Unchain Me (Fate’s Choice #5)

PROLOGUE - SALT

This is the third day in a row I can’t find Senu, and my legs are absolutely wrecked from running all over the neighborhood, checking every place I can think of.

Darius is way more patient with me than I probably deserve and gives me yet another day off.

When I stop by the tattoo parlor that morning, the place I’ve worked at for four years now, and ask for a couple more days, he doesn’t even blink.

He throws me a look that says he gets it, claps a hand on my shoulder, and says, "Sure thing, kid. Family comes first."

I’m grateful for that; I really need the time to figure out what the hell happened to my brother.

I start my day at the family grill bar where Senu worked, asking the staff around, but I don’t get much out of it.

One of the waiters mentions that Senu had been talking lately to one of the regulars, Tif, who mooches off people.

Tif’s hooked on drugs and usually crashes at one of the nearby places around the bar, but apparently he hasn’t been seen there either.

That part doesn’t mean much on its own. When Tif goes on a binge, he can vanish for weeks.

Once again, I find myself stepping into Under the Line. Senu used to come here sometimes because he was friends with the assistant manager. The bartender rolls his eyes the second he sees me.

"You again, Salt? I already told you, I haven’t seen Senu in days."

"You must know something," I say. "Maybe you heard something. A rumor. Anything."

I lace my fingers together in front of my chest in an exaggerated, almost mocking plea, like a cat begging for food, but he just snorts.

"You ever think he might’ve relapsed? You never really know with ex-junkies. Maybe he’s holed up in some dump with a stash and riding the high of his life."

I feel the growl rip out of my chest before I can stop it. "Watch your mouth! Senu’s been clean for two years."

The bartender shrugs, unimpressed. "Yeah. Or maybe an opportunity came up."

"Oh, just shut up. I don’t need your half-baked theories."

"Hey," he says, lifting his hands. "Don’t snap at me. I’m trying to give you something real to work with."

"Thanks for a whole lot of nothing," I mutter as I turn away, throwing him a crooked look.

I’m almost at the door when I notice a young alpha standing there.

I’ve seen him around before, and he once came into my parlor for a tattoo.

We talked a bit while I inked him, and I got the sense he was kind of into me, which is exactly why I made a point of avoiding him afterward.

He looks like gang material, probably a newer recruit.

"Hey, wait," he says quietly, glancing around to make sure no one’s paying attention to us.

I slow down, though I don’t like it. I don’t keep company with alphas. I never have. Alphas mean trouble.

"Check out the Tanners," he murmurs. "I was in the john at the Green Lantern when I overheard one of them saying they’d caught two new fish. That lines up with Senu and Tif disappearing. Thought you should know."

I freeze. The Tanners are trouble incarnate, and everyone in the neighborhood has heard about them.

They run an underground porn operation and film barely legal omegas.

Or not legal; you never know. The thought of Senu being anywhere near them makes my skin crawl.

He looks younger than his age, sure, but he’s twenty-three, and they don’t usually go after omegas over eighteen.

Tif, though, was eighteen. The pieces start lining up in ways I don’t like.

"When did you hear this?" I ask, my voice catching slightly.

"Three days ago. Evening."

"Fuck."

That was the last day I saw Senu. He’d been heading to work at the grill bar by the beach.

"Thanks," I mutter.

"If anyone asks," the alpha says just as quietly, "you didn’t hear it from me."

"Understood."

I leave the bar with my jaw clenched so tight it hurts.

Over the past few years, the Tanners have built a reputation so bad, people barely say their name out loud.

There are whispers about omegas disappearing, about them targeting people no one’s going to look for.

Someone should’ve gone to the cops a long time ago, but in a neighborhood like this, people keep their heads down and stay quiet until things finally blow up.

I pick up the pace.

I know where the Tanners live. Their place is two houses down from Darius’s. He’s complained more than once about their parties, the music and screaming carrying all the way to his place, sometimes deep into the night.

I don’t even know what I’m thinking anymore. I just know I have to go there.

The walk from Under the Line takes about fifteen minutes, but I cover it faster.

Their house is hidden behind a large garden, completely cut off from view by a tall fence.

I hesitate at the gate for half a second, knowing buzzing would be pointless.

Desperation wins. I climb over and move toward the building as quietly as I can.

Just as I reach the door, loud laughter drifts from somewhere around the corner.

Remembering that alphas hear better than dogs, I circle the house, sticking close to the wall and stepping carefully around the bushes. I crouch low and peek around the corner.

The Tanner brothers are stretched out on lounge chairs. Three of them in total, though only two are here now, along with two other alphas I recognize by sight. Low-level thugs, their regular muscle. The kind who harass omegas outside clubs, promising easy money for a quick porn clip.

I listen with my breath almost held, straining to make sense of their conversation. At first, it sounds like nothing important, just noise, but I stay put. I don’t move.

Then the topic shifts.

"We need to catch a new little fish," one of them says.

"Yeah," another replies, laughing. "That last one was so cute it made me want more."

The rest of them burst out laughing, and suddenly the words start to connect.

I catch fragments, pieces of sentences, enough to paint a picture that makes me shiver.

They laugh and cackle, talking about how he screamed, how he begged, how he choked as Danny Tanner was finishing him off, how his body arched.

They never say a name. Just some ‘cute omega’.

My hands start to shake. A horrible thought, a terrifying suspicion, is spreading through my bones.

"Danny really put the sweet thing through hell. He went all in this time. I’ve never seen him like that before," one of them says.

"Exactly. Looks like he finally found his calling. Full beast mode," another adds, almost impressed. "I almost felt bad for the tiny thing."

