Pretty Little Lion by Suleikha Snyder
They call him a monster. More wolf than man—more dangerous than any predator. They have no idea.Please enjoy this glimpse of
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The man who sat across from her looked like he wanted to eat her, and Neha Ahluwalia had no doubt that he could. In great big bites. Laying her to waste with swipes of his claws.
Would it be kinder than what he’d done to land himself behind bars? That she had no inkling of. But she did know he was guilty. Guilty and a killer. One was a legal distinction, the other largely genetic, but they were both equally true. It wasn’t just the look in his eyes. Not just speculation or suspicion or her overactive imagination. It was the facts. Spelled out in fine print, looped in strands of altered DNA. Joe Peluso was the monster in the closet, the creature you were warned about in fairy tales…and still, somehow, not the scariest white man Neha had encountered while doing her job. What passed for humanity these days terrified her far more than the things that went bump in the night.
His first trial had dominated the headlines for months. “Unknown Sniper Spurs Gangland Chaos.” “Brutal Killer Caught!” “I Did It: QueensBorn Shooter Confesses.” You couldn’t walk by a newsstand or flip past the local news without seeing Peluso’s face. His police mug shot. Broad features spattered with cuts and bruises. Ears that stuck out in almost comical contrast. He looked dangerous. He still looked dangerous. Like someone who would absolutely cut down four members of a Russian drug ring while they were eating dinner—leaving them facedown in their borscht—and then stab another two guys in close combat in the parking lot.
“Yeah, I fuckin’ did it! Is that what you want me to say?”he’d shouted in court, according to the transcripts. “Let’s just get this bullshit over with!”
What the transcripts hadn’t said was that he’d almost transformed while raging on the witness stand. It wasn’t that much of a surprise to people in law enforcement, like her—all kinds of new species had inched their way into the light since the Darkest Day in 2016, and she had more than a few in her own family—but the ripple of fur across his body, the fangs, had been enough to throw the court into a tailspin. Pun fully intended. That he’d shot people, stabbed people, but hadn’t turned berserker—hadn’t devoured his victims—had put a whole different spin on his case. Instant mistrial. Instant cover-up…at least as far as the press and the public were concerned.
Neha should’ve been terrified at the prospect of this new client and of the reality of him sitting across from her right now. And, sure, maybe she’d freaked out a little that morning at the firm. She’d spilled coffee on her second-best blazer and asked her favorite senior partner to repeat himself. “I want you to sit in, Neha,” Nate had obliged. “I think you could learn a lot on this one…and I think we could learn a lot from your take. I want your profiling skills on full display.”
As a junior associate, she was practically begging to log some more billable hours and hack away at her law-school debt. But the Peluso case? Not one she’d been expecting to have land on her plate. Not high on her list, since it wasn’t exactly going to help pay the bills. But she’d said yes anyway. Because how did you turn something like this down? A vigilante shape-shifter in a Sanctuary City? It was the kind of opportunity that could make or break her career…even if it didn’t break the bank in the process.
Now here they were at the table. Her, Nate Feinberg—the first chair on the case—and his second chair and partner in defending crime, Dustin Taylor. With Joe Peluso himself staring back at them. His bruises were fresh. Probably from a recent tussle in jail as he waited for the new trial date. But everything else was the same as in his picture. His dark-brown hair chopped short in a blunt cut. A harsh-featured face only a mother could love. Those ears. And his dark, cold eyes. Meeting them, acknowledging his blatant perusal, Neha knew without a doubt that he was capable of taking lives. Professional. Efficient. Ruthless. But there was something else there, too. Not vulnerability. Not softness. Nothing like that. Just…depth? A hint of something below that chilly surface, something charismatic or compelling. A mystery waiting to be solved. Was it the monster? Or was it the man? Either way, Neha couldn’t—wouldn’t—take her eyes off him.
There were too many things about him, about this case, that didn’t add up quite right. Like Peluso’s heavily redacted military files. Like how he had only gotten caught because, of all things, he’d called in a tip after his hit. A twominute, forty-second phone call telling the cops about a shipping container full of “goods” scheduled to arrive later in the week. While one set of law-enforcement officials had tried to trace the burnerphone call and crossreferenced the security cameras and drone footage from nearby, another had intercepted the drop. The shipping container in question hadn’t been full of drugs or bootlegs or weapons. It had been full of people—mostly human women—slated for sex trafficking.
