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Chapter 3

Cheyenne's POV

I was just talking to Mercury about how proud I am of our son Isaiah. He has already collected several collections. I remember the first time my husband passed the title to him. He was just too young and not ready to be the mafia king. That was when he had met Ava, who was once human like I was. But things do happen, I got stabbed. I remember that day like it was yesterday. I was still human. Mercury wanted me to come along. He was interrogating someone in a warehouse. One thing led to another. The guy went after my husband, and I got in the way and was the one who got stabbed. Mercury had to turn me into a wolf to save me. We were just too far away from the doctor, so he did what he thought was the right thing. Now we are retired from being the King and Queen of the mafia. We still go with our son from time to time, but I like what we do. I train the recruits; Mercury fights the rogues and still protects his family. Right now, I was outside with the recruits, including Taylor. I knew I was harder on her. I just wanted her to know everything and be strong when she shifts. She's a late bloomer; she was supposed to have shifted when she was sixteen. When she didn’t, we took her to the pack doctors. That's when he told us that her wolf was still asleep. Sometimes it happens to strong wolves. When she turns nineteen, her wolf will awaken, and she will shift. So, I am much harder on her. With all my kids, but she is my granddaughter. I had her run more laps, do more sit-ups, push-ups, squats, and much more. When she told me what she did last night, I could only shake my head at her.

"Taylor, you know you can’t do that. You need to listen to your parents. Trust me, I know what you’re going through. You're just like your father. He had done the same thing, though he had his wolf at the time. He didn't like people threatening his father either. Once he tore the heart out of a guy just because he looked at his dad the wrong way. Your grandfather had to sit him down to explain he cannot do that. What if he was an important man? The wrong people might have come after us, and we would have been in deep trouble. We always have to be careful. Let them come after us first, and then we will do what we do—we destroy." I knew she was thinking hard about this. In the end, she understood. She didn't have a wolf right now. She could have gotten hurt if she had missed the shot; the woman could have had a gun and shot her. Then I would have had to hunt her down and rip that out apart. But I was happy that she finally understood. I was watching her spar with one of the girls. She was doing great. She was learning all the moves that she was supposed to know. She still got hit from time to time. Of course, you’re going to get hit; it happens when you train. Sometimes the other person is faster or stronger. It just makes you want to get stronger and faster; it's just the way it is in the werewolf world. Sometimes someone is stronger than you, but not smarter. You just have to outsmart them; that's all. When training was over, I told them they did a great job and to come back at the same time like today. I knew Ava wanted to speak to me. Something tells me it was about what happened last night with Taylor. This girl is just like her father mixed with a little of her mother. That's a dangerous combination. She was supposed to be at the house soon, so I hurried to shower, dry off, and got dressed. When I walked into the living room, she was there sitting on the couch with a glass of whiskey in her hand. This must be serious; she never drinks whiskey unless there is something wrong. I sat beside her, waiting to see when she will start.

"Cheyenne, I don’t know if I can do this. I wait for him to come home, hoping he will be alright. Last night it was Taylor who shot someone in the head; the other time, she broke someone's neck. How the h3ll am I going to handle this? I knew what she was going through. I went through the same thing when I was just starting out to be a wolf. I wasn't sure if I could deal with being here the way Mercury was; he was very dangerous going on collections. I was scared when he would go out; I wasn’t sure if he would come back unharmed. Sometimes he was hurt, but he would heal. It still scared me. I had to be strong for her. She comes to me for advice, and sometimes I try to give her the best advice I can give. Other times, I let her work things out on her own. She has to learn on her own.

'Ava, honey, I was just like you once. I was scared; I didn't want Mercury going out either, but I knew he had to go get those collections or get that guy. Sometimes, I was even terrified. But you know what? He always came home to me. Sometimes roughed up, sometimes he wasn’t. He does this for the family, so the family will have a future. It's going to be okay, I promise. You will never get used to it, but you will learn to understand. Go with him on the next collection; that's what I did with Mercury. That's how I understood what he does and why he has to do it. Trust me, when I did, this might sound crazy, but I had a blast. I even helped sometimes. So go with him, I promise you won't regret it,' she said as she was drowning her third drink before finally putting the glass down on the table.

'You're right, Cheyenne. I need to go with him to understand all of this. It's been years now, and I haven't gone with him. I'll go with him next time when he has a collection.'

'Good, that's what you need to do. And for Taylor, I already talked to her. She knows she can't do that unless they try to hurt us first. She has to know that if she did that to the wrong person, we would be up shit creek without a paddle, and people would get hurt. So, we always need to be careful.' I hugged my daughter-in-law, then watched her leave out the front door. I knew she felt better; she wants to go on the next trip. I hope she is ready for this because sometimes things can get really dangerous. Let's just hope she doesn’t freak out too much. I know I did the first time. I sighed as I sat back; I could finally relax a little. Mercury will be home soon, he would go out with the warriors in the woods hunting down rogues. He still loves to go out with them, so let's see what stories he comes home with.”