"Almost," the third one chimes in, and they laugh again, absolute scum.

Then the youngest of the Tanners says something I don’t quite catch at first, his voice muffled, but then it comes through clearly enough.

"…brother’s been asking around the whole neighborhood.

We should lean in and tell him to keep quiet, or we’ll come for him too.

Been a while since we ground up a beta."

"Yeah. He might draw attention, and that’s the last thing we need. Cops sniffing around," someone replies.

"Danny should take him to see what’s left of Senu. That ought to shut him up."

And just like that, everything stops.

His name.

What’s left of him.

My breath shatters in my chest, and dark spots bloom in my vision. I drop back on all fours and scramble away along the wall, barely aware of my own movement, then circle around to the front of the garden and haul myself over the fence.

Darius’s house is only about seventy yards away.

I don’t make it that far before I throw up.

My head feels wrong, like it’s not fully mine anymore, like I’m moving through a trance I can’t break.

I climb the fence at Darius’s place and smash a window.

There’s no one home. He lives alone, and I know exactly what he keeps upstairs in the storage space.

He showed it to me once, even taught me the basics of how to handle it.

He always said it was better to know than not to know.

Simple rule. You can never be sure when something might come in handy.

I open the locker and find the AR-15 he got from his uncle, a former commando, given as a very specific kind of gift. I grab two magazines and don’t bother closing anything before I bolt from the room.

My jaw is locked tight, rage boiling so hot it drowns out any remaining sense.

Reckless, past the point of reason, I leave Darius’s house and vault the fence, sprinting straight back toward the Tanners’ place.

For a second, I think I see a man walking a dog on the other side of the street, but I don’t slow down. I don’t care.

After clearing the fence, I flick the safety off and run around the house with the rifle in my hands. I don’t ease into it, I don’t hesitate. I step out from the corner and open fire.

Two of them are drunk and sprawled on something like a couch, boots up on a garden table. The other two are stretched out on rattan loungers, and they’re the first to take the burst.

I’m past thinking. Past consequences. Nothing exists but the noise, the recoil, the need to erase them. I mow them down like weeds.

The shots rip through the air, loud and brutal, the sound pounding in my skull. Two of them try to scramble up and run, but the gunfire slams into them and drops them hard.

When the first magazine runs dry, I swap it out without slowing and use the second to finish the ones still crawling, still gasping. I step closer, emptying rounds into their heads, making damn sure none of them gets back up.

Alphas are way stronger than betas and omegas, but strength doesn’t stop bullets. Only purple alphas can pull off shit like that, and these aren’t them.

When the magazine is almost empty, with only a few rounds left, I stop and stare down at the bodies. Blood spreads fast, pooling and creeping until it reaches my boots. I don’t move away. I don’t step back, almost bathing in their blood, my eyes fixed on bodies.

In that warped, hollow moment, memories come rushing in, sharp, vivid.

The day Senu and I ran away, finally leaving our abusive stepfather behind. We’d taken enough beatings, but the point of no return was the day he raped Senu. After that, there was no going back.

We lived on the streets for two years with nothing but each other.

Senu protected me, looked after me, as I had a brain injury I suffered at the hands of our stepfather.

He got us food by giving blowjobs to random clients, but he never let anyone touch me.

Not once. His love and sacrifice saved me from sharing his fate.

When I turned eighteen, I landed a steady job at Darius’s tattoo parlor, and Senu didn’t have to do sex work anymore. For the first time, we had real money.

Still, the past clung to him. He turned to drugs to quiet it, but he fought hard, went to rehab, started getting his life back together. We had each other. Just each other, and that was enough.

Me and him. Semper fi. Ready to die for one another.

Now Senu is gone.

They took him from me. My wonderful, loyal, loving brother.

He used to hold me in the evenings when I cried from the pain after our stepfather beat me. I can still hear his voice. "Don’t give up, Salt. Everything will be okay. We’ll survive."

We didn’t.

He didn’t deserve this.

Animals.

I lift the rifle and press the barrel under my chin.

I’ll join you, Senu. Always together. This is it.

I close my eyes, my finger tightening on the trigger, when a sudden vision slams into me.

A cage.

A man curled inside it, his bare back striped with whip marks, blood running down his hips. Thick black curls hide his face, but I see a single tear fall and splash onto the filthy floor.

My finger locks up.

I sway, fighting myself.

The man clenches his fists, and I hear him whisper, "Don’t… don’t give up."

I blink, and the image fades. The barrel is still pressed against my chin.

Wait…

Maybe I do have a reason to stay alive. A thought cuts through the fog.

Daniel Tanner!

Son of a bitch.

He’s the oldest one. The one who ran the whole sick operation. The one they say finished Senu.

So I’m not done.

I jerk my head up. Joining Senu will have to wait until I get my hands on that bastard. I need to reach him. He’s the boss, the heart of their illegal porn ring.

I tighten my grip on the rifle just as police sirens slice through the air. I curse under my breath. You can have me, but not yet.

Tanner, I’m coming for you.

I glance around and bolt left, toward the overgrown property next door.

The neighbors moved out years ago, driven away by the noise.

I crash through the bushes, branches snapping and scratching at me, and swear as I realize I’m being sloppy.

I skirt the building and am about to jump the next fence when a voice shouts,

"Freeze! Hands up! Drop the weapon!"

Two cops step out from behind the bushes.

Fuck. No. Too soon! Senu’s killer is still out there. I tighten my fingers on the rifle, and then pain explodes in my shoulder, my body jerking hard.

A taser.

My muscles lock up, and I slam into the ground.

Everything goes dark.