Chapter Thirty One
The Pack’s Apartment — Washington D.C
One Week Until the Election…
Ihave been through many shitty things in my life.
Roach-infested foster homes with angry, alcoholic parents that barely fed me and Dallas? Check.
Being stationed in the Middle East during a summer during some of the worst sandstorms on record to the point where we were stuck inside of tents for several day stints and I thought I was losing my mind? Check.
Having to watch a diplomat who was cheating on his saint of a wife with several other women all the while pretending to be the most magnanimous Christian to the public? Check, and check (and it happened more than once).
But none of that compared to the two weeks of torture following our involuntary administrative leave and being booted off of Lennon’s security team.
Every time I closed my eyes I saw the tension in her shoulders and felt the beginnings of her despair before she cut us off from her end of the bond completely.
So, needless to say, none of us were getting much sleep around the apartment.
Collier had put a rotating agent outside to make sure we weren’t wandering around selling our story to the nearest tabloid, so aside from leaving to pick up dinner we pretty much did things around the house.
My drug of choice was running.
I ran on the treadmill night and day. Running, running, and more running until I was so exhausted that, by the time I had showered and flopped into my bed that smelled nothing of cherries or wine, I was too tired to dream.
The other guys also had their own vices.
Zeke had posted up on the couch watching any and all news coverage of the election that he could get his eyeballs on, hoping for any glimpse of Lennon that he could get.
They were few and far in between but he always made sure to shout for us when he saw her.
Not that she looked to be in any better shape than we were. She was pale and drawn every time we saw her despite her make up team’s best efforts and her smile never reached her eyes.
I had stopped going to see whenever he called because it was starting to piss me off that they were trotting her out in front of thousands of people when she was clearly unhappy.
On the flip side, Maverick was constantly on the phone trying to get back into Collier’s good graces.
It had yet to work. The guy had been trying to get rid of us since the shooting in the Kennedy garden and pissing off the president by sleeping with her daughter was the perfect excuse to do so.
But that didn’t keep him from trying. Between that and fielding phone calls from his irate grandfather who was pissed at him for a mix of not telling him what was going on and becoming front page news and dragging the notoriously private Onassis family into the limelight, Maverick spent most of his time pacing from one end of the house to the other for the majority of the day.
The press had dug up any and all information they could about us and had splashed it across the news over the past couple of weeks when there was any lull in election coverage.
My and Dallas’s entire childhood as the children of a drug addicted, alcoholic mother, our time as foster children, hell they’d even managed to track down my ex who had no qualms about talking all about us to the press.
It was exhausting, but at the end of the day it was all noise.
All we wanted was to get Lennon back.
Because, for some of us, I was worried it may be life or death if we didn’t get her back soon.
Opening Dallas’s bedroom door, I stepped into the near-pitch black room and stared at my twin lying flat on his bed.
It had only been a few weeks since we were practically pulled out of the house in Cape Cod, but his cheeks had hollowed out considerably and he had deep purple smears under his eyes.
He’d had a hell of a panic attack on the car ride back to D.C. and it had taken the rest of us to keep him from jumping out on the highway and running back to Lennon who was almost assuredly already high above our heads in Marine One.
Dallas had looked wild, his instincts taking over entirely until one of the Secret Service agents had tranq’d him so we could get back to our apartment.
From there he had deteriorated quickly and I could count on one hand the times he’d been awake and coherent over the past two weeks.
The doctor we’d brought to the house had called it separation sickness. Something that happened rarely when an alpha and their omega were separated too soon after a bond was formed.
We missed Lennon and losing her felt like losing a piece of ourselves, but Dallas needed her.
Sitting on the edge of his bed, I brushed a hand over his sweaty forehead, frowning when I realized he had a fever again.
At my touch, his dazed green eyes opened. “Lennon?”
“No, Dall,” I told him softly. “It’s just me. Do you think you can eat something?”
But he was already closing his eyes, his unshaven chin falling to the side.
“We’re going to need to get him to the hospital soon, B,” Zeke said from the doorway, making me jump.
I looked back at him, knowing he was right but not wanting to admit it out loud.
It was my fault he was sick like this. I had pushed him into bonding with Lennon despite knowing we were playing with fire.
“Do you regret it?” I asked instead as I pressed my hand to my twin’s cheek, feeling the bone pressing into my palm. My jaw clenched as anger filled me.
“No,” the other alpha said simply. “I’m of the mind that all of the best things in life should be fought for.”
“But isn’t this too high of a price? I mean look at Dallas, and you’ve seen Lennon, all of that work we put into getting her taking care of herself… gone.”
I couldn’t understand Athena Holloway’s motive for treating her daughter this way. It was so damned obvious that she loved her daughter. She looked at her like she was the most important person in the world, and yet she went so far against her daughter’s wishes that it made my head spin.
Zeke said nothing, instead he gripped both of my shoulders and gave them a firm, comforting squeeze, his eyes on our sick pack mate.
“Hey,” Maverick said, knocking on the doorframe as he came in holding up his phone. “I’ve got Farrow on the phone.”
Zeke hurried to join him and I took a moment to tuck my brother securely in again before meeting them in the living room where they were already firing questions off at the former vice president.
“How is she? Has she asked about us?” Zeke was asking.
“How much longer do you think this is going to go on?” Maverick added in.
“Boys,” Farrow cut in, sounding exhausted. “I’m afraid that Bunny and I won’t have many answers for you. Unfortunately, Athena has cut us off due to our roles in your, ah, romantic rendezvous. We know about as much as you.”
Frustration filled my chest. “Why is she doing this? Why does she want to control Lennon so much?”
A heavy sigh came from the speaker. “Son, my daughter has had a very hard few years since losing her husband. It has made her very… protective over her children. Maybe overly so. I thought that she was making progress by promising Lennon she would let her live her life after this election, but now I’m not so sure if that would have happened.
My wife has been trying to get through to her but it’s been proving to be rather difficult. ”
Zeke snorted softly at that. We had all seen where Lennon inherited her stubbornness from in the living room that day.
“So what do we do now?” I asked flatly. “My brother is dying over here, which I’m sure the doctor we had over here has already told you.”
I was under no impression that we weren’t under heavy surveillance by Farrow Holloway and the rest of his people.
They wanted to make sure we weren’t trying to reach out to Lennon without their say so.
There was a long silence.
“Well, for one I can get your brother a place in the hospital. He needs specialized round the clock care that you three can’t provide.”
I felt my anger start to rise at his words. I could take care of my brother. We’d always taken care of each other throughout our lives and this would be no different.
“B,” Maverick said softly, probably feeling the hot flash of my rage through what was left of our bond without Lennon at the center. “He’s just trying to help.”
He was right, of course.
With a sigh, I planted both hands on the kitchen table and let my shoulders sink in surrender. “Thank you, Farrow. We’ll take you up on that.”
“And,” Farrow continued as if my agreement to put Dallas in the hospital had been a foregone conclusion. “I may have an idea on how we can get a message to Lennon to bridge the gap until the election.”
That made all of us sit up a little straighter.
Maverick glanced at Zeke and then at me. “We’re listening.”