Chapter 28
Throat Punched
This was a stupid idea.
Really, really stupid.
But it’s too late to back out now.
I stare up at the abandoned building. The same place where I survived the first harrowing hours of my first ever heat. Of course he brought Ren here. Of course he chose the site of my greatest betrayal in his eyes, the place where I gave into my animalistic omega instincts.
Nevermind that I had no control, or that I didn’t actually fuck anyone during it. He views that moment as my greatest failing. As if I should have been able to will away my body’s natural response. I wonder if he’d ever try to convince a beta that they could stop their period from coming if they just had enough willpower.
I imagine he’d be throat punched if he did.
With a glance over my shoulder to make sure I’m not being followed, I round the back of the building, into the same alley I traversed before. The window has been boarded up again, but I don’t need to break in. The door next to it is propped open with a brick.
Bold of my father. Anyone could have walked in.
My heart thunders as I do just that, slipping into the dark interior with a wince when the door groans, announcing my presence. Not wanting him to do something stupid, like shoot Ren, I call out, “It’s me! I’m alone.”
There’s a brief breathless weightless pause where I strain my ears for any noise further in the abandoned restaurant. I glance toward the walk-in freezer. I know that’s where Ren was when he… when the video was taken, but there doesn’t seem to be any noise coming from that direction. So maybe he moved her?
I have the brief thought that maybe she’s still in there just… no longer able to make any sound. That maybe he grew tired of waiting and just killed her as a punishment for me. A wave of nausea threatens to make me heave stomach acid onto the floor, but I swallow it down and breathe slowly through my nose until the wave passes.
I make myself stay still, waiting, waiting, waiting, until I hear the faint order, “Enter.”
I keep my steps slow and measured as I head toward my father’s voice, through the stainless steel kitchen into what used to be the dining area. It’s dark, the windows facing the street boarded over. Someone has set up a few of those utility lamps that builders and mechanics use, the ones with a cage around the light and a hook to hold them wherever you need it. I sincerely doubt it was my father.
The tile floor is dirty, but I see lines where a chair has been dragged. So she’s not in the freezer, which must mean she’s still alive. God, I hope she’s alive.
And sure enough, when I lift my eyes, there she is, slumped in the same chair, chin pressed to her chest, blond hair limp with sweat. I carefully avoid looking below her shoulders. The last thing I need is to see the mess he’s made of her knee. I will not be able to maintain a calm exterior if I do. Instead, I look at the small two-seater table next to her, the assortment of tools strewn over the top of it, including the sledgehammer used in the video.
The sound of a dress shoe on the tile draws my attention to the man I hate with my whole heart. He should have been the one person to love me beyond all reason, should have taken care of me and cared about my happiness more than anything else. He should have been the one person I could trust with anything, and instead, I feel nothing but loathing when I look at him.
Any small portion of me that sought his approval, that secretly still hoped for some kind of redemption or reconciliation, shattered right along with my best friend’s knee.
His lip curls as he takes me in. My jeans, the long man’s sweater and winter jacket, the scarf around my neck. Hair tossed into a haphazard bun. I look nothing like the daughter he wants and his expression makes that clear.
“ Come here , Haven,” my father commands and my feet move. I don’t fight it, not even a little. Why would I? This is why I’m here.
Florence’s head bobs at the sound of my name, and then she’s peering up at me with tears in her eyes. “No,” she moans. “No. You shouldn’t have come.”
“Shut up, Ren. As if I would leave you with him.” Kneeling next to her, I avoid looking too closely at the mess that is her knee. I reach up and smooth her sweat slicked hair back from her face, meeting her pain drenched eyes. I hope she can see how steady I am, how sure I am. “You’re gonna be just fine,” I tell her. “I’m getting you out of here, okay?”
Her cheek presses into my palm, and she nods slightly.
I blow out a breath and push to my feet, positioning myself between her and the madman that is my father. He’s never going to hurt her again. Never going to hurt me again.
He watches as I position myself, feet planted wide, chin tipped up. A snarl curls his lip. “It took you long enough to get here.” His voice is thick with disappointment that would have had me dropping my gaze to the floor, making myself small and timid.
I arch a brow, refusing to cower in front of him. Never again will I do that. Never. A-fucking-gain.
“Apologies. It took a while to figure out where the hell you were, since you didn’t tell me.”
His brows drop and I can see his brain working, trying to remember if he had sent me an address or not. He didn’t. That he can’t remember that fact makes me more than a little nervous. So does the scent wafting off him. It’s… wrong somehow. Bitter and acrid, too sharp. A blaring a warning that this alpha is on the verge of being unhinged. Feral.
My omega is clawing at me to get out. Away. Away. Away. It takes every ounce of my past training to keep my voice level and my expression neutral.
I glance around the empty room. There’s only the three of us. Which is good. Very good. If he’d brought in extra security, I’m not sure what I would have done. But his hubris is big enough that he thinks he can handle two omegas all on their own.
