Twenty-Five
TWENTY-FIVE
Zalen
“WHAT ARE YOU going to do about this shit, Zalen?” Byron demanded, cornering me in the kitchen as I dropped my work bag on the counter and turned to rummage in the refrigerator for a beer. Frankly, I could have used something stronger—but nothing good ever came of that.
“What am I going to do about what shit?” I shot back, mostly just wishing I could slink off and get a decent night’s sleep. It was after ten p.m., and even now I felt guilty about leaving the Hope Project rather than just crashing on a couch there or something.
“Any of it,” Byron said sharply. “ All of it. Did Luca talk to you?”
I stilled. “You mean about Mia staying here? You know he did. I said yes, didn’t I?”
“Not that.” He made a frustrated gesture with one hand. “About what happened at the fight. About his old gang.”
Disquiet tingled along my nerves.
“ What ?” I asked dumbly. Luca hadn’t let a single damned word slip about the details of whatever had happened to blacken Mia’s eye and send him into a state of near dissociation. Between him and Emiel, it was like trying to communicate with a pair of clams—both of them shut up tight against the world.
Had he talked to Byron? “What did he tell you?”
Byron looked angry, and on edge, and maybe a little bit frightened. “He told me that some members of his old gang were there. They recognized him, and they let him know in no uncertain terms that the leader wants him back. I’m guessing they tried to snatch him, and that’s when Mia got hurt.”
Ice water flooded my veins, driving away my exhaustion and replacing it with useless adrenaline. Ghosts from the past stirred restlessly in their graves.
“No,” I managed. “He didn’t talk to me about any of that.”
“He’s not safe. Anyone with half-decent internet search skills could figure out he works at the Project,” Byron went on doggedly. “He’s on LinkedIn, for Christ’s sake.”
“Under the name he took after he got out of the gang,” I retorted, glad beyond measure that he’d agreed to let me help him change his name legally. “Not the one on his birth certificate.”
Byron’s shoulders relaxed a bit at that. “True. A name change is still in the public record, though.”
I felt this new worry pile onto my shoulders with all the other worries... and stiffened my spine to bear the added weight. “I’ll talk to him. If he’ll allow it, we can start walking him to and from his car at the Project. That should be enough. It’s not like gang members from the SSG are going to cross the river and storm a neighborhood in Ladue with guns blazing.”
Byron flinched at the mention of guns, the movement barely detectable—and I immediately felt like an asshole. Drawing attention to the lapse would only make things worse, though. So, I pretended I hadn’t noticed, or smelled the faint spike in his scent.
“Probably not,” he agreed grudgingly. “Next question—how do you plan to keep him from diving headfirst into that snake pit the next time Emiel goes back there to get the shit beat out of him? Because I’ve got a suggestion for that one.”
There was real vitriol in the last sentence; enough to let me know that my longstanding policy of looking the other way when it came to Emiel’s cage fights was coming to an ignominious end. The weight on my shoulders grew heavier.
A faint rustle of clothing had both of us turning sharply toward the arched kitchen entrance. Emiel had materialized there, silent as a ghost. The swelling on his face was mostly down, though the fading bruises still lingered, and his ribs would take time to mend even with accelerated alpha healing.
He stared at us impassively, with that blank expression of his that had always disconcerted me.
“I didn’t ask Luca to come,” he said. “Told him not to, actually.”
Byron rounded on him, obviously ready for the fight I’d denied him before.
“And you thought that’d keep him from doing it?” he demanded. “You have actually met Luca, right?”
“M’not his keeper,” Emiel said, still dead calm. “Neither are you.”
“I don’t suppose you were eavesdropping for the part where his old gang leader is trying to get him back?”
The tone of Byron’s question was vicious, but I didn’t step in to intervene this time.
Emiel’s blank facade shivered, cracks forming in an icy pond.
“What?” he breathed.
“You heard me, goddamn it,” Byron shot back, relentless. “That’s on you. He wouldn’t have been in that shithole if not for you .”
“I told him not to come,” Emiel repeated, but now those spreading cracks of uncertainty extended into the words.
“You’re not responsible for someone else’s choices,” I told him. “But it’s also true that Luca and Mia wouldn’t have been at a gang-run illegal fighting venue if you hadn’t been there. It’s time to find a different way to deal with your demons, Emiel.”
The ice hardened again. “Sure. I could start screwing everything with a pulse. I hear that works.”
There was no question where that particular shot had been aimed. But Byron only offered him a smile that reflected his ice like a mirror. “Let’s put it this way, champ. I’ve managed to avoid causing any physical injuries so far... or receiving any. From where I’m standing, that puts me ahead of you .”
“Fight in legal matches,” I told Emiel, resisting the urge to add, ‘ and find a decent therapist so you can figure out who you’re really trying to punish .’
“Or else?” Emiel asked, tone once more flat.
The list of possible consequences played through my mind.
Or you won’t be employed at the Hope Project anymore.
Or you won’t be welcome under my roof .
“Or you’ll be making my life more complicated than it already is,” I said aloud.
Emiel and Byron both drew breath to speak, but the sound of the front door opening interrupted them. Low voices reached us, along with the faint sound of someone thudding around. By unspoken agreement, Byron and Emiel both shut up as two omegas’ footsteps approached along the hall.
“Coming through,” Luca said airily.
Emiel stepped out of the way as Luca and Mia appeared in the hallway carrying boxes.
“Hi,” Mia said uncertainly, peering at us through the archway.
“We’re getting a start on moving Mia’s stuff out of her house,” Luca said.
“Hello, you two,” I told them. “If you run out of space in the guest bedroom, there’s plenty of room for storage downstairs, Mia.”
She gave me an uncertain smile. “Thanks,” she said, and followed Luca toward the back staircase at the end of the hall.
“I’m going to bed,” Emiel said, once they’d left. His eyes were fixed on the place where the omegas had been. A haunted look passed over his bruised features, but it was laced with longing. He stalked off without another word, leaving me alone with Byron in the kitchen.
“Do you have the faintest idea what you’re getting us into with these two omegas?” Byron asked, as though he was genuinely curious.
“It’s only temporary,” I told him absently, the scent of honeysuckle and elderberries tickling my nose. After a moment, I turned my full attention on the other alpha. “Besides, she’s good for Luca. She got past his walls. Not many people do.”
Byron snorted. “Past his walls? Yeah... that’s one way to put it, I guess.” His expression hardened. “So, are you actually going to enforce what you told Emiel just now?”
“Yes,” I told him, aware that I probably should have shut that shit down a long time ago. And equally aware that my pack dominance over the hulking, angry alpha was strictly psychological, if it even existed at all.
“Good,” Byron said, and walked out.
Alone, I let the sounds of the house tease the edges of my awareness—the omegas speaking in low, conspiratorial tones as doors opened and closed, boxes thumping as they were stacked. Having Luca here was already sweet torture, after all the things I’d lost in my previous life. Having Mia here would be worse.
I knew better than most what it felt like to have the best parts of yourself ripped away. The truncated scar tissue of my broken mate bond still throbbed and ached at the smallest reminder of the loss, even all these years later.
But I’d built this pack-that-wasn’t-a-pack on top of the wreckage of my former existence, and its founding tenet was that anyone who needed shelter would find it here. No matter how broken they were... no matter where they came from.
I might not have been picturing a successful Michelin-star chef who smelled like summertime when I’d made that decision—but she’d befriended Luca, and that was enough for me. Now it just remained to be seen whether we’d end up chasing her off with our sharp edges, once she really got to know us.