Broken Halves

Chapter Twenty-One

POV: Cole

            "Can you tell me what it was like being a lupi silenziosi?" James asks while nervously swinging his legs back and forth from his position on the edge of my bed. I stop staring out the window for a moment to turn to look at him. "What do you want to hear?" He blushes at my direct stare, but continues on with stating his request.

"I would to hear what it was like." I run my hand through my shaggy blonde hair before responding to him. "James, these are stories that have never been told." His eyes light up when he realizes I am going to begin talking.

            "I told my family I was going to visit a friend; no one stopped me so I left my Grandfather and Beta in charge." I begin, my mind in an old scene. "The mission didn't take more than a week so my lie was believable." I continue.

"We all had code names to hide our identities despite the fact that we all knew who each other were. JP was our... tracker I guess you could say. He'd be the one who would find something suspicious and report it for us to investigate and eliminate." Despite the fact that I try to keep my face emotionless, a small smile graces my lips when I begin to recall the members of my team.

"Anyway, JP had found us a new target. We had reasons to believe the man was running an undercover wolf smuggling ring which meant he would sell off our pups to the highest bidder on the black market." James nose scrunches up in disgust and I fight the urge to chuckle as I continue to share the memory.

            "We met up at our safehouse; at the time there were eight of us, five men and three women." I close my eyes and allow the memories to take over to the point where I am there again, standing in that room staring out at my team who had become my family. JP and O are hovering over the computer system monitoring the suspects while Lexa, CC, and LP are cleaning and sorting through the weapons. Cade and Kay are supposed to be gathering the suits, but all of us in the room know that they are off acting like a couple. No one can blame them though, given the situations they have both found themselves in.

            "Cade was my best friend," I say, continuing the story verbally for James. "Other than my brother, he was my only friend. The others though, they all had become my family. We were all lethal on our own but you put us together and we were unstoppable." This time I can't bite it back and I smile at the memory of my team.

"I made the call and we headed out. Lexa and LP were our snipers; we had them stationed in the abandoned house across the street while JP stayed in the van on the comms." I explain, lost in the scene as if I was there on that night once again.

            "CC and Kay went in as the decoys; they were dressed in floor length ball gowns claiming they were buyers. O, Cade, and I were going to come in and tear the place down once CC and Kay gave us the all clear." My eyes flutter shut as I remember standing outside that building, the moon illuminating the world around me with my team mates on either side of me.

We were all antsy that night, especially Cade. He normally didn't smoke, but he went through a pack that night while waiting for the signal. On my left, O was fidgeting. He wasn't normally apart of the string who did the attacks, he was always either at JP's side or Kay's as the decoy. This night however I made the call for the girls to go in and for O to be on ground combat. No one questioned me, even though we all knew he would struggle. Gently, I placed my hand on his shoulder, about to give him a pep talk. Before I could however, Kay's voice floated through the comms.

"CC went MIA." I explain to James, his eyes widening in horror. "I tried not to let my panic show to my team when I made the call for us to move in. I told Lexa to abandon her post and join us before we rushed in." I take a deep breath before continuing. "I was 22 at the time and it was one of the most horrifying sights I had ever seen James. By this point in my life, I had been leading this team for six years and had been an Alpha for four. I had faced wars and battles and other missions but this James, this James scarred me." I don't pause to see if my words have sunk in before I continue, not ready to relive all that happened that night.