Chapter 50
FIFTY
Heath
GAGE WAS SLEEPING AGAIN, which was probably what he needed. Seeing how badly he was hurt had shaken me, but the doctor had been clear that he would heal, given time.
The idiot still didn’t understand how much I owed him for saving Tony, and he probably never would. Hell, he probably would have done the same for a total stranger who just happened to be next to him when the hotel roof came down.
I hoped Tony wouldn’t be too freaked out when he discovered that I wasn’t the only alpha in this pack who wanted him.
I honestly wasn’t sure. On the one hand, Tony had a background with packs—or at least, a pack had helped him once before.
On the other hand, he seemed to believe it was a fluke that anyone wanted him, which was crazy as hell.
Between him and Jez, we had a lot of making up for things to do.
And speak of the devil...
The sense of Jez getting closer to me had me straightening from my slouch in the uncomfortable plastic chair by Gage’s bedside before the privacy curtain slid open. I had to do a double-take at the sight of her and Knox slipping in, shoulder to shoulder like maybe he’d been leaning on her to walk.
Who would have thought it?
“Hey,” I greeted, assuming they’d come to check on Gage. “He’s asleep. We were talking earlier, though, and he seemed a lot more lucid. Is Tony okay?”
“He’s fine,” Knox said, keeping his voice low to avoid waking the big lump on the bed. “It’s actually you I need to talk to, although I’m glad to hear Gage is doing better.”
“Talk about what?” I asked, not sure if it would be polite to prod at Jez’s feelings through the bond. She’d been pissed as hell at someone earlier, but it clearly hadn’t been at Knox.
Which was good.
“Paolo called,” she replied for him. “He’s agreed to let Knox move him somewhere safe, but only if I’m there as... honestly, I don’t really know why he wants me. Insurance, maybe?”
“Reassurance, I’d have said,” Knox added. “For some reason, he seems to believe that Jez is on his side.”
“No way.” The words were out of my mouth before I even thought about it.
Jez’s eyes narrowed. “’No way’?” she echoed. “’No way,’ what?”
“I don’t want you within a mile of that slimy little fucker,” I said, my hackles rising at the very idea.
She stepped up to me and very deliberately poked a finger into the center of my chest. Since I was still sitting down, she didn’t have to reach up to do it.
“Let’s get one thing straight,” she said, poking me again for emphasis. “Just because we’re not trying to kill each other anymore, it doesn’t mean you get a say in where I go or what I do. I’m not locked in your attic now.”
And, yeah... I flinched at the reminder.
Good god, was this how it was going to be now, being mated? Suddenly, all the stupid TV romcoms about omegas ruling the nest made a lot more sense.
“Whuz goin’ on?” Gage slurred from the bed.
“Knox is about to do something clever, and we’re fighting about the details,” Jez told him. “Go back to sleep. We’ve got this.”
“Kay,” Gage muttered, his eyes sliding shut again.
I stared at Jez in disbelief.
Knox stepped in before the free-for-all pussy-whipping could continue.
“Heath—I have a twelve-person team on standby to transfer Paolo to the private clinic. I need you to lead it, since having me limping around like an invalid wouldn’t help with the impression I’m trying to make. Jez has already agreed to go with you—”
“And I also promised not to slit Paolo’s throat while no one was looking,” she interrupted. “I might try to make him cry, though.”
“I have no problem with that,” Knox told her. “But maybe wait until he’s in the ambulance. We don’t want to scare him off completely.”
Knox and Jez were... bantering? What the hell?
If I tried to unpack all this, my brain would explode. I made a conscious decision to move past it.
“Paolo’s agreed to testify against Vozzina?” I asked, because if he had, that was huge.
Jez examined her fingernails, which were still cracked and torn after clawing at rubble. “I told him the only way to get out of this mating with his gland intact was to make sure his mate died. Then I asked him how many capital crimes he could prove Lorenzo was behind.”
