Chapter 26
CHAPTER 26
Enzo
T his was a fucking mess. While fights had happened since we’d opened the club, they were rare.
And not once had any of us actually been the cause of any of those fights.
I couldn’t fully blame Ax for the current situation or the fact that not only the police, but an ambulance had been called. The asshole alpha had had no right to lay his hands on one of our employees.
And not just any employee – our fucking beta.
I’d seen her wrist when Ax had inspected it, had seen how hard he’d gripped her. She would have yet another bruise by yet another cock sucking mother fucker who thought he was top dog, who thought his designation gave him the right to play by his own rules.
Not fully blaming Ax for beating the piss out of him, but this wasn’t a good look for him or us. He’d beat the dude unconscious and continued to pummel him, even with the guy’s buddies doing everything in their power to pull Ax away .
He’d looked like a man possessed when I’d finally gotten through the gawking crowd. I’d never seen him look so unhinged, so fully out of control of his alpha. It had taken me, Cyrus, one of our bouncers, and even Amir to finally get him away from the prone alpha. Then the three of us had stood in front of the door to keep him from rushing back out to…
What? What would Ax have done had we not intervened?
Stupid question. As completely lost to his alpha as he’d been, I had no doubt Ax would have ended up beating someone to death right there in the middle of the club with hundreds of fucking witnesses.
Now I had to find a way to keep the cops from arresting my packmate. Especially since I knew he would be balls deep inside of Issa as she did her best to bring him back down. If a single person outside of the pack stepped through that office door, he would go insane. The fucker was in rut.
He’d better not attempt to knot Issa. Her beta body wasn’t built for that. Had this been a different situation, I might have suggested our omega help settle him, but he needed Issa to reassure him she was okay.
How had that beautiful girl wrapped us all so tightly around her finger?
Stupid fucking question. Not only was she physically beautiful, she was beautiful inside, too. Funny. Witty. Smart. And so fucking strong.
Something like what had happened tonight would have sent her into a tailspin in the past. She would have retreated back into her shell, hidden away, maybe even refused to leave the house again for a while. Instead, she’d made her way to the office and pushed through our bodies to make sure her alpha was okay, to reassure him instead of the other way around.
Cyrus stood just outside the main doors speaking with the police while Amir and I cleaned up the broken glass, and righted tables and chairs. “You don’t have to help,” I told him.
We’d assured him we weren’t assholes, that we weren’t power hungry or violent. Issa had assured him we weren’t like a lot of other packs out there. And then he’d been witness to Ax breaking a man’s face with his bare fists.
“I need to do something.”
I glanced in his direction then did a double take. That wasn’t fear or even anger on his face. It was something else.
“What? What’s wrong?”
He pushed his hand through his long curls, then pulled an elastic from his pocket to tie his thick locks into a messy bun at the base of his neck.
“I should have been there. I should have been watching her closer.”
Leaning the broom and dustpan against the table, I turned and gripped Amir by his shoulders, forcing him to look up at me. He was tall for an omega, but still quite a few inches shorter than me.
“It’s not your job to protect her, Amir. That’s our job. If anyone failed her, it was us.”
His head wagged slowly side to side. “I turned away for a minute. I was just asking for another drink. By the time I looked back…”
Softly shaking him by his shoulders, I bent lower so we were eye to eye. “Your job is to make her happy. To love her. You did not fucking fail her.”
And, as an omega – even one who was closer to an alpha’s size – he was at risk, as well. A male omega was as rare as a female alpha. And there just happened to be one of both in the club at this very moment.
Aryn made her way over, her head turned toward the doors until she was close enough. “They going to arrest him? I’ll be a fucking witness. That douche has been giving her trouble all night.”
My brows slammed together. “Why the fuck didn’t you kick him out?”
Her shoulders rose and fell. She was about an inch taller than Amir, but not as muscular or broad. “She didn’t tell me until after. I knew something was up, but she said it was fine. I think he’d just made some shitty comments and she was doing her best to blow them off. ”
Because she was either trying to prove to herself or to us she could handle alphas.
“Is she okay?” Aryn asked. “Is Ax okay?”
“They’re alright. They’re in Cyrus’s office.”
Cyrus whistled, waving me toward him where he spoke with the police.
“I’ll finish this,” Amir said.
“Not your job, omega,” I said, pressing my lips to his before walking away.
But when I looked back, he had gone right back to cleaning up as one of the servers rolled a mop bucket to the mess. To clean up the beer and spilled blood.
What a fucking mess.
“They want Issa to make a statement,” Cyrus said with a raised brow.
Glancing over my shoulder toward the closed office door, I turned back to the police officer with his hands resting on his belt.
“She’s with one of her alphas right now. She needed to be calmed down after that asshole assaulted her.”
