27. Jonah
Chapter 27
Jonah
To say that’s not how I expected tonight to go would be an understatement. I’m sitting in a holding cell with my packmate, brother, and my father of all people.
My dad groans, stretching out his legs and crossing his arms over his chest. Resting the back of his head against the cell wall and closing his eyes.
“That was fun,” Axel says happily.
I glare at him and he grins.
“What? Come on. All these events are boring. I got to watch you stand up for your girl, and dad straight up TKO’d that motherfucker,” Axel says.
“Real men don’t talk about women that way,” my dad says easily, not even bothering to open his eyes.
“We could’ve handled it better, but it felt good,” I admit, which has Cole grunting in agreement.
Suddenly the foulest smell hits my nose and I groan covering my face. My brother’s body shakes with laughter and I glance over at him. We hardly look anything alike, with his dark hair and eyes, and sprinkling of tattoos.
“What? Drama makes me gassy,” Axel says, his body still convulsing with quiet laugher.
“Seriously? We’re in a holding cell,” I complain as Cole gags.
“What did you eat? It smells like death.”
“I’m too old for this shit,” my dad says, using his shirt to cover his nose, but then even he can’t stop laughing, even as he tries to pathetically shield his senses.
Then we’re all laughing, which makes us all look insane. We’re sitting in a jail cell, laughing over the fact that we’re here and basically beat the shit out of our girl’s ex pack and my brother smells like a dead animal.
“Mom will handle it all with the lawyers. We’ll be out of here in no time,” Axel says, because he doesn’t have as much riding on this. His stench was thankfully dissipating in the cell.
Cole and I sober up pretty quick, likely we’re both realizing this could have fucked things up with Shiloh. What if she’s afraid of us now? What if she’s embarrassed?
“You think she’s okay?” Cole asks and I grunt.
I have no clue; she was paralyzed with shock seeing her exes and the altercation after. I don’t blame Cole for what he did, especially after the evil shit spilled out of that dickhead’s mouth, but I’m still worried about Shiloh.
“Those videos are going to be all over the internet,” I groan.
“So will all the vile words they said,” Cole says, planting his face in his hands and resting his elbows on his knees. “Fuck,” he nearly shouts at the ground.
“This is all very dramatic, and exactly why I don’t have a pack,” Axel says.
“Shut up,” I hiss at him and he shoves my shoulder, so I shove his ass right back.
“Knock it the fuck off, will you? Just sit here and wait for your mother to work her magic. Until then, please just be quiet,” my dad nearly growls, and his authority is final.
He’s not just our dad, but he's the pack leader, he’s the Alpha, and he’s irritated as hell right now.
“Are you sure Mack can handle this?” I ask Cole.
He nods at me confidently. “He’s got this.”
I sure fucking hope so.
It takes four hours, but we’re finally out of the pen, and taking the elevator to my parents’ apartment.
My dad is grumpier than hell, probably because it’s nearly 3:00 a.m. and he wants to go to bed. Axel looks like he’s ready to fight someone else. Meanwhile, Cole and I are worried we just messed up all the progress we’ve made with Shiloh.
When the door opens, my mother jumps up between my other two fathers, and grabs my dad by the waist, hugging him tight.
“You’re too old to be getting into fights. You’re going to pay for that later,” she scolds.
“Christ, mom, we’re all still here,” Axel says, and she taps his shoulder.
“What were you thinking getting involved? You fight professionally, you could be charged with more,” she scolds and my brother looks down, fully accosted.
“It was fun to watch though,” my other father, River, says, and I can almost see that he regrets missing out.
This was not the first impression I wanted to give Shiloh of my family.
My mom hugs me and Cole, grabbing my pack mate’s chin.
“You were protecting your Omega. She’ll understand. It’s not the same,” she reminds him. She knows all about his past and how his father abused his mother. I didn’t even think about needing to comfort him in that way, but of course my mom does.
“Thanks, mom,” Cole says, hugging her back.
“Claire’s asleep. Mack took Shiloh to your apartment.”
“How did she seem?” I ask.
My mom pats my cheek. “Hurt, confused, sad, but I’m not sure that any of those feelings are directed at you. Just give her time to talk about it. Don’t push, just be there for her.”
“I need some sleep,” my dad grumbles next to me.
“Come on, tiger, let’s get you to bed,” River jokes and my dad tosses an arm around his neck and kisses his head before they walk over to the bedroom.
“We’ll reschedule family breakfast for another time,” my mom says, and thank fuck for that.
I give her one last hug before Cole and I get back in the elevator and head two floors down.
Cole pulls out his phone and sighs, showing me that we’re already blasted on every website you can imagine. The video is everywhere. The only fortunate thing is I don’t see any footage of Shiloh from last night.
Though her name and photo is plastered everywhere. The headlines are brutal and are clearly taking the direction of pitting two packs against each other. The only positive thing is that the media seems to be leaning in our direction.
Everything that dickhead—who I know now is named Nick Moss—said was captured. It appears a majority of the fans are absolutely disgusted with the behavior, but it also looks like their agent uploaded the song they played last night onto all the streaming sites, and it’s already climbing the charts.
“This is so fucked,” Cole says, pocketing his phone.
When the elevator opens, there’s no one to greet us, and the worry gets even deeper as we head into the kitchen and heat up the prepared meals left for us.
Instead of making a plan of attack, we sit at the island, scrolling our phones and assessing the damage.
“Do you think Mack saw all this shit?” Cole asks as he finds a video of people comparing who is hotter. Nick Moss or Mack. Along with another page admitting that Shiloh is pretty, but they don’t understand the fuss. Which is absolute jealous bullshit, Shiloh is the prettiest woman I’ve ever seen.
I have to close out of the articles before my anger reaches a boiling point. I honestly didn’t get enough hits in. Did the drummer even take a slight beating?
“I hope not,” I groan. “What are we going to do?”
“We make sure that she’s okay. We shield her from what we can and set up a meeting with my mom’s PR lady. We make sure that those assholes can never hurt her again, and even better if we can ruin their little boy band career in the process.”
Cole nods, taking a sip of water. “Why didn’t she tell us who her ex pack was?”
“Maybe she wanted a clean slate. Maybe she thought we would judge her. It doesn’t matter,” I say honestly, because it doesn’t.
I don’t care who those guys are or how famous they might be. All I care about is how this will affect this fragile pack we’re trying to build. Most of all, I’m worried about Shiloh.
She was opening up so much more; she was so happy at our house. Maybe this all would have come to a head eventually, but I didn’t expect this shit to happen.
“Your dad really rocked his shit,” Cole says with a laugh, sipping his beer back, and I can’t help but to smile. He really did knock that fucker out.
“How long are we going to sit here and avoid the inevitable?” I ask him.
“Just a few more minutes.”
“Okay,” I reply, sitting next to my best friend, my pack mate, in silence as we prepare for the worst and hope for the best.