Thirty-Seven
THIRTY-SEVEN
Byron
THE DAYLIGHT FILTERING through the filthy, barred window had faded to darkness hours ago. We’d been here almost a day without food or water—reduced to pissing in an old mop bucket with a cracked rim that Nat had found moldering in a corner.
The stab wound in my right thigh had finally stopped bleeding. Nat’s wadded up undershirt was tied tightly in place over the gouge, using the sleeves torn off his dress shirt to hold it. I’d lost too much blood already, based on the way my vision spun dizzily, gray fog seeping in from the periphery if I tried to move too fast. Pain radiated out from the injury in throbbing waves, reminding me way too closely of the aftermath of being shot.
None of us recognized the view through the grimy glass of the window. It looked vaguely industrial and largely abandoned. Unfortunately, that described quite a number of places on both banks of the Mississippi, surrounding the greater St. Louis metropolitan area. The others had searched the room we were being held in, but it had been picked over long ago. The rusty bucket had so far been the only thing that had a practical use, disgusting though it was.
I’d half expected Luca to grill me more about sleeping with Nat, but after his initial burst of anger, he’d subsided back into unnatural silence. There hadn’t been a repeat of Nat holding him while he dozed. Which was probably just as well. My stomach was dipping and rolling enough from the blood loss, without adding in the storm of emotions I’d felt at watching the beta I’d screwed caring for the omega that I... also screwed.
The only saving grace of potentially dying of blood loss or infection was that I wouldn’t be around to face the aftermath of this colossal clusterfuck.
“How long d’you think they’ll leave us in here?” Nat asked hoarsely.
I hadn’t missed the fact that he was hurt, too. There just wasn’t a lot I could do about it right now.
“Fuck knows,” I grunted, not happy at how weak and thready my voice sounded.
Luca was worrying me, my alpha instincts itching and poking at me to fix it , despite the utter impossibility of doing anything useful.
There was no way to get word to anyone who might help us. Luca’s and my cell phones had been taken, and Nat’s was missing—lost in the initial struggle in the alley, at a guess.
While not an alpha, Nat was a strong guy. He’d tried the bars on the window first, in hopes that the frame might be rusty. There was no give, though. Not with the window, not with the door—one of those old industrial green-painted metal ones. The heavy lock looked like a double-cylinder deadbolt, the kind that no one used anymore because requiring a key from both the inside and outside of a room was a goddamn safety hazard.
As though my thoughts had manifested it, the double-cylinder deadbolt clicked, announcing the arrival of more visitors. Nat immediately clambered to his feet, placing himself between Luca and the door. I would have liked to do the same, but my first attempt to get up made it obvious that all I was going to accomplish was fainting and falling flat on my face.
I stayed where I was, glaring at the door as it swung open.
This time, three men came in, and two of them had guns held casually by their sides. They flanked a tall figure wearing a nice suit, who seemed oddly out of place in these surroundings. The scent of iron and sandalwood tickled my nostrils as the alpha strode forward. He held a little electric emergency light in one beefy hand, his dark eyes roving over us like someone assessing roasts in a butcher’s display case.
From the back corner, Luca made a small, trapped animal noise.
A cruel smile flickered at one side of the alpha’s full lips, but he sobered and turned his attention fully on Nat.
“Mr. Bell,” he said, setting the light down on the floor. “I’ve so been looking forward to speaking with you. As it happens, I have a proposition to put to you.”
“Who the hell are you?” Nat rasped, his fists clenching by his sides.
I eyed the gun-wielding goons warily.
“Think of me as a... colleague ,” said the alpha, his cruel smile returning. “Or perhaps a friendly competitor. I own a small establishment located a couple of blocks from yours.”
Nat’s gaze narrowed. “Blake Berlusconi.”
“Indeed,” said the man. “As it happens, I wish to discuss the sale of the Elderflower Inn. I understand you’ve been having... issues , lately. I would like to offer you a one-time payment of forty thousand dollars to take the place off your hands before anything else unfortunate happens.”
Nat gaped at him. “You kidnapped me in order to make a cash offer of forty thousand dollars for a Michelin-star restaurant ?”
Berlusconi’s smile turned icy. “For a roach-infested dive with a history of safety violations and employee injuries. Which, I’m given to understand, is in debt up to its eyeballs.”
Nat seemed to visibly puff up, like an overheating cartoon steam engine about to blow. “You can take your offer , and shove it so far up your ass that you get a tonsil infection!”
