Max's POV
Early the next morning, with Linda in tow and my expression dark, I walked into the bail lobby of the Irongate Police Precinct.
After plowing through the long stack of paperwork, the heavy iron door leading out from the holding cells finally swung open.
I lifted my head in irritation, then went rigid in disbelief at the sight of the figure stepping through. I even took an involuntary half-step back.
This was Vivi?
The she-wolf who normally kept herself impeccably put together, who had even gone out of her way to imitate Mignon to please me, now looked like a beggar that had just crawled out of a refugee camp. Her hair was a tangle of dust-coated straw. The face that had once been at least passably pretty was now grotesquely swollen, mottled with blue and purple, beaten into
