Chapter 20
Chapter Twenty
D axton
Melanie is right. The shops down by the harbor are already locked up and dark by the time Owen swings the truck onto the road and grinds to a halt.
I never believed Harper was down here perusing the shops. Now I’m damn sure of it.
“What the hell is she doing here?”
I glance towards the rows of boats bobbing on the water, several lit up, and Melanie’s theory doesn’t seem such a stupid one.
Did something happen to her? Is someone about to attempt to transport her out of the country?
The little dot that signals where she is hasn’t moved and when we rush that way, we spot it.
The Port Gallery.
“Ahhh,” Wyatt says, slowing down.
“What?” I snap, my feet still pounding the sidewalk.
“Harper had a job interview here. I think they offered her the job. Maybe she came down here to ask for another opportunity. We shouldn’t interrupt.”
“It’s 8:10pm. What the hell would she still be doing here?” Owen asks.
“I don’t know,” Wyatt confesses.
“I’m not prepared to take the chance,” I say. “Until I see her with my own eyes, I won’t be happy.”
We reach the gallery. The blinds have been drawn down but from behind them we can see lights and moving shadows.
“There are people in there,” I say.
“Maybe an exhibition?” Wyatt suggests.
“Let’s see.” I turn the door handle and push against the door. Locked. I lean right up close to the door and attempt to see around the blind. It’s no use. I can’t see inside. I can hear though. No muffled voices, no music, no clink of glasses. It’s silent and I don’t like it.
I hammer on the door.
“Harper! Harper! Are you in there?”
I wait impatiently for one millisecond and when there’s no answer, I barge my shoulder against the door.
It’s solid and locked and it doesn’t budge.
“Let’s go around the back and see if there’s another way inside.”
I step away from the door and as I do, I hear a scream from within, followed by a gunshot.
My heart stops beating. The world stops spinning. Time itself stands still.
Harper – that was Harper’s voice. I’d know it anywhere.
My vision bleeds red, the blood thrums in my ears and the only thing in my brain is my omega.
She needs me. I need to get to her.
I charge at the door with all my power and all my weight and this time the lock snaps with my onslaught and the wood gives way, my shoulder cracking and pain swirling through my body at the same time.
I don’t even stop to consider the damage, my right arm now hanging uselessly at my side. I’m through the door, the other two hot on my heels.
The first room is empty.
But there’s shouting and noise coming from somewhere out the back.
“Harper?” I shout. “Harper, is that you?”
“Dax–” I hear her start to call, the rest of my name muffled out.
Someone has hands on my omega. Someone who is going to die. Slowly and painfully.
The three of us barrel through the gallery. Several pictures have been removed from the wall and stand stacked on the floor. We keep running to the back of the gallery, through to a back room, and what we find is carnage.
A man with blood running from his nose is stumbling to his feet. There are three more people tied up on the floor: one clearly unconscious; one Harper.
Then there is another, a scarf tied around his face, a gun in his hand. A gun that’s pointed right at our faces.
“Harper,” I say.
“Daxton,” she cries back, attempting to pull her hands from where they are bound.
The bloodied man stumbles onto his feet, swaying slightly, directing his gun right at our omega.
“Stay away from her,” I growl, taking several steps closer to the masked man, ignoring his gun completely. All my focus is on Harper. Her eyes are wide with fear and I want to gather her up in my arms and run with her as fast as I can.
That probably isn’t the most logical or potentially successful plan though.
“Why don’t you take several steps backwards, unless you want us to blow your brains out?” the masked man snarls. The two men have no scents and I can tell both are betas. Although they are pretty well built, I think the three of us could take them. There’s just the small problem of those guns.
“Stop waving that gun in his face,” Harper growls at him.
The first gunman glances down at her, then laughs. “Ahhh the omega is a feral one after all.”
“Let her go,” Owen snarls, as I refuse to back away.
“Did you hear me?” the taller man says. “Come closer and I’ll shoot all three of you.”
“No,” Harper yells. “Don’t you dare shoot.”
“No one is going to shoot anyone,” Wyatt says, lifting his hands and attempting to defuse the situation. “You leave out the front with your pictures and we’ll all stay back here until you’re gone.”
“We’re not going anywhere without that little bitch of an omega,” the one with the bloodied nose hisses and Harper glares at him, her expression clear as day – she’d like an opportunity to make his nose even more bloody.
“Like hell you are!” Owen says.
“You’d like a bullet in your head?”
Harper struggles against her binds.
Wyatt cocks his head to one side. “I think you’d probably miss,” he says, “which would give us the time necessary to punch you in the larynx, an action that would probably prove fatal.”
“What are you some kind of doctor?” the taller man snorts.
