Chapter 10
TEN
Heath
AFTER THE BETTER PART of a day spent watching Knox struggle on a ventilator while monitors and alarms beeped and chimed endlessly, I was fucking done.
Gage was still walking around with his alpha hindbrain hanging out, cosseting this sweet-smelling would-be murderer because her goddamned pheromones matched ours.
And now it looked like Tony was marching right along next to him in the ‘be nice to killers’ parade.
“You!” I barked, funneling every ounce of alpha rage into the command. “Stand up.”
The omega—whose name was apparently Jez—gasped and stumbled to her feet, trembling. Christ, she looked like a baby deer... all long legs and jutting bones and huge eyes. Her caramel coffee scent soured with fear, and I clenched my jaw against the urge to fall right in line with Gage and Tony.
Fawning over the fawn.
“Heath...” Tony said uncertainly.
“Shut it,” I said, aware on some level that Tony hadn’t done anything to deserve my ire. I didn’t have time for more mollycoddling, though.
This time, both of them flinched.
The muscles of my jaw clenched tighter.
“Tell me the name of the person who hired you to kill Knox,” I snapped, crossing to loom over the girl.
She made a soft, whimpering noise in the back of her throat, visibly swallowing the word that had almost escaped.
“Now!” I roared, directly in her face.
She staggered back a step, hitting the edge of the bed and collapsing onto it when her knees gave way.
“Adrian!” she choked out, as though the name had drawn blood on its way up.
“Fuck’s sake,” I muttered, stomping on the ridiculous ache in my chest. “Adrian who?”
“I don’t know!” she yelled. “I didn’t ask, okay!”
Christ on a crutch.
“You didn’t fucking ask,” I echoed. “Of course you didn’t, Just Jez.”
She glared at me, her fingers clutching handfuls of the rumpled blankets as though she were desperately trying to think of a way to turn microfleece into a weapon.
“Short for Jezebel, is it?” I guessed. “Appropriate, I guess. While we’re at it, what is your last name?”
“I don’t have one,” she ground out through gritted teeth.
“Bull fucking shit,” I told her. “Tell me your goddamned last name.”
She was shaking visibly under the effect of my bark, but she still managed to glare up at me with her huge blue-gray eyes for half a second before her gaze slid to the side.
“It was my father’s name,” she said with enough vitriol to dissolve steel. “He lost the right to keep his stamp on me when he sold me into sexual slavery. Excuse me if I don’t have a different name to replace it!”
This was fucking useless—all of it.
The temper that had landed me in more than a little trouble over the course of my life yanked hard against its tattered leash. My hands clenched into fists as I leaned close.
“Your sob story doesn’t interest me one goddamned bit,” I snarled. “Do you know why? Because I can name dozens of omegas with stories just as bad, and not a single one of them randomly decided to attempt the murder of one of the people who’s fucking trying to help them!”
She made another muffled noise of fear and scrambled backward on the bed until her shoulders hit the headboard, her chest rising and falling in convulsive gasps.
“And if you could have been bothered to do the most basic amount of research and fact checking of some random fucker who wouldn’t even give you his last name,” I went on relentlessly, “you’d have fucking known that!”
I realized I was breathing just as hard as she was.
Meanwhile, Tony had backed up against the wall farthest from me, and was staring at me like he didn’t even recognize me.
With a low growl, I turned on my heel and stalked out of the room before I lost control of myself completely.
The last thing I heard as I slammed the door behind me was the sound of keening omega sobs.
My footsteps echoed dully on the steep staircase as I jogged down to the ground floor. Knowing I didn’t dare leave the house with the attic door unlocked, I fetched up halfway along the main hallway—across from the huge parlor we’d retrofitted as a dorm for the omegas that came through this place.
Jesus.
My heart was pounding like I’d run a marathon, and my instincts were screaming nonstop that I’d left my mate curled up in a terrified ball and sobbing her eyes out. This twisted scent-match had to be a punishment straight from the deepest circle of hell.
I braced a hand against the wall, letting my head hang as I tried to get my breath back and figure out what to do next.
Hesitant footsteps approached along the hallway, and I sighed.
