She had managed to contain her true nature—or enough of it.

She wondered if she was the only one regretting her self-control.

• • •

Simon had come in too late to see the start of the fracas, but he was going to put a stop to this part of the trouble.

Hearing Vlad’s angry hiss, he glanced toward the archway in time to see Merri Lee elbow the Sanguinati in the ribs and break free.

Great. Now they had to deal with one of the exploding fluffballs as well as . . .

“By all the gods, what is wrong with you?” Nadine snarled as she turned on the Sierra, her hand tightening on the knife handle.

That. <Call Lieutenant Montgomery,> he told Vlad.

<Already did,> Vlad replied.

Montgomery and Kowalski came in through the front door, avoided the gob on the floor, and scanned the room, taking in the people and their positions. A young woman hustled in behind them, then froze just inside the door.

“Mr. Wolfgard . . . ,” Montgomery began.

Nadine swung toward Montgomery. “I have things to say!”

“You can say all of them after you give me the knife,” Henry said.

She looked at the fur-covered hand clamped around her wrist. She blinked and offered no resistance when Henry took the knife.

Simon wondered if she even knew she’d been holding it.

“Now,” Henry rumbled as he released Nadine and stepped back, “say what needs to be said.”

Nadine turned back to the Sierra. “How long are you going to pander to that man?”

“He’s my brother!” The Sierra’s voice cracked. She looked at Montgomery. “We’re supposed to help family.”

“You’re supposed to help him lie, cheat, steal?” Nadine demanded. “Or does he remain above it while you become the liar, the cheat, the thief?”

“No! It’s not like that!”

“He wants a full breakfast, so you’re going to use the supplies here? Were you even going to offer to pay for them, or were you hoping no one would notice missing supplies when we keep track of every egg and stick of butter? And after he’d eaten his fill here, would he have persuaded you to fill up a bag with food to take with him? Would you have paid for it or pretended that you didn’t know who took the breakfast sandwiches and pastries?”

The Sierra started to cry. “Jimmy doesn’t have any money to buy food.”

“He had money yesterday when he went to the Stag and Hare,” Nadine snapped. “Unless he makes friends awfully fast, he had to pay for his drinks and food there.” She looked disgusted. “Yesterday you took home dinner for three people. Did you end up splitting it seven ways because he claimed he didn’t have money?” Her disgust deepened. “Or did he get half the food because he’s the man and the rest of you split what was left?”

Simon frowned. That wasn’t right. The Sierra and her pups should have eaten their fill first since she was the one who had done the work for the food. But larger predators did steal food from smaller ones. Maybe that’s how it had always worked in the Montgomery pack, with that Cyrus waiting until the Sierra brought home food and then taking it away from her.

He studied Montgomery and saw a grim expression on the lieutenant’s face—and sadness in the man’s dark eyes.

Anger in Kowalski’s face—and in Merri Lee’s. Who had caused the anger? That Cyrus or the Sierra, or both?

“I owe him!” the Sierra shouted.

“For what?” Nadine shouted back.

“He never had enough because Mama and Daddy adopted me. My first mother didn’t want to keep me, tossed me out like trash. And trash isn’t entitled to anything.”

Simon heard a soft, pained sigh. Looking over his shoulder, he saw Miss Twyla—saw tears running down her face.

“You owe him because the resources for two children had to be divided three ways?” Nadine said. “Well, if that’s how you want to count it, Jimmy owes his brother half of everything he gets because Monty is the oldest child, right? So when Jimmy arrived, Monty only got half of what he would have had if Jimmy hadn’t been born. And somehow he managed to survive just fine without taking and taking and taking.”

“Cyrus said that to you?” Miss Twyla stepped forward. “He said you were trash? And you never said a thing to your daddy or me? Child, we shielded you as best we could from Cyrus’s childish meanness, but we couldn’t help with what you kept secret.”

“You made him leave and he blamed me,” the Sierra said, crying.

“When he was eighteen, we told him he had to find another place to live.”

“Because of me.”

Miss Twyla nodded. “That was part of it. Childish meanness was turning into a harder kind of meanness. Along with the lying and scheming, that wasn’t something your daddy and I could live with anymore. We couldn’t change Cyrus, and we were concerned about you, about the way you sometimes acted like you’d taken a beating.”

Shocked, Montgomery turned to the Sierra. “Did Jimmy hit you?”

“No!” She shook her head. “No, he didn’t do that.”

“No, he didn’t,” Miss Twyla agreed. “I looked for bruises because I wondered—and I would have told you, Crispin, if I’d noticed any.” She sighed. “But words can beat down a person as surely as fists, and I hadn’t known about the things Cyrus was saying when I wasn’t around to hear him and put a stop to it.”