Chapter 12
Samson
The first time I’d yelled for Ari to run, it had all been fun and games. This time, I meant it like I’d never meant anything before. My omega was in serious danger, and I’d be damned if I’d let anything happen to him.
It was my own damned fault, though. I’d let Ari’s excitement at the idea of being free from his engagement and released from a life that would have been daily torture to him cloud my better judgement. I’d wanted him to be free from those people and that life, too. Nothing would have made me happier than to whisk Ari away from Clyve and his father, from his own family, on top of that, and to keep him safe beside me in our own little bubble for the rest of our lives.
I knew better. Life wasn’t that easy, particularly when you were connected to people like the Ingrahams.
“This way,” I hissed to Ari, pulling him to one side, where the trees looked a bit thicker. It would be harder for the ATVs that I could hear getting closer and closer behind us to navigate through that patch of forest. If we stood even half a chance of getting away from armed men on vehicles that could travel faster and farther than we ever could on foot, it would be by outsmarting them, not outrunning them.
I could feel Ari’s fear pulsing through our bond as I pulled him toward a thicket of bushes. I hated that fear, hated the way it made me feel like I was letting my omega down by leading him into danger. I knew better than that.
We should have headed straight for the house, straight for a phone and a way to contact the authorities in Barrington to let them know what was going on. I was just so used to being the point man for cases like this, so used to being the first one in, the one everyone looked to for orders and instructions. I’d spearheaded missions to entrap drug dealers and foil situations exactly like the one we’d stumbled across so many times that my instinct was to take action, not to walk away.
We weren’t walking away. I told myself that in no uncertain terms. We were regrouping and seeking back-up from the people who were trained to deal with these situations.
My alpha disagreed. Mine. Protect. Shelter. Defeat anyone who threatens him.
I practically had to shush my deep instincts where Ari was concerned so that my years of training could take precedent.
“Ow!” Ari cried out as he stumbled, spilling nearly flat on his face as something tripped him
I was able to catch him before he hit the ground. A root stuck up a few feet back that he’d probably slammed into in his ill-fitting, new shoes. I felt a twinge of pain in my own foot, not to mention a blast of annoyance and shame.
“It’s not your fault,” I whispered, cradling Ari in my arms a little as I pulled him up to set him on his feet again. “Hurry.”
We shot into motion again, but the stumble had cost us precious time and distance. The ATVs were louder behind us. One glance over my shoulder told me they hadn’t spotted us yet. They were still zig-zagging in and out of the trees, but the fact that I could see the men driving them, and the men who rode on the back of each vehicle, meant they were far too close for comfort.
Four men pursuing us, two of them armed. That meant only two, possibly three, were back at the shipping containers. There could be more at the house. We’d only gotten a minute glimpse of the place. It had looked like some of the pre-fab houses that had been popping up in neighborhoods around Medford in the last few years. I’d considered the possibility of knocking down the fixer-upper I’d bought in these woods and replacing it with a prefab myself before deciding I liked houses with character.
None of that was important now, though. All it meant was that there could be dozens more armed men in the forest. They’d come out, guns blazing, like ants pouring out of an anthill that had been kicked, if their buddies on the ATVs found us and sounded the alarm.
“This way,” I hissed to Ari, grabbing him and pulling him to the side.
We were near a particularly thick stand of bushes next to a ribbon-thin stream. It wasn’t ideal, but I pulled him into the bushes, using their bulk to shield us for a moment.
It was a huge risk, and I felt Ari’s fear spike as I hunched over him, covering him with my body. If we were discovered, at least I would take whatever bullets came our way, potentially saving my omega’s and my unborn child’s lives.
I kept absolutely still as the ATVs roared closer, sounding like huge, angry bees as their engines droned. Everything depended on the goons driving those ATVs and the gunners riding with them glancing right over us and past us and moving on.
I held my breath when the goons got close, not daring to move an inch as one of the ATVs zoomed past, within ten yards of us. The driver didn’t slow down, but I didn’t dare to feel relieved yet. The gunman might still see us.
Ari shook like a leaf under me. I had him so he couldn’t see anything going on around us, but he could still hear the ATVs. He knew how close the one had come, how much we were still in danger. It frustrated me how close to disaster we were, how it was all my fault we were in such a position. What had I been thinking?
I hadn’t. That was all there was to it.
Enough of that. I had to think now.
“Come on,” I whispered, uncurling from Ari and lifting him to his feet. “We’ve only got one chance at this.”
It was a stupid thing to say, really. I didn’t have time to explain myself, only to grab Ari’s hand and head back toward the shipping containers.
Ari didn’t ask questions or try to slow me down because we were going in the wrong direction. I felt nothing but trust and confidence from him through the bond. It was a deep and heavy thing.
