Chapter 6
SIX
Tony Scalise
THE INSISTENT BUZZ of my phone felt like someone was stabbing me in the ear with an ice pick. I groaned awake, painfully aware of just how many drinks I’d let the cute guy at the bar last night buy me after I’d finished my guitar set.
Christ.
I hadn’t even gotten laid afterward. I’d just told the adorable blond himbo that I needed the restroom, and slunk away in to the night like the coward I was.
And now someone was calling me at... I squinted at the phone screen.
Oh.
Okay, it was actually nine-thirty in the morning, so apparently normal people were actually wide awake and doing... er... normal people stuff. Right.
‘H.,’ read the caller notification under the incoming call.
It was Heath Dawson, the latest in my long history of really bad decisions.
Okay, so not ‘normal person stuff,’ after all.
The temptation to pretend I’d missed the call and hide my head under my pillow until it stopped pounding out a painful drumbeat of regret was. .. significant.
I’d been helping out Heath’s pack with informant work and various other odd jobs for a little over a year now. Along with busking and a collection of other miscellaneous gigs, it kept the bills paid. More or less.
Then, of course, I’d had to screw everything up by getting a painful schoolboy crush on the pack’s flame-haired alpha lieutenant. Though honestly, that part might’ve been okay on its own, since he’d seemed utterly oblivious.
Until a week ago, anyway. I blamed myself for propositioning him, in a moment of courage and/or stupidity. But he didn’t have to say yes, damn him. He didn’t have to end up being the best fuck of my goddamned life.
He’d apparently assumed it was a one-night stand. That it was no big deal.
Now, all I could do was try to pretend that it hadn’t been a big deal to me, either.
I groaned and thumbed the ‘accept call’ button, reminding myself firmly about the current state of my bank account. Think about the money. Don’t think about how it felt when he put his—
No. Stop.
I cleared my throat. Ugh... why couldn’t Heath use his phone for its god-given intended purpose of texting, rather than insisting on voice calls?
“Hello?” I greeted, trying not to sound like someone who was hungover at nine-thirty on a... whatever day this was.
“Tony,” came the Irish drawl, sounding strained. “I need you to pick up some things and deliver them to the house.”
I frowned. “Okay. Is everything all right? You sound kind of—”
“Everything is very much not all right.” Heath cut me off, his tone clipped. “I’m at Northwestern Memorial Hospital.”
My heart kicked hard; my headache forgotten as I lunged upright in the rumpled bed. “What? Are you hurt?”
“No, it’s Knox. He’s—” He cut himself off. “Look, it doesn’t matter. I’m on the second floor of the Galter Pavilion. Meet me here, and I’ll get you some cash for the purchases.”
“Okay...” I said, aware that I was wearing yesterday’s clothes, and that something small and furry had apparently died in my mouth while I was asleep.
“Thanks,” Heath said, and then the call disconnected.
I stared at the phone stupidly for a long moment. Then I rolled out of bed, intent on painkillers, a toothbrush, and the world’s fastest shower.
On the positive side, focusing on my headache was a reasonably effective way to keep from speculating on what might have happened to Knox.
I’d wasted a couple of minutes on an internet search for ‘Matthew Knockley hospital,’ and found a handful of headlines about how he’d been rushed away from the Aurora Hotel in an ambulance.
An hour and fifteen minutes after Heath’s phone call had come in, I navigated the patient parking areas outside the hospital’s main campus and headed for the information desk, a greasy brown paper bag containing a fast-food breakfast sandwich and an apple pastry clutched in one hand.
The receptionist cheerfully tapped at her computer, and directed me to a bank of elevators that would take me where I needed to go.
In the second-floor waiting area, I found Heath pacing restlessly at the back of the deserted rows of plastic chairs—looking like an alpha who had A) been up all night, and B) wanted rather badly to rip someone’s intestines out so he could use them as a noose.
“Hi,” I said cautiously, when he looked up at me with sharp green eyes. “I brought you some breakfast.” Approaching, I proffered the grease-stained bag. “Would’ve got you a coffee, but I figured hospitals usually provide that as part of the service. How’s Knox?”
Heath stared at the bag for a beat, before a slow blink dispelled some of the barely leashed rage in his gaze, replacing it with exhaustion. He took it from me with a hand that trembled slightly.
“He’s in surgery,” said the alpha. His voice lowered to a mutter. “Again.”
Fresh alarm coursed through me. I didn’t know Knox all that well, since most of my dealings were with Heath.
But on those few occasions when I’d interacted with him, he’d always been decent with me.
Never made me feel like a stupid kid from the gutter, while he was this rich Chicago business bigwig.
“What’s wrong with him?” I asked.
“Pulmonary embolism,” Heath said tightly.
I nodded as though the words meant anything to me. ‘Pulmonary’ was something to do with the lungs, right? Whatever it was, it sounded serious.
“Well,” I replied, trying to seem upbeat.
“He’s a strong alpha, and the doctors here are really good.
I bet he’ll be fine.” Then, because the awkwardness of trying to have this conversation with Heath six days after I’d had his cock in my mouth was starting to get to me, I added, “So, what did you need me to buy for you?”
Heath, too, seemed to drag himself back on track. “Oh. Yes.” For some reason, the change of topic brought the anger back to his expression. “Basic wardrobe and toiletries for a female, dress size four. Size six in shoes.” His frown deepened. “Nothing in glass bottles—plastic only.”
I blinked. “O... kay? And you want me to take it to the house, you said?”
“Yeah.” Heath set the bag of food on the nearest chair and pulled out his wallet, peeling off a dozen hundred-dollar bills. “It shouldn’t cost more than a thousand; she’s not exactly going to the Met Gala. Keep whatever you don’t spend.”