I send a feeling of security to my alphas, knowing they’ll understand what I mean, and they send back a feeling of reassurance.
“So, what’s the plan here?” I ask, resting my hands on my hips, hoping it hides their shaking. “You gonna kidnap both of us, lock us up for all time?”
“No,” he shakes his head. “No. You are going to return to me as the dutiful daughter you’ve always been. Florence will remain in our house as an incentive for you to continue as you should have been. There’s still time for you to make it up to me, Haven.”
I stare at him. “Make it up to you?”
He nods. “Yes, you’ve been such a disappointment. Your mother would hate what you’ve become. A whore for a pack of wild beasts.”
The insult rolls off me, like water off a duck’s back, and plops ineffectually on the floor. “Let’s talk about my mother,” I say, tilting my head. “Let’s talk about how she was a late blooming omega. How you locked her in a sex club for years as your own private little whore. Let’s talk about how you killed her, because you couldn’t stand that she wasn’t your perfect beta wife. That you bonded her.”
He looks shocked that I know this much about a woman I barely remember. But the expression only lasts for about a half second before he buries it. “Your mother isn’t important. Your submission is. You will come with me now to give a statement to the police about how the Calloway pack kidnapped you .”
I chuckle humorlessly and shake my head and the command does absolutely nothing. “No. I won’t.”
Again, surprise flickers over his face before it’s swallowed by rage. “You know what this means for Florence, don’t you, Haven?”
I shrug. “I know what you think it means. But I’m not going to tell the police that my pack kidnapped me. I doubt they’d believe you anyway, when they see the matching mating bites we all have.”
“Mating bites?” He stutters.
I left my left hand and tug down the scarf, revealing Hale and Creed’s bites on either side of my throat. “Yep.”
“You bonded them?” He sounds like he can’t believe it, like the concept is so foreign to him. “You stupid little bitch you bonded to a pack?” He’s shouting now, spittle flying from his lips. “Became their goddamn little slut? An animal forever driven by instincts, by crass urges and fucking?”
In the past, his rage would have been more than enough to make me shrink, to make me shrivel up into the submissive little omega he wanted me to be. But now? Well, now I have bonds with four men who are positively flooding me with reassurances, with strength, with resolve.
And I am unmoved by the anger of the alpha who has controlled my life for far too fucking long. “That’s generally what happens with fated mates.”
Behind me, I hear Florence suck in a sharp breath. “Haven.” There’s a tinge of happiness in the way she says my name. And that says something about who she is. That even in this moment, possibly the worst moment of her life, caused by me, by the man who calls himself my father, she’s happy for me, glad that I found my fated pack.
“Fated mates!” Frederick Bell roars. “Fucking fated mates? That is bullshit! It’s nothing more than biological impulses, you stupid little whore.”
I shake my head. “It doesn’t matter if that’s what it is. They are mine and I am theirs. What we do or don’t do together has absolutely nothing to do with you. Do you understand me? You no longer control me or my actions or my thoughts or my feelings. You are nothing to me.”
The anger seeps out of him so quickly I almost stumble back a step, almost give up my defensive position in front of Ren. It’s eerie how quickly he gets himself under control. How fast he goes from blowing his top to complete calm.
In a move I’ve seen a million times, he smooths his tie into place, straightens his suit jacket, then slicks back his hair. In a matter of seconds, he’s no longer the raging feral alpha, not in control of his emotions. Now he’s back to the senator.
“Is that so?” He asks pleasantly enough. His interview voice. “Should we test that theory?” A shiver travels down my spine as he pins me in place with his gaze. Eyes so very similar to mine. “ Pick up the hammer.”
There’s an alpha bark in his tone, but it doesn’t hit. Doesn’t stick. Doesn’t make my body move against my will. Hale’s command is still the only one in place, keeping me safe from my father’s will.
My lips curl into a knowing smirk.
“Haven?” Ren’s scared voice hits my ears a second before I realize the command wasn’t for me.
I glance over my shoulder to find her hand curled around the wooden handle of a much smaller sledgehammer than the one used on her already shattered knee. My head whips back around to the man watching us impassively. “Stop,” I tell him. “Let her go.” My bonds with my pack are full of anger, worry, and still some of that reassurance. They’re on their way. They’re almost here. I just need to stall for a bit longer. But something about the way Frederick Bell is looking at me tells me that’s not going to happen.
He’s reached the end of his already short patience and he’s ready to end this. To force me to comply.
“Are you going to do as I say?”
I shake my head. “I can’t.”
“Pity.” He doesn’t look away from me, reading every emotion on my face. “ Take that hammer and smash your other knee. It might take a few tries, so keep going until it’s done.”
