Conditions

PATRICK

I glare at the screen, reading the email from my cyber security team. The same thing has happened again- someone entered our systems and corrupted them all.

I grind my teeth while reading through the whole damage assessment my cyber team did. This isn't the first time that something like this has happened. This is becoming almost a routine by now. Despite all our efforts, someone always finds a way around all our security checks, and this is now starting to get on my nerves.

So far, we have a list of culprits who could be behind this. The list consists of three names. I will hunt them all down at any cost and make them regret their whole life. I'll ensure they die the slowest deaths ever, begging and crying for the quickest way out, but they won't have it.

No one ever crosses me and gets away with it. I always hunt them down and give them the most torturous death so they won't dare to be born again.

Before I can drive my fist through the screen, my phone rings up. I scowl and pick it up.

"Cross victor off the list," Waylon, my brother, speaks first. I cock an eyebrow and lean back on my chair.

"You killed him?" I ask, intrigued. Victor is one of our three main suspects.

"Nah, he killed himself," Waylon responds, a tone of amusement in his voice. I clench my teeth. In times like these, I won't say I like humour a lot. "But, before he took himself out, he tipped us!" He adds.

"Really?" I ask, "Who is it then? Hebron?" He's another one of our suspects. In response, Waylon chuckles.

"Hebron is dead too. Someone else took him out," Waylon speaks, his voice dark and cynical. "At this point, you can guess correctly who it could be."

"Aiden," I breath. It is a hacker no one had ever seen. No one knows who Aiden is, where he or she lives, what is their real name and most importantly, why they are targeting us. But I know one thing- It has been Aiden all along. Victor and Hebron are notorious hackers, but they don't have it in them to play such pranks on us.

Deep down, I had known subconsciously that it is Aiden, but I had sent my brother after Victor and Hebron just to be sure.

"That fucker," Waylon mutters.

"Have you found something about him?" I ask.

"Nothing, but we can be sure now that it has been him all along," Waylon confirms, and I agree. Whoever this Aiden is, they are good at what they do, so good that even my cyber team, who are supposed to be the best in the country, can't find Aiden!

Despite my frustration and anger at him for continuously attacking us, I am impressed at Aiden's skill. They seem to know what they are doing, and they do it so well. If they weren't against us, I'd have paid them millions to work for us.

This makes me more curious about Aiden and even more restless to find him. They have proven that their skills are the best in the country, and if we fail to find them in time, they can bring us down singlehandedly. I am not going to allow that!

"And what did Victor tip you exactly?" I ask.

"Victor has been trying to find out about Aiden for years, and so far, he told me that Aiden is a girl and she's from somewhere around the south coast."

"A girl?" I grit.

"A she-wolf," Waylon muses, making the fire burn harder in my chest. I am now more determined than ever to hunt her down. I am not going to let a she-wolf destroy us. And once she has been caught, I'll make sure she regrets messing with us.

What else?" I prob just to be sure.

"Nothing much. I'll be back by evening after I finish the business here properly," Waylon tells me, and in the background, I can hear a few of our men talking and breaking things. They must be tearing Victor's home apart to find other important things.

"Come back asap. I'll find this she-wolf soon," I declare, making Waylon chuckle.

"Promise me, you'll share her with me. I'd like to have a piece of her, too. After all, she has kept us on our toes for a while," Waylon chuckles. I know what he really means by that. I don't know why, but I am more interested in hunting down Aiden!

"Aiden would wish she were dead," I growl.

"She must have nerves of steel to mess with us," Waylon comments after barking a few orders at one of the men in the background. "To mess with the two of us and not once, but numerous times and doing this for years without us ever being able to find out anything about her," He speaks what I have been thinking about all this time. "You've got to give it to her for that!" He concludes.

"We have to find her soon," I state before he can go on and on about her, "Because Victor and Hebron are out. This might have alerted her."

"I know. I'm tearing down everything in Victor's house to see what else he found out about her," Waylon tells me. "I have to go now. See you tonight, brother," With that, he disconnects the call. Immediately, I message my team and tell them everything Waylon has said to me about Aiden.

In the meantime, I can only wait for them to continue their investigations and for Waylon to return. And this is the part which I hate the most... waiting!

I am the most patient man, but lately, my wolf has been acting strange. I sigh deeply and check the time. It is almost five in the morning. I haven't slept all night because my wolf has been quite active inside me, not letting me sleep.

It is as if he is trying to tell me something, but whenever I try to talk to him, he shuts me down. This has never happened before. I have always been in sync with my wolf. Something is making him act strange, and I don't know what it can be!

Maybe I should visit the old witch who lives in the woods. She knows everything- one of the reasons why we never fucked with her and we let her stay in our territory even though she isn't a member of our Pack. She'd throw us a bone once in a while, and that was all that constituted our symbiotic relationship.

I get up and decide to try to take a nap even though I know I won't be able to sleep. I leave the office and go to the house which I share with my brother.

I go to my bathroom and strip naked before taking a cold shower.