Joe Peluso had cut down six criminals without blinking…but spared one thought to save dozens of lives. A man who’d clearly done his homework about the security drones that circled the city, he’d figured out their patterns. Even though they were supposedly on a randomizer and changed circuits every day, he had chucked all of that—risked being recorded—to make a call. What she didn’t know, and didn’t remotely understand, was why. And she hoped that the why would help them win their day in court, despite all the odds that were stacked against them. Not the least of which was the fact that this guy had taken out a bunch of Russian nationals, and all of the current president’s New York-based cronies were calling for Peluso’s head. So that the Russian government didn’t retaliate. So they didn’t lose all their cushy connections. Add in the supernatural factor—which called into question rights and personhood and whether he was even entitled to a new trial—and it was a mess.
There was buzz around the firm that the rest of the senior partners had balked at Nate taking this case, fearing public backlash. “Sanctuary fucking City,” he’d reportedly said in response. “Last I checked, mobsters, pimps, and white supremacists were still the bad guys, and all Americans are still entitled to due process. No matter what’s going on in Washington with birthright citizenship and humanity verification legislation, Joseph Peluso is still a citizen.” And that was that. As long as the mayor and the governor kept fighting the dark curtain that had dropped across the United States over the past few years, the legal firm of Dickenson, Gould, and Smythe would keep holding the line.
How Nate managed the other partners so efficiently was a secret well above Neha’s pay grade. And, frankly, she didn’t want to know. The enigma sitting across from them was more than enough to deal with. She just had to trust that both Nate and Dustin knew their shit. As for herself…? She’d come into law after doing a doctorate in behavioral psych. It was her job to know Joe Peluso’s shit.
“Get him talking, Neha. Find out what his public defender missed. We don’t want to repeat those mistakes.”
Too bad the man across the table didn’t seem particularly inclined to talk at the moment. His posture was closed-off, sullen. He answered questions in monosyllables. It was no wonder that first trial had been an epic disaster. Peluso screaming he did it. Gavels banging. Everybody and their mother shitting their legal briefs. The presidential cronies and rightof-center government officials calling for oversight on sanctuarycity legal procedure. That made the governors and mayors who were part of the nationwide Sanctuary Alliance push back and cite the Sanctuary Autonomy Act of 2019. All of it had kept Peluso on ice in prison for months without even a question of retrial. Nobody at DGS wanted a repeat of that threering circus.
And on a more local level, nobody really wanted to mess with Aleksei Vasiliev, the Russian mafia vor whose underlings Peluso had eliminated so ruthlessly. Vasiliev owned a string of clubs and bars in the old-school Russian enclaves across Brooklyn and Queens, but it was fairly common knowledge that (a) they were a cover for drugs and sex trafficking and (b) he was just one cog in a larger operation run by a criminal network that both local authorities and Interpol had been watching for years. Plus (c) his potential supernatural affiliation—there was no confirmation in the legal community, but rumors had him as everything from werewolf to sorcerer. Oh, and there were also (d) his ties to several Aryan militia groups. The overlap between white supremacy and organized crime was such that the Venn diagram was practically one circle.
Aleksei Vasiliev was a nightmare. It was just Neha’s luck that Joe Peluso had messed with him—and then some—by taking out a bunch of his pals. Peluso had basically kicked over six hornets’ nests. And, looking at him now, it certainly seemed like he did not give a single fuck about it. He was slouched, almost bored. Staring at the table or the wall more than paying attention to his lawyers. There was a slight tension to his shoulders, to the lines of his mouth, but that could be attributed to any number of things. A problem with authority. General surliness. Constipation.
Dustin’s smooth baritone betrayed not one bit of annoyance that their new client wasn’t playing ball. “Would you say you were under duress when you left Queens on the night of September 14?”
“‘Under duress?’ What kind of bullshit phrasing is that?” Peluso rolled his eyes. “No one forced me anywhere. Loneass gunman, remember?”
Nate offered his most charming smile in response. “Was it a full moon?” He knew the answer to that already. The date of the hit was well documented. But he wasn’t fishing for calendar confirmation. “Were you perhaps driven by…impulses?”
This, too, met with disdain. And zero acknowledgment of what Nate was referring to. “Do I look like the Weather Channel?” Peluso sneered. “The fuck do I know if it was a full moon?”
Neha struggled not to laugh, to not give him the satisfaction of a reaction, and applied herself to taking notes while Nate and Dustin went over the prelims again. But mostly she just watched their client. Studied him. Recorded what questions made the veins on his neck stand out. When he clenched his fists. He didn’t like talking about his past. Bristled when asked about motive. On the surface, he seemed like the classic alpha male with authority issues. Push the wrong button and he would blow.