I continued to stare at her. “Who even are you?” I demanded, only half joking.
“Right now, she’s our key to getting Paolo away from the Vozzina pack,” Knox said.
“The nurse down the hall said they were about to transfer Gage to the pack room. Let’s get him situated, and then I’ll let Bud brief you both on the details of the extraction operation.
I want that little shithead moved as fast as possible. ”
Two hours later, Jez and I were in the back of a car—part of a convoy heading southwest toward Saint Anthony Hospital in North Lawndale.
Every time I so much as drew breath to suggest she stay in the car during the transfer, I received a glare so murderous that I snapped my jaw shut. Eventually, I bowed to the inevitable and changed my approach.
“Why are you so set on this?” I asked. “I get that Knox asked you to do it—”
“He didn’t,” she said shortly. “I offered.”
I frowned at her. “Then why would you voluntarily get anywhere near this little pus-bag, after everything he’s done?”
She didn’t even blink. “Because I want Lorenzo Vozzina dead. And I want Paolo to suffer and be humiliated in the court of public opinion. I can’t get either of those things if Vozzina manages to kill him before he can testify.
Also, Paolo wants me there, or else he’ll pitch a fit and maybe back out of the whole thing. So, I’m going.”
It was a completely rational assessment, with only one hole in it.
“You should know that Illinois doesn’t have a death penalty,” I said.
She scoffed. “There’s a federal death penalty, right? They killed that guy who blew up a government building a few years back. And omega trafficking is international. I should know; I was brought here from Canada.”
I’d had no idea she was Canadian.
Why hadn’t I known that?
I cleared my throat. “Fair point. Just so you’re aware, it can be really hard to get that kind of a sentence.”
I’d never seen her expression grow so hard.
“Paolo’s pretty motivated to succeed.”
After the idea she’d planted in his head, I didn’t doubt it.
“Did you ever think about killing me to get rid of our mating bond?” I joked. At least, I sure hoped it was a joke.
Her face softened. If anything, she looked sad now.
“No. Just the glandectomy.” To my surprise, she reached across and covered my hand with her bandaged one. “And anyway, this is much better.”
I turned my palm up to interlace our fingers. The sting from my own scrapes and cuts felt appropriate, somehow. “Yeah. Sorry I tried to go all alpha on you, back at the hospital.”
That part was going to take some work, because the things my instincts tried to tell me about protecting my omega weren’t going to fly in this relationship—whatever it turned out to be.
She squeezed my hand. “Thanks for that. Maybe channel some of that protectiveness toward Tony instead. I think he’d appreciate it more.”
“You really are all right with that? With Tony and me?” I said, unable to keep the wonder out of my voice.
“Yes,” she agreed. “I really am. It’s funny—I’m relieved that Tony is becoming part of the pack, because it means if I make mistakes, there’s.
.. I don’t know... a buffer, I guess?” She looked away, her cheeks pinking.
“But the moment Paolo called Knox by his first name over the phone, I was ready to start clawing out eyeballs.”
My eyebrows flew up in surprise. “Were you, now?”
She shrugged, still not meeting my eyes... but not letting go of my hand, either.
I sighed. “You should know that Gage is going to talk to you about something when he isn’t so loopy. He wants to know how you’d feel about him pursuing Tony as well. Assuming Tony is interested, of course.”
Her eyes shot to mine, and her sudden, wide smile was completely unexpected. “Really? Oh, my god. They’d be so cute together.”
I couldn’t help a startled laugh.
Then a different kind of light came into her eyes.
“I think... I’d like to see that. To watch, I mean.
” She chewed her lower lip, and I cursed the sudden southward migration of my blood in response.
“I’d like to see Tony with you, too,” she said, and now there was no mistaking the spark of arousal ricocheting through the bond. “If everyone else wanted that, I mean.”
I couldn’t help it. I reached out with my free hand and cupped her jaw, guiding her to me for a kiss.