I knew bonds didn’t make people psychic, they only relayed emotions. And ours was so new and thin that the only reason we were in tune now was because our emotions were so intense. But I thought through my plan anyhow, hoping he might pick up some of it.
We would head back to the shipping containers because only two goons were there, as opposed to four out in the forest looking for us. Ari’s car was there as well. The keys would likely be nearby, but if they weren’t I could hotwire the car pretty quickly. We would have a much better chance of escaping in a car. We needed that speed, and if we were discovered and shots were fired, we had a better chance of protection inside a car. Not great, but better.
But we’d have to move fast and not hesitate at all.
That was the plan, at least. When we came within sight of the shipping containers again, I slowed down and motioned for Ari to crouch with me. As much as I wanted to just dart into the open and leap into Ari’s car, we had to make certain we weren’t jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire.
It was a good thing I used caution, as it turned out.
“I dunno,” the man named Bruno was in the middle of a phone call when we reached the foliage at the edge of the gravel drive. “They thought they saw something, just like you did.”
He was on the phone with Clyve. I was glad Clyve wasn’t there, at least.
“Nothing specific, as far as I could tell,” Bruno went on. “Frank thought he saw something move out there, but I told him these woods are probably crawling with deer and stuff like that.” There was a pause, then Bruno said, “Yeah, gotcha, boss. Will do.”
He ended the call and slid his phone into his back pocket. Then he adjusted his grip on his rifle and started walking around, eyes narrowed, staring into the trees around the clearing.
It wasn’t ideal. He was the only guard I could see at the moment, but I knew there were others. And he was alert and looking for us. It felt like we’d been lucky to be able to take cover while he was distracted with his phone call.
I nudged Ari, then pointed to his car, making sure he knew what I had in mind.
Ari sucked in a breath, then turned to me with wide eyes. “Escape in my car?” he mouthed.
I nodded.
“What if it’s locked?” he mouthed.
I clenched my jaw. It was a possibility, but we had to try.
As it happened, we had to try quickly. Bruno had wandered off to the side of the shipping containers where the path to the house on the other side of the trees was. If we didn’t move immediately, we might lose our chance.
I grabbed Ari’s hand, then silently rose from my crouch. As I moved toward the edge of the gravel, I shifted Ari’s hand to my hip, hoping he’d get that I wanted him to stay in contact with me.
He got it. We moved as fast as we could while still being silent on the gravel. The driveway area was completely clear, but that didn’t stop me from dashing from the edge of the trees to the back of the SUV.
We made it without being noticed, pressing ourselves against the warm metal of the back of the SUV. I tapped the license plate, hoping Ari would get that I needed him to memorize the number, before inching to the edge of the vehicle and looking around.
I would have given anything for a gun right then. Or a cell phone. I needed back-up. I couldn’t adequately protect my omega in this situation on my own. The only way I was going to be able to keep Ari safe, in the moment and in the long-term, was by both getting him away from whatever was about to go down and making certain Clyve was brought to justice.
“What the fuck?” Ari whispered behind me.
I twisted to look over my shoulder and found Ari gaping through the back window of the SUV at something inside.
There wasn’t time for me to ask what it was, though. The crunch of footsteps on gravel gave me a split-second warning before Bruno came back from around the side of the shipping containers, his phone to his ear again.
“There’s nothing there, I swear,” he said, using an entirely different, grumpier tone of voice than he’d used with Clyve earlier. “I swear, Vick. I was just here two seconds ago. You need to get your cameras checked.”
Shit, shit, shit. I should have known they’d have the area with the containers under surveillance. I was way too out of practice to be doing any of what I was doing now.
“Car,” I hissed at Ari. Our only chance was to get to the car and drive off before Bruno took action.
Ari was right there with me, not hesitating for a moment, as we dashed out from behind the SUV and across to his car. We were dead lucky that the two vehicles were parked side by side, and that Bruno was on the other side of the SUV. I knew it wasn’t enough to keep us concealed for long, though.
Dropping as low as I could while still being able to move, I raced up to the driver’s side door.
Bruno’s footsteps crunched closer as he nearly shouted, “Where? I don’t see anything.”
Fear on a whole new level pulsed through my bond with Ari. I hated myself for putting him in so much danger. He was far too vulnerable to be in a situation like this.
“Okay, fine,” Bruno said, exasperated. His footsteps crunched closer to us.
I reached for the door handle…and found the door locked.
Shit!
Our time was up. Bruno’s footsteps were circling around the back of the SUV. I did the only thing I could think of and shoved Ari down, pushing him across the gravel and under his car.
Blessedly, Ari knew exactly what I wanted from him and squirmed to fit under the tight space. There was no way I would fit under there with him, so without thinking, I flattened and slid under the SUV.
A moment later, Bruno walked into the space behind and between the two cars.
“There’s nothing here,” he said, sounding like he was talking to himself, and like he was exasperated at that. “Fucking lunatic,” he muttered, then walked up between the two cars.
