Five
FIVE
Luca
MIA LOOKED UP FROM her phone, her face drawn with worry. “Zalen says they’re on their way back now. No sign of the car that was following them earlier.”
I gave a tight nod to show I’d heard her, knowing there was no way I’d be able to get words out without my voice shaking. Zalen and Byron had been gone for hours. At first, I’d been the one texting Zalen for updates, but ever since he’d warned us that they were taking a detour to the Collinsville police department because someone was tailing them, my hands had been trembling too hard for me to type legibly.
It didn’t take a genius to guess who’d be interested in finding out where Emiel lived. Not after he’d beaten the shit out of several members of my old gang when they’d cornered Mia and me and threatened to drag me back to Blaze.
So, Mia had taken over texting duties, relaying updates as the others drove farther into Illinois and parked by the front door of a police station. My blood ran cold when she reported that the car following them had taken up a position across the street instead of immediately peeling off their pursuit. Byron and Zalen had tried to wait them out at first, but Zalen eventually got out of the SUV and went inside to get help.
It was all too easy to picture a car window rolling down... the dark cylinder of a gun barrel peeking out... bullets flying before Zalen could get through the door.
But apparently whoever had sent out the goon squad was more interested in gathering information than a body count. I tried to tell myself that it was sheer paranoia to think they were after me, specifically. They knew Emiel was involved with me somehow—and wasn’t that a joke-and-a-half. But he’d come to my defense, and he’d left with Mia and me in tow.
Deep down, I knew it was true. It’s not paranoia when they really are out to get you .
“ETA, twenty minutes,” Mia said. “Emiel’s still refusing medical attention. I’m sure you must find this development as shocking as I do.”
A choked noise that might have been third cousin to a laugh escaped my throat, and I buried my face in my shaking hands. I trusted Byron to be able to tell for sure that they’d lost their tail. He’d lived in that seedy underworld just like I had. He’d almost died in that world. If they were still being followed, he’d know it.
It was going to be okay now , I told myself firmly.
I looked up as Mia pushed the phone away and gave me her full attention. Both of us needed a solid night of sleep. I could only imagine how the alphas were feeling after so many days in the heat nest. I shuddered, pushing away an unwanted image of all of us tangled together in a happy pile of limbs, fast asleep and without a care in the world.
“Luca,” Mia said. “This can’t keep happening. I know it’s my fault Emiel went back to the fights, but—”
“It’s not,” I told her, my voice a hoarse rasp.
“It is, though,” she said firmly. “But my point is, there’s always going to be something stressful happening. That’s just life. After last time, Zalen told him not to do this again, right? And Emiel still went there.”
“Yeah,” I said on a sigh.
I knew what she was saying. Emiel’s method for dealing with his demons was dangerous in ways beyond the obvious. It was bad enough that he might take one too many hits to the head and end up with a serious brain injury. But it was also opening a door that should’ve stayed locked forever—forging a pathway between my old life and my new life.
Changing my last name might have worked to keep anyone looking for me from making the connection between a used-up omega gang toy, and the grant writer for an East St. Louis youth center. But it was no defense against people physically following our vehicles.
The worst part was, I thought I recognized the shape of Emiel’s broken edges. And I really, really wanted to be wrong about that.
“We have to talk to him,” Mia was saying. “I mean, I know I need to talk to him about what happened when I was in heat. But I don’t mean just that.”
“He’s not interested in talking,” I said, because it was true.
“And I’m not interested in finding out he got killed in a cage fight!” Mia flared. “Other people are getting sucked into his problems! It’s not just about him anymore!”
It’s not just about him anymore .
It was all too easy to apply that same sentiment to myself, and the idea sent a fresh wave of chilly dread trickling down my spine. If I hadn’t escaped from Blaze, if I hadn’t accepted Zalen’s help and let myself make a home here, none of this would have happened.
Well, Emiel might still be punishing himself in the fighting ring... but he wouldn’t have had to defend us from Blaze’s thugs. SSG wouldn’t care about him. They wouldn’t care about where he lived or who he associated with. He’d just be another scary-as-hell cage fighter with a badly hidden death wish. They’d place bets on him to win or lose, and then immediately forget about him afterward.
“You’re right,” I told Mia. “Maybe after tonight, he’ll see that he can’t keep avoiding the issue.”
Mia subsided, still looking unhappy. The minutes crawled by in heavy silence. Princess, who’d been curled up on the kitchen counter where she technically wasn’t allowed to be, lifted her head and made a little trilling noise. A moment later, she leapt down with fluid grace and scampered deeper into the house, toward the side door leading to the garage.
“Guess they’re back,” I said, wishing the wait had done anything to ease my low-level background thrum of panic.
