Chapter 44
CHAPTER 44
Issa
B y the time we finished eating – and I’d had the opportunity to chat with Oscar’s unbelievably sweet beta mother – the sun was setting. There would still be a few more hours before the alphas would return, but at least I hadn’t spent the entire day in front of the TV.
I still had that warm fuzzy feeling deep in my heart that had started at the dress shop. It was so nice to have women in my life, women who cared about me. I had Cora now, sure, but now I had a mother figure, sisters, and even a best friend.
Never in my life would I have thought I would have become so close to a female alpha. Hell, I would have never guessed I would become close to any alpha, yet here I was, surrounded by them every day and loving every minute of it.
Even Abdel and Oscar had wormed their way into my little circle of trust.
“Somewhere else or home?” Oscar asked as he waited for traffic to clear enough to pull onto the main road.
“I think I’m ready for a bath and some old reruns,” I said as I cuddled into Amir’s side.
Would there ever come a time where I didn’t constantly crave his touch? Omegas were built to crave physical affection, but I was beta.
Yet I couldn’t get enough of his sweet touches, his embraces, his kisses…
And all the other fun stuff we did to pass the time while waiting for our alphas…and then again when our alphas returned to us.
“You in an eighties sitcom mood or black and white mood?” Amir asked.
I hummed in thought, then glanced up into his face. “I’m thinking maybe some older movies instead of a sitcom tonight. Oh! What about Pretty Woman ? Or You’ve Got Mail ?”
There really was no point in even making suggestions because Amir always went along with anything I wanted, no matter how hard I pushed him to pick for the night. He always teased that he spent more time staring at me than the show or movie, anyway.
We were still about ten minutes from home, but I was already planning my shower instead of a bath, my pajamas, and the snacks I would lay out on the coffee table for the impromptu movie night.
Not really a movie night since it was only the two of us and we would probably end up falling asleep during at least one of them. But it felt like a perfect ending to such a perfect day. It was right up there with the day Amir had officially proposed to me.
An omega proposed to me .
So many times, I’d wondered how I had been blessed with this life after the nightmare of the first twenty odd years of my life.
“Do we have any candy?” I asked, tilting my head to look into Amir’s face.
“I’m sure one of our trusty babysitters wouldn’t mind running out for us,” he teased, raising one brow as we waited for the response we knew was coming.
“Not babysitters. And not a food delivery service,” Abdel said in his heavily accent voice .
Both our bodies shook with a giggle.
The SUV turned into our driveway, then stopped suddenly, causing both of us to lurch against our seatbelts.
“What the f—”
BOOM!
Glass exploded from Oscar’s window and sprayed across the cab, pieces slicing across my cheek as I threw up an arm to block whatever the hell had just flown into the driver’s side.
My brain was slow to catch up, thinking a rock or bird had flown through the window and smashed the glass.
But that didn’t explain the loud boom or the warm, wet liquid that had splashed my cheek and forearms.
“Put it down!” Abdel bellowed as I blinked slowly, raising my head to look around.
“Oh my god,” I cried out.
Oscar was leaning to the side, blood trailing from his head and pooling on the center console.
And outside the door stood an alpha with a mask covering his face, a gun pointed directly at me. Or maybe Amir.
“Put your fucking gun down or they both die.”
He didn’t need to wear a mask. I knew his scent and voice. Both haunted my nightmares.
Antonio .
We didn’t have a gate surrounding our property or loads of guards walking the perimeter. It was just Oscar and Abdel protecting us.
Oh no. Oscar.
My heart thumped painfully as my eyes darted from Antonio, to Oscar, to Abdel’s gun pointing at my former alpha, then back again.
“Which do you want to die first?” Antonio asked.
“You pull that trigger, you fucking die,” Abdel growled out as his alpha hormones filled the cab with strong pulses of burned rubber and something spicy like cayenne.
“Which of the two are you willing to sacrifice first? I might die, but you’ll have to bury the omega or the beta, as well.”
Trembles started in my roiling stomach and worked their way to my fingertips and toes. My vision blurred with fear and the tears that welled in my eyes.
He was here for me. And he was threatening to kill my omega. He’d already killed Oscar and the alpha was only doing as he’d been paid to do, keep the two of us safe.
Keep me safe .
This was my fault. All of it. The big guard’s death, the gun pointed at Amir, the drama that had occurred at The Vault.
And all because I’d dared to build a normal life with men I’d fallen in love with.
“Stop!” I screamed when Antonio positioned the gun until it was pointed at Amir’s head. “What do you want? Tell me and it’s yours,” I promised.
Even if it meant handing myself over to him. Even if it meant sacrificing myself to keep my omega, my fiancé safe and alive.
“Get out,” Antonio said, his voice deceptively calm. “Now.”
“Don’t you fucking move,” Abdel said, never peeling his eyes from Antonio or lowering his gun the slightest.
He needed to calm down before he got Amir hurt. No way would Antonio simply shoot and kill me here and now. He wouldn’t get the revenge he wanted if he killed me then Abdel killed him.
Oscar moved, the slightest twitch of his arm that laid limp on the seat. I sent up a prayer he wasn’t dead. Not that he could help in his condition.
But I didn’t want the death of someone on my heart, even if I would only feel the guilt for a short period before Antonio was done with me.