But then you added in the shifter factor…and she was stumped. From all reports, Peluso hadn’t changed forms, or attempted to change, since his outburst in court. The medical staff at Brooklyn Detention had done as much blood work as their limited capability allowed, monitored him for weeks afterward, and only logged a few minor signs of supernatural ability. Bursts of increased aggression at certain times of the month—something she could actually relate to. But he hadn’t gone full wolf or bear or whatever he was. He’d done nothing that required putting him in solitary. Aside from being a surly asshole who clearly got in a few dustups here and there, he was a model prisoner. Not so much the model client.
It was the world’s most personal Law & Order rerun—movie-star handsome Nate and suave and serene Dustin trying to get a bead on the chillingly charismatic killer they’d agreed to defend. The contrast was almost comical. Their suits probably cost more money than Joe Peluso would ever see. Hell, Neha knew without a doubt that their suits cost more than her entire wardrobe. They were almost incongruous in the spare, utilitarian, private visitors’ room. Two shining beacons of Armani hotness surrounded by cinder block and reinforced steel—an ad for a fashion house versus the Brooklyn House of Detention.
Halfway through the meeting, she realized Peluso was looking right at her. Leaning back in the chair bolted to the floor, chained fists on the table before him like he’d been ordered to pray. There was something like a smile on his face. A glitter in the black ice-chips of his pupils. Oh. Of course. She knew what was coming. She’d worked as a grunt in the DA’s office for two years before DGS fished her out of the shallow end. This was when the client said something like “Who’s the bitch?” or “She a perk?” or “Can I see your tits?” The veritable sexual harassment buffet.
She braced for it. It never came. Peluso just flicked his gaze back to Nate. “Why’s she here?” he demanded. “You trying to soften me up or something? It ain’t gonna work. I know what you think I am, but you can’t bribe me into good behavior like a dog.”
He was angry. And she wasn’t sure what to unpack first—that he thought she was a bribe, or that he’d compared himself to a dog. There was definitely a chunk of the public who thought he was a rabid monster off the chain, even without knowing his true nature. There were certainly people at the firm who thought she was just a diversity hire with great legs and a pretty face—a showpiece. But he was wrong. Nate hadn’t brought her here to soften him. Just to get to him. And the fact that he’d noticed her meant she was in.
She leaned forward, folding her hands on the metal table in a parody of his. “I’m here to learn, Joe,” she told him. “Nothing more, nothing less.” The skin around his left eye was black and blue. His right cheek looked like someone had taken a cheese grater to it a week ago. But it was his gaze she focused on, his intensity that held her fixed.
Nate’s hand settled on her knee. A warning squeeze, not a stolen grope. He was in no way interested in any of her body parts besides her brain—not just because he was gay, but because he didn’t subscribe to the toxic male posturing that seemed to permeate most law firms. He’d likely brought her on board because she’d profiled his boyfriend a few months back over Friday night drinks. His now ex-boyfriend.
“Tread carefully,” he was saying with the squeeze. “Tread carefully but work it.” She was thirtyfive. Older than a lot of her fellow junior associates. She didn’t need the warning. She knew how to be careful.
“Bullshit,” Peluso pronounced, that almost-smile returning to his face. Bizarrely, she kind of wanted to see the real thing. “It’s never ‘nothing less.’ You want something from me. And good luck with that, ’cause I got nothing to give.”
He was guilty, but he didn’t seem to have any guilt. Not about what he’d done. That much was clear. And he wouldn’t stand for more bullshit. So, she told him the truth as she knew it. “Okay. Here’s the bottom line, Joe. They’re here to defend you. I’m here to break you down. Get inside your head. Find out what makes you tick.”
It amused him. He tilted his head, sizing her up with his good eye. “I’d like to see you try.”
The way he said it—a cocky, casual threat—should have sent a chill down her spine. It didn’t. It just got her back up. “That’s the beauty of it, Joe,” she told him. “You won’t see it. You’ll be halfway there, looking around and wondering why you told me every secret you’ve never told another soul.”
She’d tried that line on a few clients here and there. Most of them laughed, because they didn’t believe her. They didn’t realize that she’d been cracking people like safes since long before the psych degree. When one of her older brothers had held her Malibu Barbie for ransom, she’d gotten the doll’s location out of him in four minutes. She’d been eight.
People told her things. Whether they wanted to or not. People connected to her. Whether she wanted them to or not. It was a blessing and a curse. Maybe it was her supernatural gift.
“You’ll give me everything,” she assured.
Joe Peluso didn’t laugh off the challenge. Instead, he seemed to mull it over. His brows winged together. His eyes went distant. He interlaced his fingers, cuffs clinking against the tabletop. He watched her watch him. Nate shifted beside her, obviously unsettled by the standoff, but he wouldn’t have asked her along if he hadn’t thought she could handle it.
She could handle this. She could handle him.
She knew Joe was guilty…and she knew she was just that good.
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