10. Odell
TEN
ODELL
“What about that apartment you stayed in, Matt?” Ranger spoke to his husband.
“I’ll see if the guy’s away.” Matt sent a message, and moments later when it dinged, he said he was.
“The one you stayed in when you were pretending to be someone else,” Flint chipped in.
Tony piped up. “And going undercover with one of the most vicious mafia organizations in the country whose Alpha died a watery death.”
Aunt Louisa squeaked and shuffled to my side. Uncle Stan was either asleep or too ashamed to show his face.
I put my head in my hands. This family. They were too much, especially when we were breathing in the same air. I put a hand in front of my mouth and smelled my breath. I read somewhere once that every time we breathed in, we took in air that Julius Caesar had breathed. So in this confined space, the air that I’d just taken inside me was what these people had had inside them.
They loved one another and they were kind to me—the omegas, anyway—but they were so different to anyone I’d ever met. Maybe in another place, another time, we might meet up and share a meal and a glass of wine. We could swap stories of everyday life, not ones about them all killing one another. And the worst part about it? None of them appeared bothered by it all.
“How about we take this conversation elsewhere?” Hunter jerked his head to a closed door, the room with the monitors.
The two older brothers agreed, and I scuttled in after them. Rudy took a protesting Aunt Louisa to a sofa, and Arnie offered her a juice.
“That might be a good place to stash Odell. That apartment,” Hunter said.
The tiny knot of anger that had been giving me a bellyache since Uncle’s bombshell last night ballooned. But I wasn’t going to collapse and play the victim. They’d made me one of them, and no way was I going to be killed and rolled up in a carpet until they found somewhere to dump my body.
“Look, I’m part of this family now whether you like it or not.” I held up the piece of paper we’d signed and Stefan had stamped. The marriage probably wasn’t legal until he returned to the office and filed it, but I had something this family considered more powerful.
I showed them my hand. “Just like yours.” I waited, expecting them to hold up their scars, but they shared glances at one another, and Flint spoke up.
“Some of us have their marks on our chest or shoulders.”
Did they get naked to perform the ritual? I should be thankful that it wasn't required of me.
Ranger added, “Tony doesn’t have one, but Matt does.” He showed me his palm. “Just like me and you and Hunter.”
These guys were making my head spin. “No matter. I have the mark now, so I’m one of you, and no one is going to stash my body in some apartment.” I wagged my bloodied hand. “No stashing.”
Hunter approached me, holding up his scarred hand too. “I used that word to describe keeping you safe. You know, like stashing a pirate’s treasure in a cave.” His eyes glazed over, and I was convinced he was envisioning himself in a three-corner hat and an eyepatch.
“Maybe not the best comparison, Bro.” Ranger was making a face while we moved into the main room.
“Are you sure you won’t stay, Odell dear?” Rudy was a sweetheart, though he’d given birth to these three. They were agents of chaos to say the least.
But there was something about my now husband that had two conflicting emotions rearing up. One, I wanted to throttle him so his brains rattled around his head and his teeth fell out. The other… I couldn’t explain, but him making my hand bleed had me yearning to know his every thought, to claw at his clothes, to see what was in his heart.
It was silly, and maybe the reduced oxygen to my brain was causing me to lose it, not that the air in this underground bunker wasn’t crispy clean.
“No.” I rubbed the back of my neck. “We need to leave now.”
“Stefan, if Draven is threatening you, I think you should stay,” Hunter said.
Stefan gulped and glanced around. “No, I’m fine. I’m not afraid of him.”
I wondered what Draven had on the poor guy.
“Thank you.” I clasped Stefan’s hand and considered sending him a message to help me escape this family. But me blinking furiously wouldn’t achieve anything, and besides, I didn’t know morse code. But he handed me his business card. “If you ever need my help.”
“Let me go with you, Odell,” my aunt begged. “We’re a team, we have been for years. I’m the only one who loves you and can keep you from harm.”
I hugged her. Our parting was painful, but I believed Flint when he said he’d protect them. That was one priority. The other was getting the heck out of here.
“I’ll call you as soon as I can.” I blew her another kiss and gulped back a sob. “Nothing bad will happen to you here. I love you.”
Hunter did the scanning of his eye retina, and when the one door and the other slid open, I rushed past him, shoving the guy aside as I wound around the corridors, searching for the stairs to get me out of the bowels of the earth.
Hunter caught up to me, saying I didn’t know the way. “Ranger and Flint need to check the area first. Make sure no one is here who shouldn’t be.”
There were security guards inside the club. It was late, and I guessed it’d be opening soon. They nodded and greeted the brothers. Flint snuck outside first, followed by Ranger. Hunter stayed with me until they gave the all-clear. Stefan said his car was parked down the street, and he said his goodbyes.
It was almost dusk and the air had cooled from this morning. I took huge gulps of fresh air, or rather, air laden with pollution. I didn’t care. It had never tasted so good. I wasn’t buried so many feet underground.
