47. Rune
Chapter 47
Rune
T he entire drive was tense. Sunny kept chewing on her nails, a habit I hadn’t noticed before. Usually, her hands were clean and well-manicured.
Blaze was sitting next to me in the back, furiously typing away on his phone. He was hardly looking up from the screen.
“Who are you messaging?” I asked, craning my neck to look. Who the hell would he be messaging at a time like this?
“My mother. She’s furious about what’s happening. I’m frankly scared about what she’s going to do, but if it fucks over Gregory’s family? I don’t particularly care.”
I nodded. Marion could be truly terrifying.
“Can you drive any faster?” Sunny muttered as she wrung her hands in her lap. Without taking his eyes off the road, Walker reached across the middle console and took one of her hands.
It felt like both forever and no time had passed as we pulled up outside the old property.
Sunny started to climb out of her seat, but Walker rounded the car, pushing her back into the vehicle and closing the door before she even had a chance to protest.
“You’re staying here, it’s not safe,” he growled, locking the car with our omega in it.
The look Sunny gave him could only be described as indignant fury. He was definitely going to suffer for that later, but I understood why he needed to do it. We had no idea what awaited us in the house, and the last thing I wanted to do was take our omega where it wasn't safe.
“Walker!” she shouted, slamming her hand against the window.
“Sorry, sunshine, we’ll be right back,” Blaze insisted as he grimaced.
“Let me out right now,” she hissed.
Walker shook his head. “If we aren't back in twenty minutes, call the police,” he instructed, before turning away from her, ignoring her shouts of protest.
“She's going to kill you for this later,” Blaze said as we turned toward the house.
“That’s fine.” Walker shrugged. “At least she'll be safe, as will our son.”
I didn’t even bother to knock, I walked straight into that fucking house to get my son back. The place was large, but it clearly hadn’t been well maintained. It was almost like his family had bought a summer beach house because it was trendy, then forgot about it.
I hadn't had any interactions with them, but they did seem like that sort of people.
“There’s a car outside, so someone’s here,” Walker said as we stalked through the house.
“We’ll turn this place upside down if we have to,” I growled as I looked in all the downstairs rooms. I was about to head toward the kitchen when a sound hit my ears.
Crying.
Luka.
My heart rate pounded as I ran toward the sound without a second thought.
In an abandoned living room, standing in a filthy travel crib, was our son. He was clutching onto the edge like he wanted to climb out, his face red from screaming.
“Little man!” Blaze was ahead of me, scooping the baby up in his arms and checking him over.
“Is he okay?” I asked desperately as Walker stalked over to check himself.
“He looks okay. He's got a filthy diaper, and he's upset, but I don't see any sign of injury,” Blaze said as he looked over the baby in his arms, who was quickly starting to settle, now that he was in a familiar set of arms. He snuggled into Blaze’s chest, clearly exhausted.
“What the fuck are you doing with my son?” a snarling voice said behind us. Standing in the doorway was Gregory. He still looked just as weedy and pathetic as he had the first time I’d seen him. He was holding a bag of potato chips and cookies.
I clenched my fist. That kind of food was full of processed sugars and wasn't suitable for someone as young as Luka. Sure, as an occasional treat, but I doubted that Gregory had fed him anything of substance since he had taken him out of the daycare. It had been hours.
“We are taking our son home,” Walker said, his voice level, even though I knew for a fact he was almost vibrating with rage.
“You can't just take him. That's kidnapping. He is my biological child!” Gregory snarled.
I took a step forward, letting myself loom over him to send a clear message. I was much bigger than him, and he was very much outnumbered.
“What did you expect would happen? You kidnapped a child. Did you really think life would go back to normal after a while?” I asked, genuinely perplexed.
“That bitch was supposed to come back! She was supposed to bond with me,” he growled. He went to take a step toward Luka, but I stood in his path. Unable to resist, I raised my fist and swung.
The contact of my fist on his cheek made an impressive cracking noise, and Gregory crumpled to the floor.
Stumbling to his feet, a look of unadulterated rage on his face, he spluttered, “I-I’ll, have you fucking locked up for this!”
“Try it.” Blaze shrugged. “Our friends down at the station are already on their way here, and by the time my mother is done with you, you’ll have much bigger concerns.”
Gregory looked between us, confusion flitting across his face. “Your mother. You think your mother is a threat? Your mother is a nobody.”
When we all let out loud chuckles, Gregory had the decency to look surprised as a look of panic started to creep into his eyes.
“My mother is Marion Holden. You may have heard of her? Let's just say, she and my father are extremely pissed that you kidnapped my child.” Blaze smirked.