Berlusconi’s smile didn’t waver. “Now, now, Mr. Bell. I would strongly suggest reconsidering your stance. It would be such a shame if anything else bad happened... to your wandering wife, for instance.” He examined his fingernails ostentatiously. “If you don’t give me the answer I want, I will, of course, be speaking with her next.”
Nat’s complexion went chalk-white.
I scoffed, trying to force strength I didn’t have to spare into my voice. “Go fuck yourself, Berlusconi. If you could get to Mia, you’d have her in here with a knife to her throat for leverage.”
Nat looked at me, wide-eyed, as though desperate to know if I really believed that. I held his gaze as I added, “After we went missing, the rest of my pack will have put her under guard and locked things down tighter than Fort Knox.”
I watched as Nat firmed his jaw. “If you’ve got Mia, then prove it. Otherwise, you’ll get our restaurant over my dead body.”
I couldn’t hide a wince, wishing he’d worded that in a slightly different way.
By contrast, Berlusconi appeared as unruffled as a guest at a garden party. “Very well. I suspect you’ll feel differently about my offer after another day or two without food or water.”
He lifted his chin, craning to look past Nat. Fear jolted through my depleted veins like acid as Luca, still huddled in the corner, drew in a sharp breath. I made another attempt to rise, protective rage spiking my blood pressure enough to keep me from immediately passing out as I made it onto one hand and my good knee.
“You two.” Berlusconi gestured languidly at his goons. “Get the omega and take him to a different room.” He patted the pocket of his elegant suit jacket. “I have a heat-stim shot for him. Once he’s good and desperate, you can have some fun with him.”
“ No !” Luca shot to his feet behind Nat.
I wasn’t far behind, the room swimming around me as I tried to lock my knees and stay upright.
“Oh, fuck no,” Nat said, taking an aggressive step forward.
Instantly, two guns were pointed at us. A black barrel loomed in my wavering vision; the cylinder bore a bottomless void that sucked all of my awareness toward it like a black hole.
Just like that, I was no longer in a warehouse office, trying to protect my omega lover from the prospect of medical violation and gang rape. Instead, I was in a dead-end alley, surrounded by screams and falling bodies as the deafening sound of semiautomatic gunfire echoed off the brick walls. In my mind, the barrel pointed at me had already released its shot, and only milliseconds remained until that hunk of lead slammed into my side, shredding my guts into mincemeat.
Beside me, the cry as Nat crumpled beneath a pistol-grip to the side of the head might as well have come from a parallel universe. The piercing screams as Luca was dragged past me blended with the screams of my dying gang, rendering the omega as one more flailing body among many.
I stood frozen, the goon’s sneer of disdain warping and twisting behind the gun barrel like a reflection in a funhouse mirror. Calmly, Berlusconi picked up the little emergency light by the door. He and the man who’d been holding the gun on me followed the other goon with his struggling captive. The sound of the door slamming and the lock clicking was the anticipated bullet impact. It ripped into me, and I folded to the floor like a puppet with its strings cut.
I couldn’t tell if the blackness pressing down on me was unconsciousness or just the darkness of the room after the removal of the electric light. For long moments, everything was still except for the sound of my ragged breathing.
Then, Nat groaned—the sound coming from somewhere behind me.
“Fuck... fuck !” His voice was slurred, but the sound of shuffling preceded a hand landing on my shoulder. “Byron, can you hear me?”
“They took him,” I whispered, as the terrible realization that I’d stood there staring hypnotized at a gun while Luca had been dragged away crawled through my stomach and chest.
“We’ve got to get out of here!” Nat pushed himself upright and away from me.
The outline of gray shadows grew more visible as my eyes readjusted. I couldn’t seem to move my arms or legs, the useless muscles quivering like Jell-O. Nat staggered to the door and yanked at it, pounding a fist against it when it didn’t so much as budge.
“The lock,” Nat said desperately. “Is there... can we... pick it somehow?”
“With what?” Hopelessness washed over me in a wave, leaving suffocating self-loathing behind as it ebbed. “I’m afraid I’m not hiding a set of lockpicks up my ass. And I’m guessing you’re not wearing any bobby pins.”
“ Bobby pins ,” Nat muttered.
He pushed away from the heavy door, stumbling across the room. Something metal crashed over, followed by the nauseating stench of urine. More clanks and crashes followed. He rushed back to me, holding up something that I couldn’t see in the dim light.
“Wire!” he said. “Will that work? Someone wired the broken handle back onto the bucket after it cracked.”
He pressed a thin, flexible length of metal into my hand, and I stared at it for a beat like an idiot.
“I don’t know,” I said. “Get me over to the door and let’s find out.”