“Yes, a surgeon. And you are short sighted, very short sighted I’d conclude by the way you’re squinting. I don’t think you’re likely to hit us.”
“I could though,” the one with the smashed-up nose says.
“Which one of me though?” Wyatt says. “I assume you’re seeing two of me. Double vision – very common after a serious blow to the face. You probably have a concussion – something that could also be fatal if not treated.”
“You’re full of bullshit,” the taller one snarls, “get down on the floor with the others.”
“How?” the one with the bloody nose says. “How is concussion fatal?”
“The brain can swell, pressing on the skull, leading to loss of function, or you might have a massive bleed on the brain that would kill you too. Of course, you might be one of the lucky ones. You might survive – of course the chance is you’d be in a vegetative state. Unable to communicate, unable to feed yourself, unable to walk, talk, use the bathroom. But at least you’d be alive.”
“Shit!!” the bloodied man says, swaying on his feet. “What should I do?”
“Get to the hospital immediately. The sooner the better. All time is precious with these types of injuries.”
The man doesn’t even hesitate, he starts to stumble towards the door.
“Where the hell are you going?” his friend asks.
“You heard him – the hospital.”
“He’s bullshitting you. It’s just a fucking nosebleed. You’re going to be fine.”
“You heard him – vegetative state. Like a zombie. Or dead! I’m not taking the fucking risk.”
We stand to the side and let him pass. A moment later we hear the front door slam shut.
And then there’s just one gun man.
He looks at us with less self-assuredness now, then he glances down at Harper. He’s weighing up his options. As he swings his gaze back around to us, I take my chance, launching forward and knocking the gun from his hand, striking him in the gut and then across the face. At exactly the same time, Harper leaps up from the ground, her wrists now freed, and launches herself at the man’s back, hanging on for dear life around his neck.
He tries to shake her off but I wrestle him to the ground, Owen on him too. I land another punch to his jaw and Owen lands two to the back of his skull. And soon we have him face down on the floor, his arms wrenched behind his back. The gun now safely in Wyatt’s hands and Harper now safely on the ground.
“Are you okay?” I ask her, gaze skipping all over her body for any signs of injury. She nods her head. “That was an incredibly stupid thing to–”
“He could have hurt you.”
“You could have been hurt! The baby could have been hurt.”
She crosses her arms over her chest and pouts at me.
On the floor, Owen leans over the man and snarls into his ears. “You may also want to get yourself checked out for concussion, asshole! I’m pretty sure we just gave you one.”
“Hold him still,” I tell Owen, he sits on the dude’s back, holding his arms tight behind him. I yank off my belt and together we use it to bind the man’s wrists, ensuring it’s extra tight and the buckle digging painfully into his skin.
Wyatt deposits the gun on the counter and insists on examining Harper for signs of damage.
She flings her arms around Wyatt’s neck and hugs him tight.
“You were amazing,” she tells him.
“Me? I wasn’t the one who jumped onto a gunman’s neck and gave the other one a nosebleed,” he says with admiration, “I assume that was you?”
“Me and Sylvie,” she says, gesturing to the woman in the pantsuit climbing up on her feet.
“And who is that?” I ask, pointing to the man moaning on the floor beside Harper, his eyes flickering open. Then I’m hit by recognition. “That Slimeball!”
I pull back my uninjured arm, about to punch him too – just for good measure – when Harper stops me, wrapping her arms around mine.
“Derrick wasn’t part of this,” she tells me.
“Are you sure about that?” I say, scowling down into the petrified man’s face.
“Yes.”
“Then why wasn’t he protecting you? He’s an alpha. It’s in his blood.”
“Erm, I’m not sure it’s in his,” she mumbles.
“Fucking coward,” I snarl.
“And also my new boss,” Harper says. “Derrick owns this gallery.”
“New boss?” I say, focusing back in on my omega. Her hair’s all disheveled and her cheeks pink and she smells even more knocked up than she did this morning. Goddamn butterflies actually flutter in my stomach.
“Yes, I’m going to be working here. If Sylvie will still have me.”
“Of course, I will still have you,” Sylvie says. She strolls towards the cupboards, leaning in towards me as she does to whisper. “And actually, you may want to give Derrick a little punch. He was very willing to hand Harper over to those scumbags.”
She doesn’t need to say anymore. I punch the dude right on the end of his nose and then kick him in the ribs.
Sylvie reaches up into a cupboard and pulls out a bottle of champagne. She unwinds the foil from the top and twists off the cork. “I need a drink,” she says, turning to Harper. “And then I need you to tell me who the hell these three men are.”
“These three men?” Harper says, with a timid smile, “these are the fathers of my baby.”