“W-what, you’re lying. You’re just a firefighter!” he growled.
“What can I say? I like playing the hero.” Blaze smirked. It was a relaxed and casual smirk, but I knew he was tense, ready to pounce at a moment's notice. “Like you apparently like playing the small-knotted cunt.”
“Look, there's nothing you can do here. We are taking our son, and if you try to stop us, Rune will finish what he started,” Walker said.
Gregory didn't appear to be armed, and it was only him versus us in this house. There was no way he could physically stop us from removing our child. The law was on our side, even if the detective who had come to the daycare was a total asshole.
His eyes darted between us. He knew he was outnumbered. He had probably assumed that hiding was his best bet and didn't count on us having a tracker on Luka.
Blaze turned to leave, to take Luka out of the room, when Gregory snarled. “You know she never wanted you?”
I cocked my head to the side. “I think the copious orgasms beg to differ.” I chuckled. “I suppose you don't understand that, considering she has mentioned you’re rather small knotted.”
Gregory’s face turned an alarming shade of red. It probably wasn't very often he was faced with not being able to get what he wanted.
“She was meant to be mine. I made sure she had nowhere to go after that blasted fire—she should have returned to me!”
Next to me, Walker stilled.
We knew that the fire at Sunny’s apartment building had been arson, but we had never managed to pinpoint who had done it.
“Well, luckily, we were there to step in,” I drawled.
Gregory rolled his eyes with a growl. “Fucking stupid of you.” He turned to Walker. “You want to know why she bonded you? It wasn't love or attraction to you or anything pathetic like that. It was because I paid off the guy at the milkshake place to spike that bitch’s drink. It was supposed to immediately send her into heat, then I could grab her before she even got back, but no, she had to wait until she was back at your stupid station to drink it. Fuck! I had been waiting for her to leave that fucking firehouse for ages.”
My stomach churned uncomfortably. Walker’s face paled slightly, the corners of his mouth tightening. He had described what had happened between Sunny and him as almost feral and sudden. Mentally, I chalked it up to simply being an alpha and omega and biology being a bitch.
If what Gregory was saying was true, though, they hadn’t stood a chance.
“Well, that may account for the first bond, but everything that came after? Sunny is ours, and what’s more? She wanted us, not you. That’s got to sting,” I said, crossing my arms.
My words clearly hit a sensitive spot as his face darkened. “You think you're better than me? I’m a fucking Frankbert, whereas you are no one. I didn't even want that whore, but I need her child for my inheritance. She wasn't even that good. The moment we were bonded, I could’ve been fucking anyone else. She ? —”
The flurry of movement that followed was so fast that I almost missed it.
From behind Gregory, a bat-wielding Sunny appeared. Her face was red and blotchy, but with a glower, she swung the bat as she stalked up behind Gregory. I think she intended to hit him on the head, but her swing was off. Still, it hit him hard enough in the shoulder for him to go crashing down to the floor with a startled yelp.
“Stay down,” Sunny snarled, towering over him like a violent flurry of lemony goodness. I had never heard that tone of voice from Sunny, and I was tempted to sit down and stay down myself. I had heard her disgruntled mom voice before, but never the fury that she was radiating as she looked down on her shitty ex.
Gregory also seemed shocked at her appearance, and his eyes widened as he looked at the bat in her hands. “Sunny…”
“You messed with my child. I will not hesitate to bash your skull in,” she snarled, stomping over to Blaze, who was behind me.
“Sunshine…”
“Give me my child,” she growled, taking Luka from his arms.
She turned to me and Walker, still evidently furious. “Never try and keep me away from my child, or I'll do the same to you,” she said, turning and storming out.
“How did she get out of the car?” I asked weakly.
Walker swallowed. “Judging by the baseball bat, I am betting I may have a broken window or two…”
While we were talking, Gregory was stumbling to his feet. Taking a step forward, I lightly pushed him back down. It didn't take much. He was pathetically weak, so shoving him to the ground took minimal effort.
“Judging by the sirens I can hear in the distance, our friends are on their way here. Now that you've admitted to drugging an omega, which is a criminal offence, and implicated yourself in an arson investigation, I think they're going to want to have a conversation with you.”
“Oh, and did I mention my phone was recording the whole time?” Blaze smirked, pulling his phone out of his pocket with a flourish. “I assumed the idiot would say something assholey if we came across him.”
Fuck, that was a smart move.
Gregory's eyes widened as he tried to scramble away, but I kept him firmly in place, standing on his foot so he couldn't move. I was easily twice his size.
He had no hope of escaping.