“Don’t take your vehicle, Hunter. It’s easily identifiable.” Flint threw his brother keys and pointed to a red sedan that had seen better days. The older brother nodded at the guard at the door, and he retrieved a long-handled thing with a mirror and stuck it under the car.
Yikes. They were searching for explosives.
“There’ll be bodyguards in front of and behind you.” Flint nodded and stalked toward a huge black car.
Ranger rattled off an address that I didn’t catch. My brain was frazzled, and I collapsed into the passenger seat. Hunter started the car but mustn’t have been familiar with a stick shift. We jerked down the road, stalled, and jerked some more.
“Do you want me to drive?” I snarked as I huddled in the corner and watched my husband grind the gears.
“No.” The car stalled a second time. “I can do it myself.”
I clapped, and he side-eyed me. “You’re doing a great toddler impression.” Our next-door neighbor had a two-year-old and that was his favorite line.
“And you can do better?”
“I know I can.”
He huffed. “I’ve got this.”
Folding my arms, I sank low in the seat. If there were any car lovers around, they might yank Hunter out of the vehicle and get in the driver’s seat, putting the car out of its misery. I was due for another kidnapping, my third.
“Okay, I’ve got this.” He put the car in second gear, but unless we caught every green light, both me and the car were in for more bunny-hopping. I patted the dashboard and whispered that it’d all be over soon.
“I think this is the place.” Being an old model, the car didn’t have GPS. Even this car’s grandkid didn’t have a guidance system.
Hunter parked in an alley behind a building, and I peered at the brick facade, covered in generations of pigeon poop and moss.
“There’s a grocery store nearby. I’ll grab some essentials,” he told me.
“I’ll come too.” If he bought tofu and Brussel sprouts, I’d starve. No offense to anyone who loved either item, but one made my stomach heave and the other gave me gas. Gross! Besides, I wasn’t staying with the bodyguards who gave off a vibe almost as scary as Draven.
“The whole point of this misadvised adventure was to put you in a place Draven won’t find you.”
“He’s hardly likely to be stalking supermarkets.”
“And if I say no?” He crossed his arms, his expression fierce. A little something twinged in my chest. He was gorgeous, with his brilliant green eyes and the scruff on his chin. His eyes twinkled as if holding the promise of something, and I had to look away and give myself a talking-to.
“Which way?” I pointed left and right, and he abruptly turned his head to the right. I stalked off, though I had no money or cards. Damn, I’d left my messenger bag in the panic room. He’d better follow me or it’d be a pointless exercise.
But I caught his light footsteps behind me. Most guys would be making a racket with their breathing, talking on the phone, or just complaining about how uneven the pavement was. But his steps made little sound, and I shivered, thinking he could easily creep up on a person.
On entering the grocery store, I grabbed a basket, but he took a cart.
“Are you buying food for yourself?” I strode toward the fresh produce and picked out greens, tomatoes, and a red pepper. Hunter was kinda manic, shoving the cart in one direction, reversing it, and doing wheelies. How was that possible?
A kid asked if he could take him for a ride, but the mother pulled her son away.
I giggled because I would have been that child before I was orphaned. The light went out of me for a while after I lost my folks and went to live with my aunt and uncle.
Hunter tossed bananas, berries, pineapple, melon, and avocado in the cart. Even if I had my debit card, I couldn’t have paid for those. Frozen meals went in too and so many snacks, jars, and drinks, both alcoholic and alcohol-free.
We trawled up and down the aisles, me with my basket, Hunter loading the cart with essentials and luxury items, along with coolers. Perhaps he planned on having a picnic.
“You never know when you’re going to need them,” he replied in answer to my question.
“Now we have to carry this back.” Not so smart buying all that stuff. We had six huge bags, but Hunter took four and didn’t break a sweat, while I staggered back to the building with the remaining two. The guards didn’t offer to carry any, but that wasn’t their job, I guessed.
Much as I didn’t trust the ancient elevator, I couldn’t make it up the stairs.
“I’m sorry. I forgot about your claustrophobia. I can take the bags and you walk up.” His furrowed brow suggested he didn’t like that suggestion. “Or we walk together.”
“Hold me.”
“Gladly.” He dropped the bags and gave me a big hug.
I couldn’t help laughing. “No. When we get in that small metal box that’s going to whisk us upward.”
“Oh.”
I closed my eyes before the doors shut and rested my face on his chest. The elevator clunked and thunked, and it smelled of pee. Ewww!
Hunter talked the whole time, reeling off the list of items from the store receipt. It was very sweet, but I couldn’t think of him like that. He was mafia, and his family had discussed a lot of wackadoodle things.
But when we reached the apartment door, he opened it, put the bags down, and picked me up.
“I can walk.” My face was perilously close to his, and I breathed in his irresistible aroma.
“We’re married. Isn’t this what humans do when they enter a home or hotel after they get married?”
He didn’t think that piece of paper meant anything, did he? Surely not. But I’d have that scar on my palm forever. And because of that, I’d never forget Hunter as long as I lived.
“Humans?”