“Haven!” Ren sobs. I don’t look at her. I don’t have to in order to know she’s fighting the command. The hammer is probably poised in the air and shaking with the force of his bidding. She’s fighting, but she won’t be able to last long, and I absolutely refuse to let her hurt herself.
“I know what I have to do,” I murmur. “I know.”
A victorious smile curves my father’s mouth at the same time Ren shouts at me, “Don’t you fucking dare, Haven!”
But I do. I do dare. Oh, god, do I fucking dare .
He doesn’t know what hit him. Literally.
One moment, he’s standing there grinning at me. The next he’s stumbling back, headfirst from the force of the bullet I just put in him. It’s not a clean shot. Not right in the center of his forehead. I’ve never shot anyone before, but I have fired a gun. There were a few times when he dragged me to a gun range as a publicity stunt to show that omegas didn’t need to be protected by alphas. That with the right tools, they were completely capable of protecting themselves. It was probably the only time I agreed with anything he said.
There’s a loud thud that has me spinning around, dropping to my knees in front of Ren again, reaching up to cup her wet cheeks. The hammer is on the ground next to the chair, her knee intact. Thank god. Thank god.
“You okay?” I wince at the stupid question. Of course she’s not okay. How could she be? But she nods and curls her fingers around my wrists.
“Yes. I’m okay.” Her eyes flick over my shoulder to where I know the body of Frederick Bell is laying on the floor. “You shot him.”
I nod, wiping tears from her skin. “I did.”
“Haven, you shot him.”
“I know. I wasn’t going to let him hurt you again.”
She nods resolutely, before leaning forward to press her forehead to mine. “Yeah. He won’t hurt either of us again.”
“He won’t,” I agree, the words more of a sob than anything else.
She sobs too, and in moments we’re both crying our eyes out. I should stand up, focus on figuring out how to get her out of here, away from the body slowly going cold, away from the nightmare of having her dreams shattered, literally.
But I can’t bring myself to move from that spot. Kneeling on the cement floor, crying with my best friend in the entire world. A mixture of relief and guilt and grief.
We stay like that until the thunder of approaching footsteps filters into our little bubble. Voices calling both of our names. The front door of the restaurant is nearly pulled off its hinges, glass shatters with the impact and then four supremely pissed off alphas flood the room. I can feel them bristling for a fight, expecting some kind of altercation, but there’s just Florence in the chair, me kneeling in front of her and the still body of my father splayed on the floor.
“Fuck,” Jude breathes before he drops to his knees next to me, one hand sliding onto my shoulder hesitantly. “Fuck, button, are you okay?”
“I shot him,” I say, sounding as dazed as Ren did when she said it. “I shot him.”
Jude nods and leans forward to press his forehead to mine. “Yeah, you fucking did. So strong, omega. So fucking strong.”
Ren whimpers, and I yank away from Jude to look up at her. “Are you okay?”
A pained smile curls her lips. “I’ve been better, honestly.”
I nod. “Right, of course, let’s… let’s get you out of here. We need to get you to the hospital.”
Jude helps me stumble to my feet, wrapping his arms around my shoulders as Tic steps up to where Ren hunches in the chair.
“Ad-dick-us,” she pants.
“Florence.” He doesn’t sound emotional, but I can feel the relief flowing through my alpha as he looks down at my best friend. “I’m going to pick you up and it’s going to hurt like hell. It’ll be better if you just pass out.”
Ren nods. “I’ll take that under advisement.”
“Ready?” he asks.
“Ready.” A strangled scream erupts from my friend as Tic hefts her out of the chair, her arms wind around his shoulders as he loops a hand under her butt to support her weight, leaving her legs dangling.
He glances over at me and Jude. “I’ll get her in the car.” And then he’s striding out the door. “Hurry.”
Hale and Creed are standing over the body of my father, staring down at his unmoving form like he’s a bug under a microscope. They both look up when I approach with Jude dogging my heels, carefully keeping my gaze away from the body. Creed reaches for me, pulling me into his body, running his hands over me like he’s checking for injury. “You’re okay?”
I nod and press up to my toes to kiss his jaw. “I’m okay.”
Hale cups my cheek, presses a kiss to my forehead. “You need to go with Jude and Tic to the hospital. Okay, mouse?”
I nod, not wanting to stick around here, anyway. “What about you two?”
Creed sighs and looks down at the floor again. “We’re going to clean this up. Make sure no one can trace it back to you.”
Jude curls his body around mine, sliding his chin onto my shoulder. “I can create a trail that makes it look like he fled the country, if we want it to appear like he’s still alive.”
Hale nods. “Do it.” He looks at me again. “Go. Be with your friend. We’ll handle this, okay, mouse?”
Maybe I should ask how they’re going to handle this, how they’re going to clean up a literal murder scene and keep anyone from knowing what happened here, but I find I don’t really care about the details.
“Okay, alpha,” is all I say and then kiss both Hale and Creed before I let Jude lead me out of the abandoned restaurant.