Chapter 26 #2
"But I can see the appeal now." Kai pulls the weapons free with a slow, deliberate motion that's almost surgical. "It's silent when it comes to close execution. And the target is distracted—being a fucking douche of an ass father and husband."
The elder Lawson drops to his knees.
Blood pools beneath him, spreading across the concrete in a dark mirror.
Kai crouches—bringing himself eye-level with the man who raised him, who trained him, who tried to kill him.
"You know," he says softly, "I absolutely hated you. Did you think I didn't know who really killed Mother? Who drove her to that point? Who made her feel so worthless that death seemed preferable to another day as your wife?"
His father tries to speak.
Can't.
Too much blood in his throat.
"Betrayal is bittersweet when you think about it." Kai stands, pulling a gun from his waistband. "But revenge is satisfactory. Especially when you get to rid the world of a person who would rather watch his son be unhappy for his own selfish gain."
He aims at his father's head.
Point blank.
"Farewell, Father." His voice is cold. Final. "At least you'll never be privileged to see Mother again."
The gunshot echoes through the warehouse.
Loud.
Definitive.
The end of something terrible.
I watch the body crumple.
Watch the blood spread.
Watch Kai lower the gun with hands that are perfectly steady.
And I realize—
He didn't betray me.
He SAVED me.
The drugging, the "target secured," all of it—
It was a plan.
A trap.
Not for me.
For his father.
"Sera!"
A new voice.
Above me.
I twist—again, sending myself swinging—and look up (down?) to see Blaze being lowered toward me on some kind of harness system. His golden hair is wild, his expression caught between terror and exhilaration, and he's descending fast.
"Well," he says as he reaches me, "I love that I can put my expertise to practice."
"You're not bomb squad," I point out.
Because apparently that's important to establish while hanging upside down with four minutes left on the countdown.
"Hell no." He grins—that manic, fire-touched expression that I've learned to associate with imminent chaos. "But Jett is in my ear telling me to shut the fuck up and work, so..."
He examines the device strapped to my chest, hands moving with surprising precision.
"But I need to do this before I get serious."
And then he's kissing me.
Upside down.
With a bomb between us.
Because apparently that's just how this pack operates.
His lips are warm—demanding, claiming, tasting like smoke and desperation and relief. The angle is awkward, the timing is insane, and I wouldn't have it any other way.
"I almost killed Kai for what he did," Blaze murmurs against my mouth. "But I guess I forgive him."
A giggle escapes me.
Hysterical.
Completely inappropriate.
"Well, that's nice," I manage, "but we only have—" I check the countdown, "—three minutes to defuse this bomb."
"Easy." His hands are already back on the device, fingers working with a dexterity I didn't expect. "But the moment I unlock it, you need to drop. And pray Kai can catch."
Drop.
Thirty feet.
Pray.
"How comforting."
"I'm a comfort creature. Ask anyone."
02:47
02:46
02:45
His fingers move faster.
In my ear—or maybe in his, transmitted somehow—I hear Jett's voice, calm and precise, giving instructions I can't quite make out.
02:31
02:30
02:29
"Almost..."
The bomb's casing clicks.
Something releases.
"Got it. Vest unlocking in ten seconds. Get ready to fall."
"Ready is a strong word—"
"Ten."
I look down.
Kai is directly below me.
Arms raised.
Waiting.
"Nine."
My wrists strain against whatever's holding them.
They're going to release too.
When the vest goes, I go.
"Eight."
One-two-three-four.
"Seven."
One-two-three-four.
"Six."
Trust him.
"Five."
Trust the man who drugged you.
"Four."
Trust the pack that came back.
"Three."
Trust yourself to survive.
"Two."
Like you always have.
"One."
The vest releases.
My restraints release.
And I'm falling.
Thirty feet of empty air rushing past me, the ground approaching fast, my body twisting automatically—dancer's instinct, survival instinct, the knowledge that how you land determines whether you break.
Arms catch me.
Strong.
Secure.
The impact is jarring but not painful—Kai absorbing my momentum, using it to spin us both, converting the force into motion instead of damage.
