the wolf turned his back on duncan and tried to escape. fatal mistake. duncan leapt on him, ripping into him, and killed him.

shelley knew duncan wouldn't have let the wolf live, not after he had tried to kill her, his mate, his to protect. even if he had only wanted to leave and save his own skin at that point.

duncan glanced at shelley, making sure she was okay, that his brother was fine, and that uncle ethan wasn't having any difficulty with sal. then he loped into another part of the house. within minutes, he was stalking back into the living room, wearing a pair of jeans too short for his tall height. lamps and candy dishes were broken all over the floor. chairs and couches were overturned. kenneth and two dead wolves, who had reverted to their human forms, lay sprawled on the floor nearby.

"enough," duncan said to sal. "it's over. you've taken a wolf clan's money, which you will return. you will also return monies owed to the many others you stole from."

sal growled.

"if you do this... although it kills me to make such allowances because i'm certain she's as guilty as you are, we'll consent to allowing your mate to live. she'll be penniless, but she won't be dead."

shelley located sal's bedroom, found a closet full of women's clothes, and willed her wolf's form to shift into her human one. then she pulled out a pair of fancy pink sweats trimmed in rhinestones. she wondered if these were sal's mistress's clothes or carlotta's. she hurried to dress.

uncle ethan and cearnach remained as wolves, able to attack easier with lethal effect if sal gave them any more heartburn. sal had shifted and was now sitting in a bathrobe at his desk in his office with a spectacular view of the beach and pool. shelley could imagine him accessing and transferring his money with a touch of the keyboard while gloating over the gorgeous view.

sal snorted and crossed his arms, giving duncan a steely-eyed glower. "you can't get the money out of a dead man."

"perhaps not." duncan motioned to a painting of carlotta on the wall. "but i have no qualms about going after your mate. the feds have already stated that they don't believe she was involved in your crimes. whether she was or not, she'd have access to the money."

shelley thought duncan was bluffing about sal's mate knowing how to get to the money. how would he know for sure?

sal shook his head. "my mate loved the thrill of the game. loved wining and dining men with money, wrapping them around her little finger, getting them to agree to grand investment schemes. the greedy bastards were asking for it."

"she didn't entertain my brother," duncan said hotly.

"unfortunately, no. if she had, she would have known he was part of a wolf pack and would have left well enough alone."

"we'll get our money one way or another. as your mate, she'd have access to all the money, all that has been stolen and in your custody and that which she has control of in the states."

"i spent a lot of the funds," sal said, as if that would get him out of the grave he'd dug for himself.

neither duncan nor shelley believed it. he couldn't have spent the billions he had purportedly absconded with.

"this reminds me of a time i was in a night class teaching, and all of a sudden all the electricity went out," shelley said. "no storms around, nothing to have caused the sudden electrical outage. the next morning i read in the paper how a man had stolen money from a bunch of lawyers, doctors, a judge even, a big-time business man, with a deal that was too good to be true. so all these high rollers invested in his get-rich scheme. just like yours.

"the thing of it was, ten years earlier, he had murdered his wife, saying she'd just up and decided to leave. right in the middle of helping her daughter with wedding preparations. he had a mistress and wanted to get rid of his wife. they never found a body, so the police could never pin a murder on him. everyone knew he had murdered her. the men who had invested in his fraudulent schemes. even his grown son and daughter knew he'd killed their mother.

"they even went to that show that looks into unsolved murders. but they couldn't find enough evidence to prove he'd done anything wrong. so disgustingly, he got away with murder. then a decade later, when he was going to trial for embezzlement and tax evasion and having stolen so many of the local prominent citizens' money, he couldn't deal with it. he ran his car into a telephone pole. killed himself outright so he wouldn't have to face imprisonment."

mouth agape, sal stared at her. "you think i should commit suicide?"

"others you've ruined financially have done so because of how you've destroyed their lives. their only crime? believing in your get-rich-quick schemes. do you feel remorse for any of it? no, you've got your beach estate and other residences all over the world, a mistress, god knows how many more, and you're looking to have another she-wolf for a mate. do you think carlotta will be happy about that when she learns of it?"

sal turned a little gray. for a moment, she wondered if he felt bad about that.