Amir was behind me, his scent bitter with anger and fear. But I could feel his hand against the small of my back, could feel him slowly moving and shoving something into the waistline of my jeans.
It was hard and plastic and a little cool. His phone, maybe? Why was he sliding his phone into my pants? He would need that the moment Antonio dragged me away.
Blowing the bonds wide open, I sent every ounce of fear and dread to my alphas, doing the only thing I could for now to let them know we were in danger.
But the club wasn’t nearly close enough and they wouldn’t have been on their way home being as it was still early in the evening.
At the realization that no one would get to us on time, I flooded the bonds with every ounce of love I felt for all four of them. I wanted them to carry that with them long after I was gone. I wanted them to move on, to maybe one day find another beta who needed their love and care as much as I had.
“I’m not going to count. Either get your skinny ass out here or watch your omega die.”
“No!” I screamed out and began to scramble away from Amir, struggling to undo my seatbelt with shaky hands.
“Beta Rivera–” Abdel started, but I cut him off.
“Protect my omega,” I said.
“Leave your fucking phone,” Antonio said as I tugged away from Amir’s arms and pushed my door open.
Reaching into my purse, I started to pull it free, but he snatched the bag from my trembling hands and tossed it onto the seat, his gun still aimed at Amir’s head. All it would take was one twitch of his finger and my entire world would crumble.
His hand curled around my bicep and yanked me away from the open door before I was pushed toward the back of the vehicle. Another set of arms banded around mine, locking them to my side.
Who the hell was this? I didn’t recognize the scent, but he was an alpha if I was correct about his size and the signature floating around him and into my nostrils.
“Issa!” Amir bellowed, crawling through the open door and reaching for me as Abdel lunged from his side and positioned himself directly in front of my omega.
Good. At least my love would be safe, no matter what happened after I was dragged away from him.
“I love you,” I whimpered as I was dragged backward to a car parked perpendicular to the driveway. My driveway. Our driveway.
I wanted to take a moment to memorize the outside of the house, to stare into Amir’s beautiful green eyes, to soak up every bit of his presence as I could before I died.
Because I had no doubt I wouldn’t live much longer once Antonio and the thug behind me drove me away from the only place, the only people, where I’d truly felt was home.
Amir’s face crumpled as tears rushed down his cheeks, his arm outstretched as though reaching for me.
He knew he couldn’t get to me. Knew there was no way to get to me without one or both of us dying right here in the driveway. Then our alphas would lose us both in one night. They would come home to us dead in the driveway.
I didn’t want to leave him. I didn’t want to say goodbye to my alphas. But there was a small part of me that was happy they’d intentionally sought an omega just for me. They’d fallen as hard for him as I had.
They would still have him once I was gone, once I was dead and buried.
Nothing more than a memory.
Those trembles that had started when my brain caught up to the situation continued to make me feel as though the ground itself was shaking below me. My heart thundered painfully behind my ribs as the asshole behind me kept that same iron grip around me until I was tossed into the passenger seat.
Not the backseat. They must not have been worried I would dive from car first chance I got as if I was some kind of daredevil who could tuck and roll on the highway like a stuntwoman.
The other alpha climbed into the backseat, a gun appearing in my periphery and aiming at Amir and Abdel as Antonio settled behind the wheel, the engine humming softly, and hit the gas so hard the tires squealed against the asphalt.
My stomach lurched with my body as I was pushed against the seat with the speed my former alpha was driving.
I didn’t bother with the seatbelt. If we crashed and I died…that had to be a better death than anything Antonio had planned.
“What was the point of the mask? They’ll know it was you,” I said, my voice breathy and holding a tremor as the fear and unknown of my immediate future forced blood to whoosh in my ears and adrenaline to burn through my veins.
“Plausible deniability,” the asshole in the back said with a chuckle.
I turned and glared at him as he pulled the mask off his face. I still didn’t recognize him, even with his face uncovered.
Looking at Antonio’s profile, I pushed the fear aside and smiled. “They’ll find you. They’re going to hunt you down and kill you. Doesn’t matter whether I live or die. They’re all going to kill you. My pack. Cora’s pack–”
His arm whipped out and his hand cracked against my lips. They throbbed with my heartbeat, and I could taste the coppery tang of blood, but he hadn’t loosened any teeth, merely split my lip. That was nothing compared to how he used to treat me.
Spitting the blood welling in my mouth onto the floorboard, I swiped the back of my arm across my lips.
Fuck him. I would never again allow him to see a moment of weakness from me.
As he continued to speed away from my house, my only true home, my family, and pulled the sedan onto the on-ramp for the highway, a buzzing started in my back.
Not in my back. Against my back.
I’d been right; Amir had slipped his phone into my pants as though he’d known Antonio would demand I leave mine behind.
And why wouldn’t he? It would have been so easy for my alphas to track me, to track my phone.
Just like they would be tracking Amir’s.
A flood of emotions rushed over me and through me. They were not only coming from my own hope that Ax, Cyrus, and Enzo would find me before it was too late, but the rage and reassurances pouring through me from my pack.
They were coming for me. Just like I’d thought before, my alphas, my pack, my family would burn the planet to the ground to find me.
And they would rip Antonio to pieces the moment they got their hands on him.