We hit the ground together.
Rolling.
Controlled chaos.
Above us, the bomb explodes.
The aerial ring disappears in a fireball—heat and light and the particular sound of metal being torn apart. Debris rains down, but Kai is already moving, pulling me up, shielding me with his body as chunks of twisted steel crash around us.
"MOVE!"
Blaze's voice, from somewhere above—he must have been pulled up on the harness system, must have cleared the blast radius by seconds.
Kai grabs my hand.
Running.
Again.
Like we did at the theater.
But this time I know it's real.
This time I know he's actually saving me.
We sprint across the warehouse floor—past his father's body, past the pooling blood, past the evidence of the violence that just ended a decade of hatred.
A bookshelf looms ahead.
Random.
Wrong.
Why is there a bookshelf in a warehouse—
Kai yanks a book.
The shelf swings inward.
Secret passage.
Of course there's a secret passage.
Rich people and their hidden doors.
We plunge into darkness.
Behind us, I hear more footsteps—Blaze, Jett, Sage, all of them following through the passage as the shelf swings shut behind us.
Sirens wail somewhere distant.
Emergency response.
They heard the explosion.
They're coming.
"This way," Kai orders, his hand still gripping mine as we navigate tunnels I can barely see. "Thirty seconds to the exit."
The passage twists, turns, slopes downward.
Underground.
We're going underground.
My lungs burn.
My legs ache.
My body is screaming from the ordeal—hanging upside down, the fall, the explosion, all of it catching up to me in waves of exhaustion.
But I keep running.
One-two-three-four.
One-two-three-four.
Count the steps.
Count the breaths.
Count the heartbeats until you're safe.
Light appears ahead.
Exit.
We burst out into—
An alley.
Different from the one at the theater, but similar enough. Back entrance. Hidden egress. The kind of escape route you build when you expect to need one.
And waiting at the curb...
The black car.
The same one he threw me into.
I hesitate.
Just for a moment.
Kai feels it—the slight resistance, the memory of betrayal that hasn't quite faded despite everything.
"It's safe," he says. "I promise."
I promise.
Coming from a Lawson.
Coming from the man who drugged me.
Coming from my pack leader.
I get in the car.
We all do—cramming into the back seat in a tangle of limbs and weapons and the particular smell of sweat and blood and fear. The door slams. The engine roars. And we're moving—peeling away from the warehouse, from the sirens, from everything that just happened.
My head spins.
Too much.
Too fast.
Can't process.
The car weaves through streets I don't recognize, taking turns that seem random but probably aren't, putting distance between us and the chaos we left behind.
One-two-three-four.
My toe taps against the floor.
One-two-three-four.
Breathe.
You're alive.
Somehow, impossibly, you're alive.
The vehicle slows.
Turns onto a dirt road I can barely see through the tinted windows.
Woods.
We're in woods now.
Where are we going?
Another car waits ahead—bigger, darker, engine already running.
We stop.
Doors open.
"Switch vehicles," Kai orders. "Now."
We pile out of the first car and into the second with the kind of efficiency that suggests this was planned.
All of it was planned.
Every step.
Every betrayal.
Every rescue.
The new vehicle is spacious—more of a luxury SUV than a car, with plush seats and tinted windows and the particular smell of expensive leather.
We settle.
Catch our breath.
And Blaze—
Blaze starts laughing.
"Fuck," he gasps, golden eyes wild with residual adrenaline. "We did it. Holy fuck, we actually did it."
His laughter is contagious.
Manic.
Relieved.
The particular kind of hysteria that follows survival.
Jett is checking his weapons, expression calm but hands moving with the slight tremor of someone who's coming down from combat mode. Sage is beside me—I didn't notice when he moved there—his hand finding mine and squeezing with a pressure that says I'm here, you're here, we made it.
And Kai...
Kai is watching me.
Waiting.
For anger, maybe.
For accusation.
For the hatred he told me not to feel.
