But Gage shook his head. “They won’t have a problem with it. You give them hope.”
She frowned. “What do you mean?”
“They look at you and know the legend is true, that there really is someone special out there for every one of them.” He grinned. “And if they tease you now and then, it’s just because you’re part of our pack now.”
Part of the Pack. She liked the sound of that.
He gave her a kiss. “Come on. Let’s go see what they’re up to out there.”
Remembering what Gage had said about werewolves and their keen sense of hearing, Mac would rather have put off facing the Pack as long as possible, but she got dressed and let Gage lead her out of his office and into the main room anyway.
She’d hoped the guys wouldn’t be there, but the entire Pack was sitting around casually in their chairs, holding up cards with Olympic-style scores on them. She had more than enough imagination to figure out what they were grading them on. Her face turned bright red. Embarrassed didn’t even begin to cover it.
But after a good laugh, every one of the guys gave her a hug and welcomed her into the Pack. She tried not to make a big deal out of it, but she was touched. She could see Gage was touched, too.
Chapter 12
“The judge signed the warrants against Hardy,” Gage told Mackenzie when he walked back into his office.
She didn’t exactly look thrilled to hear his news, but then again, he hadn’t expected her to be. They’d spent a good part of the early morning hours talking about what going after Hardy would entail, and Mackenzie had been pretty clear about her feelings that she thought someone else in the department should be kicking in the man’s front door instead of him and his team. They’d barely survived Hardy’s first attack, and now Gage wanted to put himself right in the crazy bastard’s sights.
“I have to do this, sweetheart,” he’d told her.
She’d tried hard not to cry, but he’d seen the tears. “Why?”
“Because there’s a good chance Hardy will resist when the DPD shows up on his doorstep.” Gage gently wiped a tear from her cheek with his thumb. “If that happens, a lot of cops will die. Unless my pack and I are there.”
Mackenzie still hadn’t liked it, but at least she’d understood.
With the twenty-four-hour news outlets already plastering Walter Hardy’s face all over the TV and Internet, sensationalizing the attempted murders and detailing the supposed connections between him and the dead gunmen at the barn, it hadn’t been hard finding a judge to sign the search warrants the police needed.
“When will you serve them?” she asked as she sat up from the couch where she’d been napping. Her hair was a wild tumble around her shoulders and she looked more tired than she had when he’d left to go downtown for the meeting at police headquarters at dawn this morning. Gage doubted she’d gotten any sleep.
“We’re going to hit all of his major business locations and his residential addresses simultaneously at noon.” He glanced at his watch. “In a little less than three hours.”
Mackenzie sat up straighter, alarm clear in her eyes. “That fast? Don’t you need more time for planning?”
“Normally, we’d want at least a full day to plan out an operation this ambitious, but in this case, our biggest concern is that Hardy will get wind of what we’re doing and flee the country before we move on him. He likely has people on his payroll planted throughout the police department and the prosecutor’s office, so our only hope is to limit the number of people who know the details and hit him faster than he expects.”
Gage could already hear his men getting ready outside, talking in low voices about team assignments and how they would deal with the possibility of serious resistance at multiple locations around the Dallas area at the same time.
Mackenzie stood up and crossed the room to hug him. “When do you leave?” she asked, the words muffled against his shoulder.
“Thirty minutes.” Gage hated seeing her worry like this. “I’m leading the team into Hardy’s main residence. The prosecutor thinks that’s where we’re likely to find the most evidence.”
“What happens if he’s already gotten rid of any evidence that could tie him directly to the people who tried to kill us—if there ever was any?”
Gage didn’t want to think about that. They had this one shot to find something worthwhile on Hardy. If they did, they had a good chance of getting him off the street. If they blew it, Hardy would hit back even harder than he had the last time Gage had come for him. And the son of a bitch had already shown a penchant for aiming at Mackenzie.