After
Kit was surrounded.
Unarmed, shirtless, bleeding, his feet placed squarely a shoulder-width apart, hands at his sides, elbows and knees slightly bent. Facing a half-circle of grim werewolves - as ready as he would ever be.
"Start talking."
The pack stood facing him, Ronan a few feet away with his muscled arms crossed over his chest, mouth a thin hard line. Beside him, papers that looked vaguely familiar were spread across a tabletop.
They had moved out into the restaurant were the group could spread out while keeping a distance to Kit. He could see the contents of his beloved bag, gutted and arranged on top of the bar behind Dan.
Dan.
It hurt like a physical blow, every time he looked at his expression.
"What do you want to know?" He kept his chin down, voice low and guarded.
"Is it true? Did you kill your uncle, Charles Callaghan?" Ronan asked grimly.
"I didn't kill Charlie. Not him. I have an alibi."
"Why do the police think you did then?"
"I never gave them my alibi. I thought they knew who did it - they identified him on the security footage and he had a record. It didn't occur to me that they would figure I was in league with him until later. By then I had other things to worry about."
"Wait," Dan said, looking up from the floor. "You said - not him. You didn't kill him. But someone else?"
Kit closed his eyes. This was it. Lie - say No, I have never killed anyone, I'm innocent.
Or tell the truth.
"Yeah," he said, swallowing hard. "Yeah, I've killed. Seven people."
Dan made a choking sound. Now he would see. Now he knows what I really am.
"Seven," Morgan whispered, horrified. Ronan's frown deepened.
Kit's raised shoulders slumped. So be it. There was nothing that could ever redeem him from this, ever make them accept him again.
"Yeah, seven," he said in a tired voice. "One was an accident. One for revenge. Two in self-defence. And three...because I was ordered to."
He looked down, shoulders coming up around his ears again.
"Now you know," he whispered.
"Why would that man kill your uncle?"
"Why did he kill Charlie? The mob wanted his husband's business - and they sent an idiot, a trigger-happy, ambitious guy with something to prove. Things escalated and - shots were fired. Happens all the time."
"And for the record, your real name is?"
"Christopher Callaghan."
Ronan nodded and picked up a stack of ID:s from the table behind him, shuffling through them.
"Robert Carmichael, 20, British. Constantin Alexandrov, 17, Russian. Camile Chaput, 19, Canadian. This one is for an 18-year-old girl - Carmen Carvaggio, born Mexico City. They all have your picture."
"Those are mine. I tracked down the man who had murdered my uncle and I killed him. I return I had to work for his boss - a really, really bad guy who is now looking for me. He got me those fake ID:s."
Kit threw his hands up. "Look, I know it's illegal - I've done lots of illegal shit. But you're all in danger, and I can't stay here. Now that you know why - get rid of me!"
Ronan ignored his outburst and shuffled through the papers on the table behind him. Justin and Darren shifted their weight, watching Kit through narrowed, hostile eyes. With a shock of horror, Kit recognized the papers in Ronan's hands.
The Alpha noticed his eyes widen and smiled grimly.
"Yes, these are your papers."
Dan felt sick. He hated having Cha - Kit - cornered, hated forcing out these horrible truths. Hated seeing him look so small, surrounded, threatened. The wolf inside him longed to protect him, even now.
Even though he was a criminal, a self-admitted murderer.
"Christopher Callaghan, born in New Orleans to Catherine Callaghan - then aged 16 - father unknown," Ronan read from the papers.
"Removed by child protective services at age 11 because of neglect and starvation, returned to his mother at age 13."
Ronan looked up. "Why did they give you back to her?"
"She had gone through rehab and been diagnosed with lung cancer. She wanted me back and they wanted to get rid of me," Kit said, face blank. Dan had no idea what he was thinking, but he replied to everything without hesitation.
"You had five foster homes in the space of two years. Removed from two of them on suspicion of physical and sexual abuse - removed from two others by request of the families. The last one was a closed group home."
"Yeah, I was a troublemaker. Your point being?"
Dan's heart throbbed - he had seen a lot in the army, and even more as a cop, but nothing got him like kids being abused. And nothing was worse than someone he loved being hurt, with nothing he could do about it.
"I want everything out in the open. No more secrets."
"It doesn't matter!" Kit was finally losing his temper now, shouting at Ronan.
Dan knew he should support his Alpha - but what he really wanted was to cross the circle and the empty space around the little wolf to stand by his side.
He lied, he shot you, he might still be lying, Dan told himself, but his heart wasn't listening.
"It doesn't matter because they are coming for me and they will hurt you - !"
A loud, sharp, sound cut through the air. It was like a screeching, wailing siren, and Morgan and Justin clapped their hand over their ears, eyes wide. It was coming from Ronan's pocket - from his phone.
Dan's gut dropped to his knees. He knew that sound.
"It's the alarms. Someone crossed our perimeter," Ronan barked, pulling his phone from his trousers and swiping the screen, checking something.
"Rouges?" Darren asked
"Alarms?" Kit said. He felt faint. So soon? I'm not ready! "You have perimeter alarms?"
"You didn't think we would be prepared, after what happened three years ago? Of course we have alarms."
"But this must be - "
"Let's check it out. Dan and Darren together - you know where to go. Morgan and Justin with me," Ronan said.
"No!!!" Kit shouted.
They turned to stare at him.
"It-It's them. They've come for me. You can't go after them, just let me go, they're worse than you think - "
"You think we won't fight them? That we aren't ready? After what happened with the rouges, we've been training every weekend for years. Ronan has drilled us," Morgan told him.
They really were going to go out there. Out into the darkness. To face mobsters, ruthless criminals, experienced killers. To face Devlin Novák.
"Let me go with you!"
"No! Stay here!" Ronan growled. "I'm still not convinced that you're telling the truth," he continued.
"If you want us to believe you then stay here and do not move. If I see you outside then I will take it as confirmation that you were deceiving us and working with the intruders. After we dispatch them, we will come back here and deal with you, rouge."
And then they were leaving, disappearing out the door despite his protests, and if he followed them they would, they would -
Kit paced the room, fists knotting in his hair, a frustrated, helpless growl escaping his lips. He walked up to a wall and leaned his forehead against it, bumping it with a hollow 'thud'.
Fuck it. He was going after them, damn the consequences.
"There you are..."
Kit spun around so quickly he lost his balance and fell back against the wall, back slapping into the wallpaper.
The voice he heard in his nightmares. The man he had imagined, and dreaded, seeing again.
"Kitty."
He was alone with Devlin Novák.