It was completely inappropriate while we were on a job, even if there was dark glass separating us from the car’s driver.
But her delicious scent wrapped around me, and the bond flared with hot tingles.
.. and it was all I could do to keep the brush of lips from turning completely filthy within seconds.
Pulling away felt like ripping Velcro apart, and it didn’t help when she let out a little whimpering noise, chasing after my lips. I closed my eyes and pressed our foreheads together.
“Later?” I said, not even sure what I was asking for.
There was a long hesitation, and then she nodded. “Later,” she agreed.
The car turned, and I looked up to find that we were entering the hospital grounds.
Knox’s operations were always planned and organized flawlessly. This one was no exception. Bud reported that Vozzina had two men on Paolo’s door, which was why Knox had sent twelve alphas of his own, plus Jez and me.
The transfer paperwork was already handled. It only required Paolo’s signature. While three of our alphas surrounded each one of Vozzina’s goons, silently daring them to make a scene, Jez shoved the papers under Paolo’s nose and said, “Sign these, and don’t whine about it.”
Once he’d done so, she swapped his phone for a burner from Knox’s stash, stomped on the old one, and handed it to me—ignoring Paolo’s wail of protest. I pulled out the sim card and snapped it in two, then dropped it and the cracked phone case in the nearest trash can.
“He may have put a tracker somewhere in your belongings,” Jez explained. “Change into a hospital gown. Leave everything else here. Knox will buy you whatever you need once we get where we’re going.”
She bodily hauled him out of bed, shoved the gown into his hands, and dragged him, limping heavily, to the bathroom.
He emerged a few minutes later holding his silk pajamas clutched in one hand and wearing Hospital Couture.
Tears were already tracking down Paolo’s pale cheeks, and she’d barely even had to try.
I covered my mouth and fake-coughed to hide my shark’s smile.
Also, this wasn’t doing a damn thing to quell the lust humming through the bond.
A nervous-looking nurse arrived with a wheelchair. Jez pointed to it imperiously. Paolo balked, looking at her with wet eyes.
“You’re sure I’ll be safe?” he asked.
“Once you get out of here?” she said. “Yes. Until then? Not so much. Now, move.”
Paolo plopped down in the wheelchair as though he’d been pushed. I handed the paperwork to the nurse, who flipped through it to check the signatures. While she did that, I stepped outside and addressed the team, pointing at Vozzina’s men.
“Four alphas each, remain here and make sure these goons don’t leave for the next hour. No phone calls in or out; no discussion of any kind.”
Everyone nodded. Once we were long gone with no possibility of being followed, the ones who’d remained behind would return to the security agency Knox had hired them from, yielding no useful information for Vozzina about where we’d transferred Paolo.
The rest would act as a motorcade for the ambulance, in case Bud had missed something and we were being followed after all. Once Paolo was established at the private clinic, hired guards would stay on rotation twenty-four-seven to screen anyone trying to visit him.
And after that, the lawyers would hopefully take care of the rest.
Jez and I followed the four guards flanking the wheelchair. Paolo was loaded into the ambulance with no issues.
“Wait!” he called, as the EMT moved to shut the double doors. “Jez! Aren’t you going to ride with me?”
Jez tilted her head, assessing him.
“Nah,” she said. “Have a good trip, though.”
The doors closed and latched, cutting off Paolo’s protest.
We got back in our car, where I spent the drive across the city looking out of the back window, obsessively scanning for anyone following us.
We arrived safely at the clinic forty-five minutes later, took care of the intake details, and left Paolo looking like a pale, kicked puppy in the middle of the comfortable opulence of his private room.
“Wait, please—” he said again, as we turned to leave. “I thought you were going to stay with me!”
We ignored him, letting one of the two guards remaining behind on duty close the door after us. Once we were back in the car, I turned to Jez, looking down at her slight form.
“Back to the hospital?” I asked.
“Back to the hospital,” she agreed.