Chapter 63
sixty-three
DANE
You could cut the tension in this goddamn SUV with a knife.
I’m not sure who the car belongs to, but Atlas drives, aiming the armored vehicle toward the mansion on the north shore of Long Island. It’s only ten minutes away, but every inch feels like an eternity when I don’t know where my mate is or if she’s still alive.
“Tell me again.”
Cillian has demanded to hear how this went down half a dozen times. The scowling alpha beside me grumbles, but I silence him with a glare over the edge of my mask.
I swear to God, if he pushes me right now.
In the third row, behind Rhys, Gideon sighs. “He came to us last night. Said he sent a team in to ‘extract’ your omega before her heat. Apparently he had intel that suggests she’s some sort of super-breeder? And claimed that’s why you married her out of nowhere and had become so obsessed with her.”
Rhys’s answering snarl is vicious. “It wasn’t out of nowhere. Cillian found her years ago, you stupid—”
Ryker snaps a low growl and I rumble back. Cillian turns from the passenger seat to glare at all of us.
“I assure you,” he says, facing forward without glancing at Atlas or his cousin, “our reasons have nothing to do with whatever failed experiments her father performed before we met her.”
Cillian won’t tell them she’s our mate because he still doesn’t trust them. I can’t blame him, after all the shit they’ve put us through. And vice versa.
“We figured your connection had to be emotional,” Atlas grumbles, scowling at the windshield. “After we tried to save her and she chose to stay with you.”
Tried to save her?
Rhys and I look at one another, then at Atlas. Cillian grinds his teeth, snapping a succinct, “What?”
“In the bookstore,” Gideon replies, rolling his eyes. “I practically begged her to let us help her, but she seemed to have some sort of sick trauma bond with Dane.”
I can’t help the enraged sound that escapes me, but it’s enough to silence the car. Rhys wraps his hand around my forearm, squeezing. I wish we had a pack bond so I could actually hear his message, but it feels a bit like not now.
Cillian recovers first, shooting Gideon a wary frown. “Is that the only time you tried to lure her away?”
“Nope,” the charming one, Finn, pipes up. “At the party, Gid approached her to try to warn her about all your illegal bullshit.” He shrugs. “That didn’t work, either.”
Fuck.
I can tell Cillian is thinking the same thing when his lips pull down into a more severe scowl. I read his considering look and feel my own pang of uncertainty.
Should we tell them the truth about Blackwood Corp.? Would it help establish more goodwill before we walk into a literal battle?
I nod subtly. Because I will do anything if it means having Briar back in my arms. Even if we have to go on the lam to save ourselves after.
Rhys turns his head from Cillian to me, expression outraged. I can empathize—the guy has spent the better part of a decade keeping us under the radar. But he knows this is more important.
My packmate groans, his pale face pained. “Jesus, you guys are idiots,” he finally blurts. “Did it ever occur to you that maybe we’re not actually trying to help Forsyth with his fuckery? And we might just be the reason certain high-dollar ‘customers’ keep disappearing?”
Resounding silence roars back at us. Gideon slowly sits forward, his hands curling into the seat behind me while his eyes land on Cillian’s. “You’ve been… undermining Grandfather? Dismantling the black market clients—all this time?”
Our alpha is smart enough not to answer verbally, but his gaze never wavers as he dips his chin. The car gets very quiet again, some odd discomfort I don’t understand stretching taut between the other pack.
“Ah, hell,” the gruff, angry one suddenly curses. “Tell them, Gid.”
Finn interrupts, his light eyes bulging. “What the fuck, Ryker?!”
I think I know what they’re talking about, but my insides still coil into a lead ball, rolling around my abdomen. “Tell us what?”
Gideon exchanges loaded glances with all his packmates. Cillian grits his teeth harder, and Rhys hisses a growl. “Tell. Us. What?” I repeat, nearly shouting.
Atlas captures Gideon’s attention in the rearview mirror for a long beat, then exhales through his nose. He waves his hand in a “so be it” gesture. Gideon winces.
“It was us,” he says. “The fire. It was our pack, not the cartel. We tried to burn you guys.”
Fucking hell.
Fury flares in my chest, igniting a fierce growl that Cillian echoes. “I knew it!” Rhys yells. “You motherfuckers!”
“We thought you were supplying murderers and rapists with semi-automatic weapons!” Gideon interjects. “We couldn’t just let you.”
Rhys clutches his hair with both hands, eyes falling shut. “I swear to God, I will—”
“The patent for Brynn’s stupid weapon,” I realize. “Cillian only bought it to get Briar. But you’ve been the ones blocking it from production?”
This time, the swelling silence feels better, somehow, but also more intense. “Yes,” Gideon finally rasps. “We haven’t pushed a new design through in over a year.”
It doesn’t make any sense, until Atlas explains: “The tech at Blackwood Corp. has gotten too powerful. Unethical. We’ve been working to sabotage and contain it.”
Hence why they didn’t attack us again. Why waste their time when they could dismantle the organization from the top?