There were so many questions here. They were questions I knew better than to ask, though. More than a year into my dealings with Knox’s pack, I’d have had to be blind to miss the fact that omegas in trouble ended up coming and going through the secluded pack house like it was a bus station.
This was just the first time anyone had asked me to buy a full wardrobe for one of them.
I clamped down on any further request for clarification.
“On it,” I said. “I assume someone’ll be at the house to take delivery? Or should I just drop the stuff at the door?”
“Gage is there,” Heath said.
“All right.” I hesitated, my awkwardness rearing its head again. “I hope Knox recovers quickly.”
Heath gave a single, tight nod. Taking it as dismissal, I turned and headed for the elevator bank, already mentally running down the list of big box stores that might have everything I’d need in one place.
“Tony?” Heath’s voice stopped me a few steps before I turned the corner.
I looked back.
“Thanks for the food,” he said quietly. “You didn’t have to do that.”
A stupid, self-destructive little flash of warmth glowed behind my ribcage. I tried to stomp on it, but the embers wouldn’t die.
“It’s nothing,” I said. “Don’t mention it.”
A few hours later, I pulled into the long, winding driveway of the pack house with a truly alarming number of bags in the back of my old Volvo. It turned out, you could buy a lot of women’s clothes for a cool grand, if you were bargain conscious.
My love for shopping was one of the things that my late, unlamented stepfather had hated about me. One of many things, admittedly... but I was pretty sure it had been near the top of the list.
I’d never had a sister—not that I would have wished my so-called family on anyone else. But I couldn’t deny that having a built-in excuse to go to clothing stores and paw through the latest fashions with someone female would have been pretty amazing.
I had a sneaking suspicion that I’d be happier not knowing whatever backstory lay behind the recipient of my shopping spree spoils. But regardless, I’d kind of enjoyed it. It wasn’t as though I could afford to spend that kind of money on clothes for myself—so this felt like the next best thing.
Whoever she was, I hope she agreed with my taste.
Buried under enough shopping to crush a pack mule, I trudged up the flagstone walkway. On the large porch, I set down the bags in my right hand, freeing it up so I could knock on the door. Less than a minute later, the locks clicked and the door opened, revealing Gage’s imposing form.
“Hi,” I greeted, a bit intimidated as always by the towering alpha with the dark buzzcut and perpetual scruffy stubble. “Heath sent me here to drop this stuff off? It’s mostly clothing, plus some shampoo and toothpaste and things.”
“Oh. Yeah. Hi, Tony,” Gage said. “Come on in. Let me get some of that for you.”
Between us, we dragged all of the bags inside.
“Is all this for one of your omegas?” I asked, curiosity getting the better of me.
Gage hesitated. “It’s kind of complicated. Can you help me get this upstairs to the attic room? The staircase is a fuckin’ deathtrap.”
“Sure, but we need to work on your marketing skills,” I quipped. “Try, ‘the staircase is vintage—maybe you’d like to see the Victorian craftsmanship firsthand.’”
The alpha gave a derisive snort. “As long as you don’t see it at high speed while tumbling down it. Come on, kid.”
I let him lead me to the back of the massive old house.
It was quiet—no sign of any other ‘guests’ at the moment.
I took in the elegant furnishings, comparing them to the squalid studio apartment I was currently renting.
I supposed this kind of thing was what a business empire could buy you.
It still sounded like a hell of a lot of work to keep it clean and nice, though.
Gage had... not been exaggerating about the staircase.
We struggled up the steep, narrow steps, some unspoken male stubbornness driving us to try and get everything up in one trip.
Gage paused at the top, where a small landing faced a locked door.
He pulled out a concealed pistol, checking the chamber.
“Whoa!” I took a hasty step back, nearly taking that unplanned, high-speed downward tour of the staircase that Gage had just mentioned.
“Sorry,” he said. “Should’ve warned you. She’s dangerous. Let me get her covered, then you can pile the bags inside the door.”
“Wait, wait, wait,” I said. “Who the hell is this omega? Why do you have a dangerous woman locked in your attic?”
Because maybe I was na?ve—but this was not what I’d signed up for with this pack.
“She’s the one who tried to kill Knox,” Gage said.
I gaped at him. “Tried to... kill—?”
Idiot that I was, I’d assumed Knox’s emergency was some kind of illness. Like... a heart attack, or something.
But Gage only nodded. “Yeah. Almost succeeded, too. But that’s not the complicated part.”
“It’s... not?” I asked stupidly.
“Turns out, she’s also our pack’s scent match,” Gage said, grim-faced. “Now, stay back while I get her where I can see her.”
I continued to gape.
Gage knocked on the door. “It’s me again. Still got the gun, so no funny business. We’ve got you some clothes and shit. I’m coming in.”
He unlocked the padlock and swung the door open, leading with his gun. No noise came from the interior as he entered cautiously.
Despite myself, I couldn’t help peering in behind him. It took me a couple of seconds to find the slight figure in a short, form-fitting dress slumped against the side of an old bed, curled forward with her face in her hands. An untouched plate of food sat next to her on the floor.
“You gotta eat something eventually, you know,” Gage said, in a gentler tone than I might have expected.
The girl raised her head slowly, her hands falling to lie limp in her lap. Wavy, platinum-blond hair framed a sharp face dominated by huge, blue-gray eyes. For a split second, my brain tried to tell me that I couldn’t possibly be seeing what I thought I was seeing.
Then Jez, the woman who’d killed my abusive stepfather by caving in his skull with a table lamp—and left me alone afterward to face the resulting music—met my gaze with a shocked gasp.