Mia pushed away from the table with intent and stood up, her expression grim. I followed suit, because what the hell else was I going to do? Somehow, I didn’t think this was going to go down the way she was envisioning it.
We intercepted the returning alphas at the landing on the main floor hallway. My attention fell on Byron, who was stalking toward us with barely leashed anger evident in every step. As it always did, the presence of an angry alpha anywhere in the same zip code as I was triggered an instant flight or freeze response, and I almost stumbled over my own feet.
Then Mia came to an abrupt halt in front of me, a gasp escaping her lips. For an instant, I thought she was fighting the same instinct I was... but then I caught sight of Emiel. He was wearing bloodied boxing trunks and nothing else. Every square inch of visible skin was bruised or scraped; some areas were already grotesquely swollen.
I had no idea how he was upright and walking.
“Emiel!” Mia said, her tone appalled. “You need to be in a hospital!”
Emiel didn’t pause or even look at her. “Leave me alone,” he growled, and did an abrupt about face, pulling open the door to the basement and disappearing through it. A gray blur darted through the gap just before it closed, and a second later, the sound of a lock being engaged echoed around the hallway with a decisive click.
Byron stalked past us without pausing or looking back, heading for the kitchen—and, I suspected, more specifically the booze cabinet. Mia, Zalen, and I stood frozen in place, three points of an exhausted and bewildered triangle.
“He’s seemed lucid ever since he woke up from being knocked out,” Zalen said, when the silence threatened to grow too heavy. “I don’t think any bones are broken, amazingly enough. We all need rest. Let’s give him a few hours to decompress, then I’ll try talking to him again when I’m not so tired I can’t see straight.”
Misgivings fluttered around me like a flock of startled sparrows.
“I don’t like this, Zalen,” Mia said, in the understatement of the decade.
“I know,” Zalen said. “I don’t like it, either. I’m sorry, you two.”
I wanted to ask what the hell he had to be sorry about, but actually forming the words felt like an insurmountable task.
“Get some rest,” he repeated. “Maybe things will look different in the morning.”
He didn’t sound like he believed it. With a final long look at the door, he turned and headed up the stairs toward his bedroom on the second floor. Mia stared after him helplessly, then turned toward the locked door with a look of betrayal.
“Go to bed, Mia,” I said wearily. “None of us are thinking straight tonight.”
Unable to face any more human interaction without the possibility of losing my shit completely, I turned to follow Zalen upstairs. I stood in the entrance to my nest for long moments, until the soft sound of footsteps heading for the guest bedroom on the first floor terminated with the closing of a door.
Safe inside my private space, I flopped down on a beanbag chair and stared at the darkened ceiling. Minutes ticked by, time dragging like slow taffy. My mind refused to quiet enough to do more than doze restlessly, jerking awake at every creak of the house.
An hour passed that way... and part of another one.
The repeating refrain of wrong, wrong, wrong, this is all wrong buzzed through my veins and arteries like scurrying insects. I thought if I had to sit with the feeling for one more minute, I’d go mad.
Well... madder , anyway.
“Stubborn fucker,” I muttered through gritted teeth, and shoved my body clumsily off the beanbag with a flash of sudden anger. Flicking on a light, I headed for the dresser and pulled out a drawer almost violently, digging around until I found the familiar, worn leather kit.
Knowing how stupid this entire idea was, I crept out of my room and down the stairs, tiptoeing across the landing to the locked basement door. Working by touch, I unrolled my lock picks and pulled out a tensioner, followed by a snake rake.
I’d barely managed to insert them when the shuffle of quiet footsteps had me spinning around, nearly dropping my tools in my haste. The overhead light clicked on, revealing Mia standing there. She looked about like I felt, with gray-tinged skin and bags under her eyes.
“What are you doing?” she asked in a bare whisper.
I took a slow breath and let it out, steadying my nerves. “Picking the lock,” I said, in the same barely audible volume. “This has gone on long enough, don’t you think?”
She squared her shoulders. “Yeah. Damn right it has. Well... go on, then. I’m coming with you.”
Steeling myself, I nodded and turned back to the job. I wasn’t an expert by any means, but I’d picked my share of locks in the bad old days. The low-security internal door’s tumblers gave way to the rake pick in less than thirty seconds, and the lock clicked. I exchanged a glance with my partner in crime, trying to draw strength from her determination.
The doorknob turned under my touch, the hinges creaking as the door swung open. A wedge of light from the hallway illuminated the steep stairs disappearing into darkness.
“Emiel?” I called softly, not sure if he’d be asleep, or brooding, or what. “It’s Luca and Mia. We need to talk to you. We’re coming down.”