Chapter 9
Chapter
Nine
HENDRIX
T here are days like today I loathe being packed to two career driven, overly passionate Alphas. And that is not based on who we are to each other, it’s more to do with how taxing and draining it is having a long-distance relationship. Not that I can bitch and whinge too loudly, I’m the one that pushed them into chasing their dreams. I can however admit, and I do often, that I struggle when we’re apart. And lately that feeling is intensifying.
Without question they are instrumental in my success both in life and as a person, just like I am to them. They’re the reason I show up every day, and the reason I push myself to finish each day to the best of my ability. I’m Alpha enough to tell them they inspire me to be better—and the reason I want to be, more often than not. But when we are apart, fuck it is hard.
Stolen moments like this help, when we find a couple of minutes to spare and immediatelylink up, but I need more. It’s the strong Alpha in me. I have this ornery, almost petulant like drive to have them right next to me so they never have to question where they stand in my life. They come before anything, and everything.
There are clear contradictions in how I think and how we live, but what kind of Alpha would I be if I focused on my needs and locked Ryder away in a recording studio simply because he was mine.
Emotionally, I know distance is never going to change how strong our connection is but some days the urges inside make it hard to remember. I also am aware my ability to sense the strength in our bond gets more clouded the closer I get to them both returning home. Impatience and need makes it difficult for me to do anything except pace in the last few hours.
I can’t put a number on how many times I’ve been driven by this burning necessity to see either of them has resulted in me flying out to see Ryder on stage or going to Dominic just to sit in his office while he works. When I am near enough to scent, or to feel them under my hand, the roar of darkness fades like the setting sun at the end of the day.
Unlike other packs who have problems on top of problems, we only have a couple to deal with—my feral-like drive, and us still not finding the true heart of our pack, our Omega. The three of us are as solid as I ever hoped we would be. We share everything—our lives and our beds—but we’re all aware of what is missing—the light to our dark, the soft to our hard, the vessel for us to each pour ourselves into. An Omega.
“You look stressed, Hendrix, what’s going on?” Ryder pushes.
I swear, Ryder has this uncanny ability to see past my masks. Dom does it too, but Ryder calls me out on it all the time. His language of love is often so direct it’s like a punch to my chest .
He looks at me and I swear air leaves my lungs. He asks for something, and I want to stop the world to give it to him.
Dominic and I share the same wild drive. Or maybe it’s worse and we’ve just had more time to get used to it. But there are times the only thing I need to feel is the push of his chest against mine, so our heartbeats fall back into our shared rhythm. Fuck, sometimes knowing his heart beats with mine, and Ryder’s, is the only thing that gets me through these long days.
“I’m tired,” I growl.
Ryder’s eyes flash with worry. “Hen, when is the last time you slept properly?”
“When did we both leave him? I think it was fourteen days ago,” Dominic adds quietly. I know he’s teasing me; I can hear it in his voice.
“Eighteen days,” I growl, swiping a hand down my face.
“I have two concerts left. Dom only has three days left before he’s flying home across the Atlantic. Then we’re all together and will be locking the door. So stop being dramatic, shut your eyes, and you’ll feel us both in our bond.”
“I need more than that, Rye,” I snarl.
“And you’ll get more in a few days.” Dominic snaps. “ Innamorato , what gives?”
“I haven’t heard a thing from her,” I hiss.
Of course, as soon as I left Unity after running into the most scent compatible Omega I’ve ever met, I called them. Jesus, it would have been impossible not to tell them, she had that much of an impact. Or I truly thought she had. Maybe I am tired, misinterpreting things.
“It doesn’t mean anything. You know how complicated life can be sometimes. If she is right for us, everything will happen as it needs to, not how you would like.”
Ryder starts laughing. “Dominic, you’re sounding more and more like Hendrix with each passing day. Someone save me.”
