Chapter 25
Chapter twenty-five
Pierce
“You’re not coming in?” Beckett has one leg out of my pickup.
“Unlike you, pretty boy, I have to work for a living.” He laughs at our long-standing joke. We both know he actually works harder than both Liam and I combined.
“Are you going to be home for dinner?” Beckett steps all the way out of the truck, but grips the roof, still leaning into the cab.
My heart staggers. I’m not dumb enough to think a hot blow job with a dash of “getting caught” kink on top is going to solve all our problems. I’m terrified of his answer.
“Do you want me home?”
“I do.”
He doesn’t need to add “we need to talk” or “you’re an asshole” or the billion other things I beat myself up with every day.
“Don’t let anyone punch you today.” His smile is so fucking gorgeous, despite a touch of sadness in it.
“Want me to circle back for that ball gag prescription?” I lean further into the passenger seat and point over my shoulder.
His face goes serious for a second, making my heart stop.
“I don’t think you could handle a ball gag. You talk too much.”
“Oh, don’t fucking dare me.”
He knocks twice on the roof and shuts the door. I watch him walk over to the driveway and then up the little path to the front door, because god forbid he actually walk on the lawn. I don’t pull away until he’s in the house.
I drive three blocks and slam on my brakes in front of the last house in the neighborhood that still has its holiday lights up.
I scrub my face and curse so loudly the lady walking her dog across the street turns to look at me.
I gently touch my nose. My front teeth are sore and my eyeballs hurt.
I can manage the pain, but the fact that I can’t catch Beckett or Liam’s scent is so fucking disorienting.
I lean my head back gently on the headrest and do that box-breathing shit. Maybe I should let Blake’s girlfriend do some yoga classes at Metal Heads.
I touch my nose again and wince, then throw the truck back into drive.
Alexei’s house is only about ten minutes away but definitely a showier neighborhood. The kind with the little shack a security guard chills in. I swear he spray paints his lawn to get it this bright green in winter. The house is sprawling and gaudy with gold accents and aggressive security cameras.
Liam’s work is always discreet, but when Alexei contracted him for the security setup, Alexei fought him and won, saying the best deterrent was a strong offense or some shit. Everything is custom and is housed in a panic room in the basement. Paranoid fucker.
Sandra opens the door and purrs my name to cover a mild flash of panic. “We’re not doing workouts at home now, are we?”
“Your quads are safe from me. Alexei home?”
“Sure, Sugar. He’s out back. Let me walk you through.”
I follow her through the house, which feels like it crawled out of an early 2000s episode of MTV Cribs.
Colorful, over the top, and gold accents everywhere.
If it wasn’t for Liam and his Millennial Gray design aesthetic, our home would be a white box with a leather couch and sports equipment littering the place.
Nothing else. Thank fuck there’s so much to distract me from the extra swish Sandra is putting in her hips.
And thank fuck for the broken nose. Sandra is one of the few omegas I’ve ever met that drowns herself in perfume. I’m sure it is all designer, maybe even custom perfume, but I’ve always gotten the sense she doesn’t like her omega scent or something.
“You want some sweet tea?” she asks, pulling open the sliding glass door in the kitchen that I’m pretty sure she’s never cooked in.
“I’m all good, thanks.” I step out onto the patio to the sound of a saw doing its thing on some two-by-fours.
Alexei is standing over a table saw, with lumber littering the patio and the pool sparkling just beyond. Next to it is a wide expanse of synthetic ice. Beckett hates skating on that shit; he says it’s too grippy.
“What fucknut wears shorts in the middle of winter and keeps his pool open?” I say in greeting.
“What?” He looks down at his Hawaiian shirt and cargo pants. “Is practically heat wave.” He shuts off the saw and snaps off his protective eyewear.
After the manly-man handshake, fist, hug, backslap, the works, Alexei stands grinning at the center of his half-finished project in his backyard. I don’t bother with pleasantries.
“Are you still betting on the games?”
His face goes flat, all the warmth clicked off like a lamp.
“Pierce,” he says, wagging a finger at me. “You know that’s not allowed. Players do not bet on games.” His Russian accent comes back with a vengeance like he can’t spare the extra brain power to tone it down.
Alexei and Sandra host a lot of viewing parties with the house all decked out in Scorpion colors and their TVs the size of queen beds.
After a few too many vodkas, it came out that he was betting on the games, and had been for a while.
Now, I don’t give two shits. Snitches get stitches.
Alexei isn’t mine, so what the fuck do I care that he’s violating league rules?
“And pack members of current players are not allowed.”
“I’m not trying to bet. I need a gambling addiction like a hole in the head. I need to find someone who bets on the games.”
Alexei squints. You can almost see the cogs in his head creaking around. “I don’t understand.”
He’s not stupid, but he’s not the sharpest crayon in the box, either. I give him a second, then lay it out. “Someone from my past is in town. Might be a problem. He gambles. He always has. If he’s in Nashville, he’s making fast friends with the bookies. I need to find him.”
“Ah.” Alexei nods, slowly. “The past is sometimes not kind.”
He would know. He had a string of former girlfriends come out of the woodwork when he retired.
“You want me to ask around.” It’s a statement, not a question.
“He’s probably using a fake name, but Randal Voss is on his driver’s license.
He’d be mid-sixties now. Five foot six. Five foot seven.
He always had this scruffy beard. Beady little eyes.
Scar right here.” I scratch my right eyebrow.
It was his souvenir from a knock-down-drag-out brawl with Reed right after he came up alpha.
“So, a pig man.”
“Sure,” I sneer. “I need to find him, and maybe persuade him that Nashville is a little too cold for his Florida bones.”
“This will hurt Beckett?”
The man is six-foot-six and 300lbs on a good day. He was nicknamed the Siberian Bear during his rookie year. His alpha protective streak includes the team, turning him soft like a teddy bear.
“Yeah. Voss is not good for us.”
“You or Beckett?”
“Both.”
Alexei’s smile is back, but it’s a little more calculated. “I’ll see what I can do. But I am not miracle worker.”
“What is all this?” I gesture to the stacks of lumber and tools littering his too perfect lawn.
“Pagoda.”
“A pagoda?”
“Per… gu… la. Pergola? Pagoda?” Alexei says the words slowly, trying to remember the word and pronounce it right at the same time. “No matter, the omega wants shade. Her skin is delicate.”
I roll my eyes, and the big Russian clucks his tongue at me. “You should get one.”
“My skin ain’t delicate. What the fuck do I need with a pagoda?”
“No, omega.”
I scoff. I’d take a gambling addiction over an omega. “You talk about omegas like you can just run to Target and pick one up.”
Alexei actually laughs. “Life is much better with omega. They make you do crazy things.”
“Yeah, I’ll take your word for it. “
“How’s Beckett’s head? Better than your face, I hope.”
“He’s good,” I lie.
“He’s off his game right now.”
I don’t know how to respond to that. Liam has been saying something similar for a little while now. He’s been agitated, short-tempered and that’s even without my fucking nonsense stirring up shit.
Alexei nods, like he already knows. “Come to my box for the next home game. We watch, we drink, maybe some vodka.”
“Yeah, alright. Next home game.” Beckett’s suspension will be up, but he’s out with a concussion anyway.
“Good, good.”
We shake again, and I cut through the house, avoiding Sandra and her clouds of perfume. If I can get to Randal Voss first, this will all be over.