25. Madden
Madden
M y hands shake as I strap on my holster. I can’t get them to fucking stop.
And I hate it.
I’m strong now. I’m not the stupid, weak little kid I was back then. I shouldn’t be shaking like a fucking leaf.
“Hey, you okay?” Chase asks, gripping my forearm.
I’m so out of it, I didn’t even hear him come over to my locker.
We’re all getting ready in the weapon room Kane has in the basement. He makes sure we’re armed to the teeth and ready for anything.
“I—I’m fine,” I say, turning away from him and back to what I was doing.
I’m jealous of Chase. He looks so fucking calm right now.
“How’re you not freaking out,” I mutter under my breath.
“Because I know we’re gonna be fine, but I don’t know whether Luna will be, which is why we’re doing all this,” he says, crossing his arms over his chest. “Look at yourself, man.”
I actually do glance down at myself, but I’m not sure what I’m supposed to see.
“You’re a fucking tank. Plus, you have all of us as backup. No one’s gonna be able to do anything to you,” he says. “You have the power this time. It’s not like when we were kids.”
I scrub my hands over my face, trying to pull myself together. He’s right.
“Are you ready, Madden?” Archer calls from the stairs.
“Yeah. Let’s go.”
The drive over to the Southside of town is silent. It’s been a long time since I’ve been here, but I know the place like the back of my hand. You had to, for the sort of drug running I was doing as a kid.
“How do you have updated intel on my brother?” I ask Kane, glancing at him in the rearview mirror.
“I make it my business to try and know everything that can be useful to us as a pack,” he shrugs. “Your brother played a big role in your life. Thought it’d be useful to keep tabs on him even if that info was never useful.”
My older brother was arrested when everything went down, but I don’t think he was actually charged with anything. That night was the last time I saw him. The night when he was prepared to sit by and watch them shoot me dead, executioner’s style.
All I know about him now is that he’s the leader of the gang my family was a part of.
We pull up to the broken-down warehouse. It’s ridiculously similar to the one I spent so much time in as a kid. There’re a couple of guys guarding one of the doors.
“We’ll follow your lead,” Archer says to me, gripping my shoulder. “We have your back.”
I give him a nod in appreciation, taking a deep breath before I open the door to the car.
The guys guarding the door have already seen us. We weren’t trying to be very subtle with our entrance and cars as expensive as ours just aren’t a thing here.
“Who the fuck’re you?” The younger guy asks, reaching into his pocket where I know he has a gun of his own. This guy is an alpha, but the older man standing beside him is a beta.
I feel a cloud that weighs heavily over my shoulders. The blood in my veins practically roars in my ears. Every single cell in my body is pumped up with so much adrenaline that I’m ready for anything.
“Your boss’s brother, now let me the fuck in and things won’t have to get ugly,” I growl, my dominance filling the air around me.
“Shit, I forgot how scary Madden can be,” I hear Chase whisper behind me.
I ignore them, but the two guys in front of me seem to agree with Chase, even the younger alpha.
I’m never really one to let my dominance run free. I don’t want to feed into the crazy, violent stereotypes of Southside alphas if I can help it.
There’s no need to hide anything down here.
“You—” The older beta’s eyes go wide with recognition. “You’re the traitor!”
I bare my teeth in a twisted grin. “You betcha, now are you gonna let us in?”
He’s stupider than I thought he’d be. He reaches into his own pocket, pulling out his gun like he’s going to shoot me. Understandable, considering those are probably the orders he was given. But still.
“Stupid move.” I pin him against the wall by the collar of his shirt, twisting his wrist so he drops the gun. I kick it backwards and out of reach. I’m pretty sure one of my guys picks it up.
I don’t really notice, because I’m too focused on the fear in this guy’s expression.
“Now are you gonna let us in or not?” I growl.
He shakes his head, gripping my wrist in his hands, feebly trying to pull me off of him. “The boss will kill me if I let you in.”