Dominic rolls his eyes at Ryder’s suggestion that he needs saving. “Hendrix is a good man, and a better Alpha. When he’s not tired, and emotional, his insight is dangerously accurate. So, if I’m acting more like him these days, I’m taking it as a win. But the same can be said with us, wouldn’t you agree, Ryder? It’s easy to see our Alpha has more to tell us.”
I grit my teeth. Honestly, Simona not reaching out is consuming, but on top of that, the Omega Dominic found and then let go, is getting harder and harder to find. And I hate that he has to suffer the same angst I am. I also don’t want to disappoint him, but I know telling him is going to do just that.
“You got another cease and desist.”
He looks at me for half a second, and I see the flare of anger and frustration in his eyes. “Jesus. Are they fucking stupid? Do they not know who I am and who I represent?”
“The lawyers for the car service people are more than aware of who you are, Dominic. I’d say it’s part of the problem. How do they know you’re not going to snatch the unbonded Omega up for one of your overseas clients,” I offer back, trying not to add fuel to the fire.
“It is a valid argument, Dom,” Ryder adds, going back to applying his stage makeup to cover his tattoos. Arguing with a man paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to argue isn’t something for the faint hearted, not that Rye cares.
“I couldn’t hurt her if I tried!”
“How many Alphas pull the same bullshit and lay claim to an Omega they don’t have a claim on?” Ryder asks without looking at the screen.
Dominic glares his response before finishing his drink. Dom in bed with a glass of wine should be criminal. And yes, I lean in to the screen to watch the way he stalks naked across the room to refill his glass. It’s a beautiful sight, and I’m desperate for him.
Honestly, the way all the blood in my body drops to my cock the instant I see the silvering mark of my bite on the back of his neck should have me locked up in one of those Alpha wards at the hospital.
I glance back at Ryder, who’s stopped what he’s doing and is staring at me. “God, Hendrix, the way you look at him has my knot swelling. Not the best when I need to go on stage.”
Dom spins after hearing Ryder, the light from his laptop the only source in his room. It makes the shadows curl around his physique.
I guess I’m not the only one out of sorts. Instead of climbing back into bed, Dominic sits on the edge of the bed, his legs wide as he leans backwards. Giving me an unobscured view of his body.
“You’ll pay for that,” I mumble, the threat lost under my longing.
But this game of distraction is one we have been playing for years. After long days interning for his father, Dom would come home and study until he couldn’t see straight. I’d be there right near him, or behind him, or between his legs, where I could make his body do the most amazing things, but it was his attention I wanted, and I never got that until he finished for the night.
Our game of willpower drove us both crazy, but at the same time it gave Dom the ironclad disposition he needed to survive his chosen path. Dominic Torres was pushing shit uphill before he even accepted his first client as a criminal defence attorney, surviving telling his family he was bi, and not packing the Omega they had chosen for him. It was a rough time, made worse because of Dom’s heritage, and his family’s expectation he be involved in their accounting company.
Dominic was never made to be contained in an office chasing numbers. He had an infatuation with helping the underdog. Helping me went against his family’s wishes but try telling Dominic he can’t do something and you’ll see why he is one of the most successful criminal attorneys in the country. His list of clients makes the FBI weak in the knees. Dom’s other trait—good and bad—depending which way you look at it, he is a closed book. The FBI had tried to break him, as had Dom’s longest client.
Gordon Godfrey met Dom for a client briefing one Tuesday afternoon shortly after Dom got his license, to discuss charges by the FBI and IRS. I remember the day like it was yesterday because I didn’t find Dom until four days later, tied to a chair in the basement of one of Gordon’s clubs.
It was a game to Gordon, firstly abducting then trying to break his new attorney, but Dom is not built like that. He is a vault. He also has a wicked temper. Gordon lost two good people that day, but he gained a lawyer for life. An expensive one. Dominic still charges him infinitely more than any other of Dom’s clients, but they share a respect for each other I don’t understand. Fuck that. Gordon, the prick, is lucky he’s still alive.
