in her voice could drop dragons. "That little b***h carries what should have been mine. What I earned through years of careful planning."

My hands clench hard enough to draw blood. The yokai hiss warnings, but I maintain position. Need to know her full plan before I act.

"And if she's truly mated to Morelli?" Another figure speaks—a woman with silver hair and magic that tastes like ashes. "The bond will complicate extraction."

"Bonds can be broken." Vivienne produces a photograph that makes my blood freeze. It's me, unconscious on the auction platform, but marked with symbols that burn to look at. "I've been planning this for seventeen years. A few complications won't stop me now."

She begins mixing components with practiced ease. The kitsune blood—dark and viscous—joins wolfsbane concentrate in proportions that make my skin crawl. Other things follow: mercury, ground bone, something that writhes until she pins it with a silver needle.

"The ritual requires proximity," the witch observes. "You'll need to get close enough to establish connection."

"Leave that to me." Vivienne's smile could cut glass. "Harrison will demand his daughter's return tomorrow. Public, official, with enough witnesses that Morelli can't simply refuse. While he's distracted playing Alpha games, I'll be close enough to begin the working."

"And if she resists?"

"She won't have a choice." She holds up the completed mixture, swirling with colors that shouldn't exist. "This will call to what's hidden in her blood. The ninth tail will manifest whether she wills it or not. And once it's free..." She trails off, but her expression finishes the threat.

I've heard enough. As they continue their planning, I ease back from the skylight. The yokai converge, agitated by what we've witnessed.

We should kill her now, Hanzo sparks with barely contained lightning. End the threat before it grows.

"No." Though the urge burns like acid. "Now we know her plan. We can prepare countermeasures."

The kitsune shows wisdom, Kazuki approves. Better to hunt with full knowledge than strike blind.

I make my way back through Chicago's maze, mind racing with possibilities. Vivienne thinks she knows what I am, thinks seventeen years of planning gives her advantage. But she's calculating based on old information. She doesn't know about the mate bond's changes, doesn't know the yokai have evolved beyond her understanding.

Doesn't know that I'm no longer the frightened child she locked away.

The penthouse glows like a beacon, calling me home. I scale the building rather than use the elevator, needing the physical exertion to burn off rage. Giancarlo waits on the balcony, silhouetted against city lights.

"Dramatic entrance." But relief colors his voice as he pulls me over the railing. "Report?"

"Inside." I'm already pulling him toward the bedroom, need and adrenaline mixing into something combustible. "You promised I could tell you everything while you're inside me."

His control breaks exactly as I hoped. By the time we reach the bed, half our clothes litter the floor. He pushes me down, not gentle, and I arch into his roughness.

"Tell me." He pins my wrists above my head, body caging mine. "Every detail."

I do, gasping out intelligence between his thrusts. The warehouse location earns me his teeth in my shoulder. Vivienne's plan pulls growls from his chest that vibrate through mine. When I describe the ritual components, he drives deep enough to white out my vision.

"She thinks—" I lose words as he shifts angle, finding that spot that makes me see colors that don't have names. "Thinks she can force manifestation—"

"Let her try." He releases my wrists to grip my hips, pulling me to meet each thrust. "She'll learn what happens when someone threatens what's mine."

The possessive words push me over the edge I've been dancing on since I watched Vivienne plot my destruction. I come apart beneath him, crying out intelligence mixed with his name. He follows, the knot swelling to lock us together while aftershocks ripple through us both.

"We have advantage now," I pant against his throat. "We know when, where, how."

"We have more than that." He shifts carefully, still locked inside me. "We have her arrogance. She thinks you're still the child she caged. Doesn't know you've become something that could eat her alive."

"With the right seasoning." The joke feels hollow against the rage still simmering in my chest. "Gianni? When we face them—"

"When we face them, you take whatever pieces you need. Your justice, your way." He kisses me soft and deep. "I'll handle the politics. You handle the personal."

"Partnership."

"Always."

We lie knotted together, planning war between lazy kisses. The yokai settle around us, humming approval at strategies that blend supernatural justice with practical violence. By the time biology releases us, dawn paints the sky in shades of ash and promise.