Novak Raven (Harper's Mountains #4)(55)

“Look at her, she’s terrified!” Caden choked out from the floor.

“Are you engaged,” Mr. Foley yelled.

The scenes were jerky, lurching from one to the next where they’d cut out dialogue.

“No.” Weston blinked slowly and stood to his full height, looked directly at the camera and said, “But she’s mine. I’m not letting her go. Come here again, and I’ll rip your intestines through your mouths and watch you choke on your own entrails.” And there was no denying from the look on his face, Weston had meant it—every word.

“Come on, honey,” Mr. Foley said in a shaky voice, waving Avery to him. “You don’t have to stay here with this bad man.”

Avery stood in the corner, shaking, panting, tears in her eyes as she glanced at Weston and then at the camera. A single tear streaked down her cheek, and then the video faded to black.



“Wow.” Weston wanted to hurl the phone at the wall and destroy that f*cking lie, but he couldn’t. He clapped slowly and leaned back in his seat. “That was a great f*cking show, but that wasn’t how it happened. And please tell me you can decipher a heavily edited video from the original.”

“Of course, we can,” Hammond said. “But this on top of a longstanding missing person’s report from across state lines, calls from everyone in the entire raven community, and we have to follow this up. Caden Edwards has threatened to put this in front of every media outlet he can reach. Do you know what a field day the public would have with that? Two rival groups of shifters warring over a woman. This isn’t the only copy of this video, and the public won’t give a single shit about whether it’s been edited or not. You look guilty as hell in this. You look like a monster. You look abusive, and Avery looks like your terrified victim. And even if you’re proven innocent, the word ‘kidnapping’ will be synonymous with the Bloodrunner Crew forever. I don’t want that. I respect you for pushing the vamps out of our area. The wolves, too, and yes we know about that. Crime rate around here is pretty damn close to zilch, and this is going to bring our town an avalanche of attention we don’t want. So please illuminate us, Mr. Novak. What the hell is actually going on?”

Weston looked at Harper, and she nodded once.

So he did illuminate them. He told them about being pen pals with Avery, about how she was treated in Raven’s Hollow. About how all the women were treated there. He told them how Avery fled an engagement to Benjamin, and the role he’d played in bullying her when she was younger. He told them every dirty secret about Raven’s Hollow that Avery had shared with him because they’d pushed him to this—airing out every scrap of dirty laundry. They weren’t his people, they weren’t Avery’s people, and now they were going to drag the Bloodrunners through the mud? For control of a woman. Fuck. That.

Detective Sutton scribbled away on his notepad as Weston spewed every sordid detail about what really went on behind the closed doors in the raven community. He told them of how much stronger Avery had grown, and how she’d made friends in the Bloodrunners, began to laugh and smile, and stand up straight again. He shook like a f*cking leaf when he told them that part because he knew she was sitting in some cold psych ward room right now probably losing all the progress she’d made in Harper’s Mountains.

“If you want to help Avery, let her come back to me. Let me care for her the way she deserves.”

Harper spoke up somberly. “Let us all take care of her the way she deserves. She might be registered to Raven’s Hollow now, but she’s part of my crew. She’s my friend. She deserves to be happy where she chooses, not manipulated by the people she left behind.”

“If you want to help,” Weston said, glare on Detective Sutton, “go look in that room under the council house and see for yourself how they break their people.”

Detective Sutton huffed a humorless sound and set his pen on top of his notes, shook his head. A band of sweat beaded on his upper lip. “Tried that. Reached hard and missed. I’ve been on the outside for years, waiting for something, anything, that would get me an in on Raven’s Hollow. I can’t get a warrant without them doing something blatantly wrong, and Caden Edwards runs a tight ship.”

“If you know something is wrong there, why did you come so hard at me?” Weston asked. “At Avery? She’s a victim, being treated like a criminal.”

“Just because I have instincts about something doesn’t mean I can ignore my job, Mr. Novak.” Detective Sutton relaxed back in his chair and linked his hands behind his head. He lifted eyes to the video camera in the back of the room, the back to Weston. “Do you have any proof of The Box.”

His lips had barely moved, and his words were nothing more than the barest whisper, but Weston had caught it with his heightened senses.

He leaned forward and dipped his chin so the camera wouldn’t catch the shape of his lips as he whispered, “Avery is your proof. She remembers everything. She could testify against them.”

Officer Hammond stood and leaned over the table between Weston and the line of sight of the camera. “Her testimony won’t stand up in court. First thing the ravens will do is have her deemed an unreliable, unstable witness. She broke down in the car, Weston. Just…” He shook his head. “Rambling, repeating stories about you and Ryder when you were kids. She couldn’t answer a single question we asked her. She’s not fit to bring them down alone.”