I sigh. I don’t know if I want the deaths of two strangers on my hands tonight .
I cock back my fist and knock the guy out cold.
“What the fuck!” The younger alpha grunts from beside me.
I see Chase has him pinned against the wall, his face pressed against the concrete.
Impressive, considering the other alpha is bigger than he is.
Not unexpected, though, considering how hard Chase has worked on his fighting skills since we were kids.
“We’re knocking these guys out?” Chase asks.
I nod. “Might as well let ourselves in so they don’t get in any more trouble than necessary.”
Chase nods, easily knocking the alpha he has pinned to the wall out cold.
“Will they still get in trouble?” Kane asks as I kick the door in.
“Probably. But whatever punishment they get will be better than getting killed if they let us in willingly,” I answer.
That isn’t important right now. We have bigger things to worry about.
“Shit, we probably shouldn’t have knocked out both of them,” I groan. “I forgot to ask them where my brother’s office is.”
“It’s okay,” Chase says, following behind me. “It shouldn’t be too hard to find. Just figure out whichever door has another set of guards in front of it, right?”
He is right.
It does make our lives easier. After knocking out those other two guards, I kick open the door to a dingy-looking office. My brother sits behind a desk, his head thrown back, eyes closed, and?—
“Holy shit! You’ve got your dick out!” Chase yells.
A beta woman jumps up from underneath the table as my brother scrambles to pull up his jeans.
“Fucking hell, what the fuck’s going on!” He roars, reaching for his gun on his desk.
Archer is quicker than he is and swipes it from the table faster than my brother can grab it. Kane has his gun drawn and aimed at his head .
“Don’t move,” Kane orders.
My brother’s eyes narrow as he slowly raises his hands up in the air.
“Long time no see, Maverick,” I say, drawing my brother’s eyes towards me.
“I don’t go by that name anymore, little brother,” he spits.
I don’t blame him. My mom was a little weird with the matching quirky M names.
“Well, I’m not gonna call you boss,” I shrug. “Good to see you’re doing well. Sorry for barging in like this. We didn’t expect you’d have… company over.”
The dark-haired beta woman is hiding behind my brother and she’s trembling in fear. If it weren’t for the way my brother has his body shifted to protect hers, I’d be concerned with how scared she seems.
But then again, having four armed men bursting in would be pretty scary, especially considering the types of people who run in my brother’s circles and how they probably have less than good intentions.
“What the fuck do you want,” Maverick spits.
“We’re not looking for trouble,” I answer.
“That’s not an answer to the goddamn question.”
“We need your help,” I answer, pulling out a picture of Luna we printed at home.
It’s a photo Kane took of her reading in his library.
Her golden hair shines in the light and she has a small smile that I’d do anything to see right now.
“We need to know whether you know anything about this omega being sold.”
“Why the fuck should I do anything to help you. Especially after all this,” he grunts.
I dig into my other back pocket and pull out a wad of cash, tossing it down onto the table.
“Ten thousand now, fifteen thousand after you have information to give us,” I answer .
He eyes the money before giving a slow nod. “What’s a fancy Northside pack doing looking to buy an omega?”
“We’re not fucking buying her,” Kane growls from behind me.
“Hey, you asked me about what I know about an omega being sold, what else am I supposed to think?” Maverick bites back.
“She’s in custody now, over on the Northside,” I explain. “We just want to figure out more about what happened to her.”
He nods slowly as if he’s thinking. “This may open up a can of worms you guys aren’t prepared for. But I’ll look. We don’t work in human trafficking but there’re definitely a shit ton of people that do.”
“Great. You can message me when you have something.” I reach into my pocket and pull out my business card, flicking it onto the table beside the wad of cash. “Sorry about coming in here unannounced. It won’t happen again.”
“It better not,” he grunts.
“Four of your guys are knocked out right now, you should probably check on them,” I say before turning and nodding at the others to follow me.