I suck in a sharp breath as the cold water hits my body, pricking my skin like a thousand needles. The discomfort eases out in a couple of seconds, and my muscles relax while I feel the water run down my body.

"We're coming for you, Aiden!"

****

WAYLON

It takes us a while to get out of victor's house. We've found a lot of hard drives that seem to be full of data. They'll be given to Trevor, our head of the cyber team, to see if we can find anything else about Aiden. I've found some notes made by Victor about some of Aiden's previous work. I have ensured to take them as well.

It is dark when we finally manage to leave. It took us a whole day just to do this work, and I am feeling agitated because I had other plans for today as well, but I can't take care of them because of raiding Victor's house. Despite all of this, we are one step ahead.

We now know that Aiden is a she-wolf, and she lives somewhere at the southern coast. Interesting. Very Interesting. Of all the people, it happens to be a she-wolf. Who could have ever thought about that?

But it kind of complicates things for us, a bit. Usually, we know all our enemies, and most of them happen to be men.

There are a couple of she-wolves on the list, too, but I can imagine none of them to be Aiden... they don't have the nerve to do what Aiden did.

It makes me more curious about her, and I can tell that my brother has the same feelings about this whole Aiden ordeal. It has been years since she started messing with us. Last year, she had stolen ten million from us, and Patrick has been mad since then.

This is when things turned severe for us. It is one thing to mess with us and another thing to steal so much money from us!

I have been on the grounds since then, trying to find Aiden myself. Previously, I had a separate team looking for Aiden, but I decided to take things into my own hands after it got that serious.

Finally, we seem to have some clue, filling me with a strange excitement. Aiden has been a big mystery that we have been trying to solve, and finally, we seem to have a clue. We can eventually move in a direction where we can finally get to her and stop her from ruining us even further!

Whoever she is, we can't deny that she is very powerful and has the absolute potential to bring us down. This can't be allowed!

When I step out of Victor's house, a cold breeze brushes my hair, soothing me for a bit. I stand on his driveway for a second and breath in the fresh night air. Immediately, it makes my wolf stir.

It has been a long time since I have had a proper run, and tonight, something is in the air calling me to shift into my wolf and run free through the woods, tasting freedom.

Freedom from what?

Well... I have been feeling pretty odd lately. It is hard to describe, but it unsettles me at night, so much such that I am unable to fall asleep. I'd often spend my time in the training room, training until all my muscles hurt, and I'd pass out of exhaustion. Still, it wouldn't go away.

That unsettled feeling would be the same thing to make my mind wander in the day when I need to focus on my work. It feels like a part of me is slowly fading away into darkness. It feels like I am losing touch with a piece of me, and it deeply scares the shit out of me!

Why is this happening to me?

Is this some sickness of the wolf?

I wonder about it as I stand there, enjoying the night breeze. The run to our Pack from Victor's house will be far away, but I want to let it all out.

Maybe this will finally calm me down, and I can think straight again.

I decide to go for a run. I inform one of my men and go to Victor's backyard, where the woods can be easily accessed. I carefully strip and change into my wolf before taking my clothes into my mouth and running.

I run through the dark woods, letting the chilly night hair brush through my furs. It feels so fucking amazing, and for once, it makes me feel free of all the worries in life, but despite all that, the unsettled feeling remains. It just won't go away!

Instead of letting it ruin my run, I enjoy the night and the woods. I keep running without taking a break. My wolf is fully energized because it hasn't been out for a while, so he is pleased to be out, and despite running for miles, he doesn't seem to have gotten the least bit tired.

I enter the Pack territories just in time and stop only when I am at the doorstep of the house I share with my brother. I shift into my human form and walk in with my clothes in my hand, stark naked. It doesn't matter. Nudeness isn't an issue in our pack. Everyone has so far seen everyone's packages.

I find Patrick in the living room with his laptop when I enter the building. He looks up as soon as he senses me.

"You went on a run?" He asks, a hint of annoyance in his voice. I guess I am late.

"I ran here, yes," I nod, running my hands through my hair, that unsettling feeling creeping back into me, but this time it is even more intense. The harder I try to push it back every time, the worse it seems to get.

Patrick seems to have read my expression because he asks, "What is it?"

"Nothing," I dismiss and head upstairs to shower quickly. When I return downstairs, dinner is served, and Patrick is waiting for me at the dining table under the grand chandelier. I grunt at the dinner choices but decide just to shut up and eat.

"You know I'm supposed to be the grumpy one," Patrick comments, making me to frown.

"I'm just tired," I say, filling my plate with ribs. Silence falls between us as we continue to eat. I feel Patrick's eyes on me, waiting. He has noticed it, and there is no hiding anything from him. He is a keen observer. He has always been... Sometimes too keen for my liking!

"I..." I start, trying to collect the right words to describe that unsettling feeling properly because I know Patrick won't give up until I tell him what is bothering me. "I've been feeling restless for quite a while. My wolf is acting strange. It's like he has gotten a mind of his own all of a sudden and doesn't want to listen to me at all!"

As soon as I say that, Patrick's eyes widen.

"You've been feeling that too?"