"Wait," I say, my voice coming out hoarse. "How are we going to return to Ruthless Academy after that? We just—" I gesture vaguely at everything. "—blew up a warehouse and killed your father and—"
"We're not returning to Ruthless," Sage interrupts.
I blink.
"What?"
"We're on our way to a private jet." His voice is gentle—patient—the tone of someone explaining something to a person who's been through too much to think clearly. "It's going to take us to our new house."
"New house?"
"Ten minutes from Juilliard."
The words take a moment to penetrate.
Juilliard.
The scholarship.
Martinez.
"Kai reached out to her," Sage continues. "Told her we were worried about your safety. Asked if we could sign the paperwork at the academy instead of the administrative offices."
"She agreed," Kai adds quietly. "The documents will be waiting when we land."
I gawk at them.
All of them.
At Blaze with his manic grin, at Jett with his quiet intensity, at Sage with his warm eyes, at Kai with his guarded expression and his hands still stained with his father's blood.
"So..." The word comes out small. Uncertain. "You didn't actually betray me."
Kai shakes his head.
"Never."
He meets my eyes—dark gold burning with something I'm finally allowing myself to name.
"I wouldn't pull off what my father did to my mother. Wouldn't use trust as a weapon against someone who gave it freely." His jaw tightens. "And though we seemed destined to be enemies—by blood, by history, by everything our families built—I'd rather become your lover."
The word lands heavily.
Lover.
Not alliance.
Not temporary.
Lover.
"Your Alpha," he continues. "To follow my brothers' instincts in choosing a ruthless Omega who can enter our dark world of chaos."
Our dark world.
Our chaos.
Ours.
Tears prick at my eyes.
Stupid.
I don't cry.
Haven't cried since I was twelve years old and watched my parents die.
But here I am.
In a car full of Alphas who just killed for me, who planned an elaborate rescue disguised as betrayal, who are looking at me like I'm something worth keeping.
"So..." My voice cracks. "You really want to be my Alphas?"
"Yes," Sage says immediately.
"Absolutely," Blaze adds.
"Without question," from Jett.
And Kai—
"More than anything."
I swallow.
Hard.
"What... what if I go into heat? And stuff?" The questions tumble out—all the fears I've been suppressing, all the worries about what this actually means. "Or all that pack stuff I don't know how to do? I've never—I've been alone for so long—I don't know how to—"
"We want to make it official," Sage interrupts gently. "All of us. Bonding. Real bonding, not just the accident that connected us through me."
"If you go into heat," Blaze says, grinning, "we'll help you through it. That's what packs do."
"We're yours now," Jett adds, his quiet voice carrying weight. "As you're ours. And we protect what's ours."
"While not allowing the world to stop us," Kai finishes. "From whatever we want to become. Together."
Together.
The word breaks something open in my chest.
Something I've kept locked away for ten years.
Something that feels dangerously like hope.
The tears fall.
Finally.
Silently.
Tracking down my cheeks, dripping onto my ruined costume, physical evidence of emotions I've spent years pretending I didn't have.
I nod.
Can't speak.
Can't find words.
Just nod.
Sage's arm wraps around me.
Blaze's hand finds my knee.
Jett's fingers brush against my shoulder.
And Kai—
Kai reaches across the space between us and gently wipes a tear from my cheek.
"We came back for you," he says quietly. "We'll always come back for you."
Always.
Come back.
For me.
The sobs come then.
Quiet.
Shaking.
The release of a decade of grief and loneliness and the desperate, crushing fear that I would never be enough for anyone.
They hold me through it.
All of them.
In a car speeding toward a future I never dared to imagine, surrounded by Alphas who chose me—crazy and violent and broken as I am—I let myself fall apart.
And for the first time in my life, I trust that someone will be there to help me put the pieces back together.
When the sobs finally quiet, when my breathing steadies, when I can form words again, I look up.
At my pack.
My Alphas.
Mine.
"Thank you," I whisper.
One-two-three-four.
One-two-three-four.
The counting is gentler now.
Less desperate.
More... rhythmic.
Like a heartbeat.
Like the pulse of something new.
"Thank you for coming back for me."