“Tell me you locked the attic door behind you,” I said, not looking up.
“No, I did not lock the fucking door!” Tony snapped. His voice was shaking. “What the hell is wrong with you, Heath!”
I straightened with reluctance, because yeah, Tony was definitely part of the coddling brigade, too.
His aggressive stance surprised me, nonetheless.
Normally, he went out of his way to show how completely unaffected he was by everything—whether that meant gathering intel on union-busting or sucking my cock.
Tony was safe... or so I’d thought.
“Can I remind you,” I barked, still not in control of my righteous anger, “that my closest friend is currently lying in a hospital bed on life support because of that girl?”
I hadn’t made a move toward him, but Tony cringed—visibly preventing himself from taking a step backward.
A step away from me.
By the way, Gage had said when I’d showed up to relieve him of guard duty. You should know that Tony’s stepdad sexually abused him as a kid. The asshole showed up here in Chicago a year ago to start up again, and Jez bashed in his head with a table lamp.
And because I was an idiot who hadn’t had more than half an hour of sleep at a stretch since Gage and I had found Knox unconscious in his hotel suite, that connection hadn’t clicked into place in my brain until just this moment.
“The body I cleaned up for you,” I realized. “That was your stepfather.”
Tony sucked in a sharp breath, derailed. “... What?”
I blinked, suddenly aware of just how desperately I needed sleep, and how unlikely I was to get it anytime soon.
“Gage... told me,” I said, and watched his expression shutter into wariness.
“Yeah,” Tony admitted. “Jez showed up in the nick of time and saved me. I was too scared to fight back properly.”
And now he was scared of me—the angry alpha snarling at him because I was pissed off at his friend who’d rescued him from being assaulted by his childhood abuser. I closed my eyes and took in a huge breath, holding it for several seconds before letting it out slowly.
Of course Tony wasn’t going to throw this omega she-devil under the bus without a second thought.
“Okay,” I said. “Okay, look. I’m not angry at you.”
“You’re angry at her,” he said, sounding less like he was fighting the urge to break and run.
“And, yeah, okay... I get it. Believe me; I do. But I want you to tell me something truthfully. I’m not ever going to ask for details, but tell me you’ve never killed anyone before.
Because people who know how to make a dead body disappear without a trace in the space of a few hours aren’t usually the kind of people passing around the collection plate at church every Sunday. ”
“You already know I can’t tell you that,” I said, exhaustion washing through the words.
“I figured,” he said. “And I know it doesn’t excuse what she did. But whatever made you think those people deserved to be dead? She obviously believed the same thing about Knox. Maybe we should focus more on whoever convinced her that was the case. This Adrian character, for one.”
My eyes slid closed. “It’s next on my list,” I muttered. “Not that a first name—and probably a fake one, at that—is gonna be much help.”
“But you still think it’s someone connected to the Vozzinas,” Tony said. “Because apparently you’re intercepting shipments of kidnapped omegas from the gangs, and you never thought to, y’know, mention that.”
“I do not want you mixed up with the omega business,” I growled.
“Uh-huh,” he said. “So, how’s that working out for you? Because no offense, but I’m feeling pretty involved at the moment.”
“Yes,” I agreed unhappily. “You are. And it’s my job to see that you don’t get any more involved.”
He looked like he wanted to say something else that I wouldn’t like, but he visibly swallowed it back. “Look, you’re about to pass out. I can tell because I just watched someone else pass out after being awake for about the same amount of time you and Gage have been.”
“No time for sleep,” I said immediately, thinking of Knox, unconscious in his hospital bed.
“Right.” Tony sounded unconvinced. “Okay, how about this? I can go sit with Knox and call you if there’s any change. Gage can come back here, and you two can trade off sleeping and watching Jez. Only...”
I peered at him with bleary eyes. “What?”
He sighed. “Maybe don’t terrify her any more, because it’s really not helping the situation.”
“It got me Adrian’s name,” I told him.
Adrian’s probably fake name, I didn’t add.
“Sure,” Tony said, not looking happy about it. “So, follow up on that first. You can bark at her afterward.”
I subsided reluctantly. “Yeah, fine. I’ll call Gage and let him know you’re coming.”