A sharp knock on my door puts a lid on the memories from a long time ago and is a solid reminder of the life the three of us have built. It is not conventional in any sense, but it is ours.
“Why do you have a meeting, Hen. I thought you were leaving?” he asks, instantly flipping to business.
I find my voice after watching him as he climbs back into bed, pulling the sheet up, covering his lap. He tips his chin up impatiently as he waits for me to go on. But I’m still on the topic from earlier. “You’re not concerned about the cease and desist?”
“Not at all. I’m more worried about not being able to find the Omega. Equally concerned I might have misread or misjudged her scent, and how she felt in my arms, since I was getting sick myself. I can barely remember five minutes into the new car. The fever hit me out of nowhere. I can’t remember ever being so sick, and so quickly too. Which is one of the reasons why I wanted to find her. To make sure she was safe, and to see if I had fever dreamed of her.”
“I’m going to suggest you never get anything wrong,” Ryder adds quickly before going on, not giving Dominic the chance to argue. “No, hear me out. If you had the same flu as I did, it was awful. Except if we did have the same flu, then you need to put a little more faith in those initial feelings you remember, because that’s exactly how I felt and still do about my mysterious online girlfriend.”
“You can’t be serious, Ryder. Don’t call her your girlfriend. Send me her details straight away. I’m pinning her with a water-tight NDA. What if she’s another fucking crazy fan?”
“She’s not. We share something tangible. I’m not going to be able to prove it to you, Dom, but I can try to explain what it’s like when she’s next to me. Our connection makes me feel everything you and Hen do. And no one has made me feel what you and Hen do. Please, I need your support on this. And no fucking NDA. She wouldn’t do anything shitty like try for my money. I’m chasing her harder than she’s chasing me.”
Dominic’s eyebrows pinch together as argument builds in his eyes. I can read this man easier than a book. In his mind, he’s steps ahead of Ryder, hell, he’s probably half drafted an NDA to send already. But three things happen at once: Dom’s phone starts ringing, I get an alert on my computer, and there’s a knock on Ryder’s dressing room door.
The three of us groan as one.
“Fuck this being away from each other.” Dom snaps, storming out of bed and starting to pace. “What, Siderno?”
Kozantine Siderno is a newer client. If you’re after weapons, he’s your man. He’s actually one of Dominic’s clients I don’t mind spending time with.
Ryder leans in to the microphone, dragging my worry from Dominic being pulled back to work and diverting it to Ryder about to go on stage.
I point to a spot on my neck, “You need to do more makeup here. Please be careful, I don’t like it when I’m not there to watch you backstage.”
“I’ll let Dale know he gets another ringing endorsement from you.”
“Ryder, he should have been watching you on New Year’s Eve. You were sick as a fucking dog, and you were alone in the laneway at a venue with hundreds of thousands of fans. He is paid to watch you.”
“Well, lucky for me he had to take a piss or he would have scared off Sin before we got to connect.” Ryder winks, swiping more makeup on the spot.
While he dresses in his trademark white shirt, black suit, and skinny black tie, he talks a mile a minute. “Only two days left, Hendrix, and then we’re all together again. Don’t overwork yourself in the meantime because you’re stressing out. And don’t forget you’re the one that taught me to trust. Our Omega is on her way to us, who knows where she is and why she’s taking so long to find us, but I promise we’re all on the same path to each other.”
Even with all his tattoos hidden and the mask resting atop his head, waiting for it to be pulled down, all I see is him. And Ryder is a deep thinker with a tender heart and a generous soul.
“I see you. And I like what I see,” he says when he looks back at me, repeating the first words he ever spoke to me.
“Go be amazing. Then get your ass home.”
I watch as the smile on his face gets hidden behind his trademark mask.
He disconnects the call between the three of us. He might be gone but I’m left staring at the dark screen half in awe, the other half raw with longing.
The phone on my desk rings.
“Sorry to interrupt, Mr. Torres. A name in the system was flagged, and you asked to be told if it happened.”