Which… is a lot like what we were doing. Only we worked things from the bottom, starting down in the mud with the scum of the earth. And got our hands dirty in the process.
“I don’t understand,” Finn gripes, whipping his big eyes from Cillian to me, then over to Rhys. “If you all hate Blackwood Corp. so much, why did you marry an omega to try to inherit it?”
“So we could destroy it,” I bite out.
Cillian looks at Atlas again before finally meeting his cousin’s gaze. “And because Briar is our mate.”
Things moved very quickly after Cillian laid our final card on the table.
I wasn’t sure what to expect from the other Blackwood Pack, but once they heard the word “mate,” grim determination settled among them.
As we rolled up to the street containing Forsyth’s compound, Gideon simply promised, “We won’t let history repeat itself. Your mom didn’t make it out of this family, Cillian, but we’re going to get your mate out of here.”
Doing what his father didn’t. Or couldn’t.
Either way, we paused to make our plan, deciding it was better for our pack to hide in the SUV’s trunk while Atlas and Gideon sat up front. After all, the other pack was supposed to be here for Briar’s heat, before they turned Forsyth down.
That part works smoothly, but there are still dozens of armed guards to contend with once we park on the wide travertine loop in front of the lavish mansion. I barely see any of the details, too focused on eliminating threats when both of our packs suddenly leap from the car.
The first wave of armed security personnel goes down easily.
We have the element of surprise and manage to pick them off while they scramble to organize.
The second round is a bit worse—one of them gets a piece of my calf while another hits Cillian dead in the center of his chest. His incensed roar tells me it hurts, but the fact that he ends up emptying a full barrel without blinking two seconds later likely means it didn’t break through the vest.
Ever-strategic, Rhys stays behind the car, picking men off until all three waves of mercenaries are incapacitated. We didn’t necessarily shoot to kill, but none of us stop to check on them before we race into the open foyer.
“brIAR!” I bellow.
Cillian repeats her name in a bark. Two more guards come flying in from a back hallway but Ryker literally picks one up and throws him into the second.
Christ. And people think I have issues.
We hear more men approaching, but Atlas waves us on. “Go,” he snaps. “We’ll hold anyone else off.”
Cillian agrees with a nod, stalking deeper into the house. Rhys mutters under his breath, listing all the ways Forsyth will pay for taking our omega—but he suddenly freezes halfway through the opulent living area. His head snaps up.
“Here,” he rasps, breaking into a sprint, aiming for a far door. “I can scent her.”
She’s the only thing he can smell, so of course he would sense her first. Cillian and I run after him, flinging the door open and barreling down the stairs to the house’s enormous basement.
It’s finished, but unfurnished. A huge, white, concrete room, with doors lined up across from the steps. We don’t have to open any of them—because two seconds later we hear a shriek, followed by a feminine war cry and a growled grunt.
I lunge, putting my full might behind my shoulder and ramming the middle door right off its hinges.
Briar’s scent greets me, swirled with the other Blackwood Pack’s. The combination makes me murderous, but my omega’s fearful squeak recenters me.
She’s here, I think, my whole head suddenly weightless. She’s alive.
And… kneeling over Forsyth?
No. His body.
Which has one of my knives embedded in the chest.
Briar releases the hilt, her green eyes so wide they look like emeralds floating in cream. Apart from the blood speckled over her bare chest, she doesn’t seem injured. And she’s still wearing her clothes.
My clothes.
Relief strong enough to sting slices through me. I fall to my knees, gathering her face between my palms. “Briar,” I gasp.
My packmates shove in behind me, absorbing the scene. Rhys joins me on the floor. “Jesus, viper, are you okay?”
Cillian walks around the nest, examining it for signs of any other alphas. When he finds none, he comes to the space on Briar’s other side and sinks into a crouch.
Our omega blinks at him, gesturing with a visibly shaking hand. “I-I-I stabbed him. I k-k-”
Cillian takes in her expression, his softening with concern and adoration for a split second before hardening into pure resolve. He snaps his hand out, clutching the handle of my switchblade. Dragging the crimson-soaked sliver from his Grandfather’s chest…
And plunging it right back in.
“No,” he tells her, offering Rhys the knife. “I killed him.” He glances over at us. “We did.”
Our omega watches her venomous alpha go next, his stab-and-twist motion menacingly final. When he hands the weapon to me, it takes a moment before I can slowly wrap my fingers around it.
Fuck, this is the one part of me I never wanted Briar to see. The beast.
But as I gaze at her ashen face, her whispered question finally makes sense.
What if you aren’t the monster in this story? What if you’re the hero?
My omega needs to know this man won’t ever come for her again. She needs feel secure for her heat—and she needs to believe that none of this was her fault.
I can do that for her.
Something inside me shifts. I rise onto my knees, spinning the knife in a sideways slash. It slices cleanly across Forsyth’s throat.
And that might make me Briar’s beast.
But at least I know the real monster is dead.