"so after you give up the money, why not do everyone a favor?" shelley continued.

sal stared at his computer, a picture of a hammerhead shark prowling the sea filling the screen.

a shark. a predator who was like an eating machine. who ate the little fish and grew and grew and grew. who didn't care about anything or anyone but himself.

"why did you do it?" shelley asked. "you were wealthy already. why would you cheat so many people, make them lose everything they had?"

"they were greedy. none of them had enough. they wanted easy money. they made for easy targets. i wasn't always well-to-do." he shook his head. "my dad did the small scams. taught me everything he knew, then died in a barroom brawl. i wanted to prove that i could do what my dad taught me, except on a much grander scale." he finally lifted his head and looked duncan in the eye. "you won't hurt carlotta."

"i give my word," duncan said. "she won't keep any of the money, though. she won't benefit from your ill deeds or her own. she won't be hurt unless we learn she's continuing your scam."

uncle ethan nudged shelley's hand. she reached down and petted her uncle's head, barely breathing, waiting for sal to touch the keyboard.

"wire my clan's money to my brother, guthrie, who's in charge of finances. then, you'll be wiring the rest of the money to this account and sending an email with attached files containing the information about the accounts you stole from and the amounts," duncan said, hovering over sal. he glanced over his shoulder at shelley. "the college where you worked also."

then as she and duncan watched sal work his magic, duncan used sal's phone to call ian. "ian..." he hadn't gotten anything else out when she heard whooping and hollering in the background at argent castle as if some huge celebration was taking place.

ian laughed, then shouted over the din, "hell, duncan, what did you do? guthrie just gave me the word. the news is spreading like wildfire through the pack. we've got our money back. guthrie has already transferred it to another secure account."

the sound of all the laughter brought home to her how much this meant to duncan's pack. she felt caught up in the overwhelming joy with them. for her college, too, and the staff that would also be celebrating once they knew the money had been returned.

"just a little wolf persuasion, ian. we'll be home soon," duncan said over the phone.

ian said, "expect a warrior's welcome." then the connection went dead.

"what about all the bodies?" shelley asked.

cearnach had disappeared, she realized, and she peeked out of the office door to see that he was hauling a body out the door.

"my brother will take care of them. we can't let anyone find men that have been killed by wolves," duncan said.

her uncle ethan hurried out after him and disappeared into sal's bedroom. then he returned, dressed in a pair of shorts, and helped cearnach with the remaining bodies. more shark food.

"show me the balances of each of your accounts," duncan said to sal. when they were all zeroed out, he said, "how do you want to handle this?"

sal opened a desk drawer and pulled out a gun.

afraid he'd use the weapon on duncan, shelley's heart lurched. but instead he kept the gun in his lap, pointed at the desk, looked at shelley, and offered her a bittersweet smile. "i don't believe your mate will allow me to drive off to locate a telephone or electric pole to run into."

every muscle tensed, duncan was ready to grab the gun, not about to let sal use it on shelley or himself.

sal turned to duncan. "we could fight wolf to wolf, but it would be no contest. i'd be better off fighting your mate."

"no deal," duncan said.

"i didn't think so." sal raised the gun and pointed at his head.

bang!

not expecting it to happen so quickly, shelley was so startled when he actually pulled the trigger that she jumped and gasped. sal slumped over his keyboard.

duncan touched sal's neck, feeling for a pulse, waited, then nodded. "dead."

they left him there for the police to find.

the time had come for shelley and duncan to go to his home in the highlands. she hoped that she fit in with the rest of the pack and that her uncle ethan wouldn't stir up all kinds of trouble with duncan's family.

which... she was certain he would.

chapter 21

after the wire transfers and getting plane tickets for the return to scotland, shelley, duncan, cearnach, and her uncle ethan finally arrived in edinburgh in the morning after an all-night flight. then they drove for several hours from the airport to argent castle.

exhausted from not being able to sleep on the plane like everyone else was able to, shelley had gone to bed as soon as she arrived at the castle with the others. she barely noticed that duncan's room was so darkly decorated. all that mattered were the big bed and climbing into it, enjoying his masculine smell on the sheets where she promptly drifted off to sleep.