“His buddies are telling a different story.”
The cop was a beta, and his tone sounded as though he was leaning more toward Issa’s side than the alphas.
“Let me guess – they were attacked unprovoked? Our beta already has bruising and swelling where that fucker grabbed her.”
The officer pulled a notebook from his breast pocket and started jotting down notes. “Had anything else transpired before?”
“I don’t know the details, but she’d told our bartender he was verbally accosting her.”
“Accosting her how?”
“I don’t know the full details. I was in my office when everything was happening.” Instead of out here where I could keep an eye on her.
Mother…fucker. I had supported her decision to get a job and had been overjoyed that she wanted to work for us. In my mind, it would have been easier to keep her safe if she was under the same roof as her three alphas .
And we’d fucking failed her.
We had plenty of security in this place, though. Issa could have simply said something to one of the bouncers or even Aryn and the alpha would have been booted out the door.
She was trying to be strong, trying to prove she could handle this job and being around alphas.
And…she’d done exactly that. Yeah, the fucker had put his hands on her, but she hadn’t been seriously injured. I wouldn’t know the full story until I had some time to talk to her, but I was proud of her. Pissed at myself and my staff, but proud as fuck of our girl.
“Would it be possible to bring her out to speak to me? Or could I–”
“No,” Cyrus and I said at the same time when the officer started to ask whether he could step into the office.
Beta or not, a strange man in the room with Issa when Ax was so out of control would be…well, our packmate would definitely end up in the clink.
“Could we bring her by the station later tonight or in the morning?” Cyrus, ever the diplomat, asked, looking between me and the officer while rubbing the back of his neck.
The policeman looked between the two of us and the reason behind our protests seemed to sink in because his brows raised and he nodded.
“Could someone take pictures of her injuries tonight while they’re fresh?”
Warm linen and chocolate covered strawberries lifted on the breeze a second before Issa and Amir stepped outside and stopped beside me. For some reason, I didn’t like the two of them so exposed out here and pushed them both until they were between Cyrus and myself.
Stupid, being as there were enough officers here to ensure their safety. But my alpha was barely hanging on by a thread after tonight’s incident.
“I’m Isabelle Rivera,” she said, offering the officer her hand, and it wasn’t lost on me that she’d intentionally offered the hand with her bruised wrist .
The officer’s eyes scanned her, not a slow perusal, but rather looking for injuries. “Other than the obvious bruising on your wrist, did the alpha cause any other injuries?”
“No. Because my alpha stopped him before he could go any further. I have no doubt he would have–” She cut herself off and blinked rapidly as her eyes grew glassy with unshed tears.
Mother fucker.
Rage started to boil fresh in my veins. I was the fucking pack lead. I needed to keep my shit together or I could end up making the situation far worse than it already was.
“The victim’s friends–”
“ She’s the victim,” Amir said, his arm wrapped tightly around her shoulders.
The officer nodded. “His friends said he was attacked unprovoked.”
“Good thing the entire club is covered by cameras,” Cyrus said, eternally calm.
“He was making comments all night. Berating me. Degrading me because of my designation,” Issa said, her chin lifted as she continued to blink away those tears.
The officer’s shoulders straightened, and I could have sworn he bristled at her words. Because… he was a beta, as well. He would know the sting of having someone treat him as though he was less simply because of how he’d presented.
Shoving the notebook back into his pocket, he hooked his hands in his belt again. “Do you want to press charges, Beta Rivera?”
Hearing the use of my last name attached to my beautiful girl made my alpha sit up and pay attention.
Along with my dick.
“No. I just want him out of here.”
“He’s barred,” I growled. “Along with his buddies. I want them trespassed.”
Cyrus glanced at me but didn’t argue. I wasn’t sure whether that look was approving or disapproving, but I didn’t give a fuck. There wasn’t a doubt in my mind they would mistreat Issa again the first moment they had. And even if she wasn’t here, they were obviously not the type of patrons we wanted in our club.
“You got it.” The officer turned his attention to Issa. “Do you need medical attention?”
She shook her head, leaning heavily against Amir. “No. I think I’m okay.”
I would have preferred she at least let a medic check her out but knew my girl wouldn’t want the extra attention. And bruising would heal. She looked as though she had full use of her arm, so nothing was broken.
Amir tensed, and his perfume lifted on the air, but he didn’t say anything, just kept Issa hugged tightly to his side.
Turning my attention to my beta and omega, I frowned at the tension not just in Amir’s body language, but in his face, as well. His brows were pinched together, and his eyes looked a little unfocused.
We should have a few more weeks before his heat. But stress could and did often bring on the cycle sooner. Looked like we would have to spend the next few days making sure his nest was ready and perfect before we were all locked away for up to a week.