Page 67 of Left Cold, Wolf Owned
The pack is already filtering into the lodge by the time I arrive—word travels fast on Greyback territory, and Mateo hadsent his own message ahead—and I find a room full of attentive, focused people waiting for information.
I give it to them straight.
"Dawson has found the region," I announce to the room. "We confirmed a private investigator on the northern ridge this afternoon. Vehicle registered to a firm directly connected to Dawson personally." I pause to let that land. "He's not in the dark anymore. He knows she came to this mountain. He may not know exactly where we are yet, but he's close enough that the next logical step is a physical approach."
The room is quiet in a particular way; it goes quiet when information is serious.
"Are we expecting a confrontation?" Declan asks, the humor entirely absent from his voice.
"We're preparing for one," I confirm. "That's not the same thing. Our goal is to see him coming long enough in advance that we control the terms of any engagement." I look at Garrett. "Camera status?"
"South entrance is live and running," Garrett confirms. "East access went up this morning."
"Good." I scan the room. "Nora, how are the southern ridge teams looking?"
"Six wolves on rotation, four-hour shifts," she reports. "I added two more to the midnight-to-four window after this afternoon's report. The approach from the south logging road has eyes on it around the clock."
"Good." I scan the room. "Everyone stays alert. Any vehicle on the access roads that we don't recognize gets reported to Mateo immediately. If investigators make contact with anyone connected to this property, I want to know before they've driven out of sight." I pause. "We are not escalating. We are not confronting. We are watching, documenting, and staying three steps ahead."
The pack disperses with the particular efficiency I have spent years building—no wasted motion, no unnecessary discussion, strictly people who trust the plan and trust each other to execute it.
Mateo is the last to go.
"Harper," he notes quietly.
"I'll tell her tonight," I confirm. "She needs to hear it from me directly."
He nods. "She's going to take it better than you think."
"She's going to take it exactly how she takes everything," I reply. "With complete composure and then a list."
Mateo's composure takes a brief, audible hit, and then he goes.
I findHarper outside the cabin a little after nine.
She's on the porch steps with a notebook rather than her phone, writing something longhand with the focused attention she gives everything that matters, and she looks up when she hears me on the path. The evening light is doing what it does through the pines at this hour, warm and amber, and it catches the green in her hazel eyes that I have learned to read as her at full attention.
She waits while I come up the steps and sit beside her, and she does not pretend she hasn't noticed that something is coming.
"Tell me," she says simply.
"We spotted an investigator on the northern ridge this afternoon," I begin, keeping my voice even. "Vehicle confirmed as registered to a firm connected to Dawson personally. He was the same man who'd been asking questions in the mechanics' shop in the south town." I hold her gaze. "He had binoculars and a sight line to the upper territory. He was mapping it."
She absorbs that without visibly flinching. I watch her process it—the same methodical sequence I have watched her apply to every significant piece of information since she arrived, checking it against what she already knows, assessing the shape of it.
"So he knows I'm here," she concludes.
"He knows you came to this mountain," I confirm. "He may not know exactly where we are yet. But the gap between what he knows and where we are is smaller than it was this morning."
She nods slowly, looking out at the treeline.
"Harper." She turns. I hold her gaze with the full, unmanaged directness that I don't often let myself use because it tends to say more than I intend it to. "Whatever he sends up this road, you stay. The pack stands between you and Dawson, his investigators, every person he thinks he can use to move you. No one takes you off this mountain against your will." I pause. "I stand between you and whatever he brings up this road. That is not a qualified statement."
She examines me with a long, intense focus. What I see in her face is past gratitude and past reassurance and into something that belongs to her alone, so I leave it there.
"I know," she says quietly.
The evening settles around us. Somewhere out in the dark, the pack runs its patrols. Garrett's cameras watch the access roads. The mountain goes to its listening quietude.