I thanked God that gravel didn’t leave marks in quite the same way that mud or dirt did. Bruno walked within inches of us. I stared across at a terrified, wide-eyed Ari as his booted feet passed through the space between us. I was such an ass for getting Ari into this mess.
“It’s okay,” I mouthed to him, trying my best to send calming vibes through our bond.
Ari nodded tightly, digging his fingertips into the gravel under him as his hand rested near his face. I fucking hated it. Once we were safe from this whole situation, I was going to coddle and comfort Ari like he’d never been coddled before. I’d wrap him up with my arms and legs, maybe in a big bubble bath, and just breathe in his scent. Nothing and no one would ever come near him or harm him again as soon as I?—
“Vick tells me we’ve got trespassers right under your nose and you’re not seeing them.”
Clyve’s voice, along with his quick, short steps on the gravel, jolted me out of my attempt to exude calm thoughts.
“Vick needs to clean the lenses on his cameras,” Bruno snapped in return. “There’s no one here, I swear.”
“Vick says there is,” Clyve said.
I looked forward, just able to see the two men standing face to face about fifteen feet in front of the cars, Bruno in his combat boots and trousers, Clyve in shiny wingtips and suit pants. Beyond the two of them, the other two guards I’d known were nearby had come back into the area at the front of the containers.
Shit. All the shit.
“Did you see the surveillance video yourself?” Bruno asked.
“Don’t you give me lip,” Clyve snapped at him. “You’re here on my say-so. If not for me, you’d be festering in some solitary confinement somewhere.”
“Who do you think I am?” Bruno growled in return. He answered himself with, “I was Special Ops, not some convict on your imaginary chain-gang. I don’t get caught. Never have, never will.”
Clyve huffed a laugh, but it sounded intimidated to me.
Good. The more conflict these assholes had among themselves, the better chance Ari and I stood of getting out of this in one piece.
Although it wasn’t looking so great for that right then.
“You think you’re hot stuff?” Clyve stepped closer to Bruno, raising his voice. “Without me, you’re nothing.”
The words were hollow, so I ignored the dressing down to check on Ari instead.
Ari lay with his cheek pressed into the gravel and his eyes closed. His face was pinched tight, like he was trying to hold his shit together. Or maybe like he was praying for a way out of things.
I sent whatever confidence I had through our bond, but I was beginning to think we might be stuck. We were concealed for now, but it was only a matter of time before someone would think to check under the cars. Hell, whoever Vick was, he’d probably seen us slide under there.
“And if my father ever gets word of your insubordination, not only will he put a bullet between your eyes, he’ll hunt down your omega and children and end them as well,” Clyve was saying. He’d worked himself into a fit, which, again, might work in our favor.
But then he had to take it a step too far.
“Do you have any idea who my father is?” Clyve demanded. “He’s Norman fucking Ingraham. He’s the wealthiest man in Barrington. He has Mayor Keller in his pocket. He’s the king of Barrington’s underworld. You mess with him, every nightmare you’ve ever had will come true.”
I was torn between wanting Clyve to say more and incriminate his father, Mayor Keller, and whoever else in Barrington needed to be taken down and wanting them all to go away so I could get Ari to safety.
“Now get out there and find whoever Vick says is trespassing on our territory before Remmington shows up,” Clyve went on. His feet shifted, and he said, “I’ve got twelve tons of cocaine in those containers that are worth millions more than your sorry life. This deal means more to me than you do.”
I tried not to make a sound as the air gusted out of me. Twelve tons of cocaine was more than anything I’d been involved with in Medford. It might have been a record.
“I don’t care about anything or anyone but my money,” Clyve went on. “None of your lives mean anything to me. So you’d better shut up and do as I say, do you understand?”
“Yes, boss,” the men standing beyond Clyve and Bruno said.
“Yes,” Bruno seethed.
I smirked, glad they’d gotten that taken care of. Now I just needed them all to go away so I could figure out how to get Ari away from here and to safety.
No sooner had I had that thought than the sound of ATVs buzzed out over the new silence in the driveway. The goons who had gone out in search of us were back.
I balled my fist, boiling with frustration.
Those emotions were quickly drown by Ari’s terror.
I fought to keep my emotions in check, but it was too late for that. Apparently, Ari thought my anger meant I didn’t know how to get us out of the mess we were in. I mean, I didn’t, but that was no reason for the sudden rush of grim determination I felt from him.
A moment later, he shifted to the side. Another burst of fear came from him as I turned my head to meet his eyes, like he knew I would be upset by what he was about to do.
But he did it anyhow. He slid out from under his car and slowly, shakily, rose to his feet.
“Stop right there!” Bruno shouted.
The sound of three guns being raised and readied set my teeth on edge, but not nearly as much as Ari’s weak, plaintive, “Clyve?”