I stand up. There’re not many names in our system and the only ones were done by me. “Who?”
“Simona Vanderling.”
“She’s here?” I ask, my shock coming across as abruptness. But me being abrupt towards our staff is nothing new. When we work, we work. And I don’t mix business with pleasure. I am however generous with benefits and bonuses, and I listen.
Tonight, I don’t think I’ll ever doubt my control again. How I don’t race out of there and throw him in the downstairs interrogation room to pull every goddamn detail out of his memory is a sign I’m doing okay.
I clear my throat, locking down the sudden reemergence of my impatience. “Where is she?”
“I’ve put her in your office downstairs.”
“Did she say why she is here?”
“Meeting an Alpha. He and the rest of his party are new members. They are currently in the Flamingo room.”
“With Justin and Coco?” I snap back, unable to stop the slight growl in my voice. My designation flames bright as my mind runs in a hundred directions at once. Justin is one of our resident male Omegas, highly sought after and priced accordingly. Coco is an Omega too, though she’s a certified sex addict on top of already having a hyper-sex drive. She’s into anything, which is why she has a minder with every booking.
Now the mystery is why Simona is here wanting to meet an Alpha who pays for sex. From a purely business point of view, I don’t give a fuck who he fucks. On a personal front, liars and cheaters make me sick. My mood ramps up as I sort through old memories and I have to dig through my drawers to use my rarely used scent blocker to hide the spike of irritation in my scent.
“Update on the booking please,” I demand curtly, slipping in the earpiece to both listen to his response as well as free up my hands.
“They are new members, but everything checked. As soon as their membership cleared, they requested an overnight tier three booking.”
Tier three gives full consent for anal, oral, and multi-partner. The ‘overnight’ part of the booking is pretty obvious. It’s not the most expensive service on offer, but it is the most popular with packs who do not have an Omega. In essence, they’re faking it till they’ve got it—getting what they need in a simulated environment. For an Alpha, experiencing the sense of providing, to protecting, and physically connecting is as essential as it is for an Omega to feel cared for, safe, and adored.
So why is she here, while an Alpha she’s waiting to see is in a room with two sex workers? If he had any feelings for her, he’d already be at the door to greet her. Something doesn’t sit right.
I click on the screen, enlarging the feed from the room he mentioned, Justin is already on the bed with one of the men on his knees in front of him. Coco is in the shower cubicle with the other two, and similarly they are sharing more than the water.
It looks like a normal booking, but my issue is why Simona is here. And why she wants to see an Alpha currently blowing one of the highest paid staff members I have.
“No. Just do your check a little earlier than usual. Keep the video feed recording for the entire booking. If they stray outside of the tier three limits, let me know.”
Running a hand through my hair in an attempt to tame the agitation seeping through my body, I try to calm the fuck out.
Simona here makes no sense. And that is where my focus is. My attention should be split into about a dozen different directions, but everything arrows back at her before splintering into chaos. It will continue until I know why she’s here.
An unbonded, unaccompanied Omega in a sex club has disaster written all over it, unless of course it’s an exclusive and prearranged event, and then it’s a profitable night.
Even the thought of her in my club has me considering shutting Noire down for the night. Completely irrational—but given how much better I feel at the idea of kicking everyone out so it’s just me and her, maybe not so irrational after all.
On the way to the office, I start to sort through the memberships we’ve recently accepted. Applying and receiving a membership to Noire is a detailed process, for obvious reasons. Generally, we don’t mess up who we approve and who we don’t.
I reach for the door handle, but instead of walking through, I have to take a step back. Cracking my neck helps alleviate the growing rise of tension. I pray I have enough control to quell the excitement that comes with knowing she’s inside my office. Her sweet ass on one of my chairs. It’s a damn sight easier to fantasise about her in my world, as opposed to debauching her at Unity.
I need answers.
Like why she hasn’t reached out to me yet.