Chapter 16 Connall
Connall
“You just have to be brave enough to try.”
Elias’s words are a direct hit to something in Connall that he’d long thought he’d locked down. They’re meant to be encouraging. A boost to Connall’s day of self-doubt, a balm to the churning shame and panic that had been riding him since he escaped.
He won’t deny that it had been an escape, not from something he didn’t want, but from something he did. Desperately.
The words—and Elias’s trusting hand in his—are how he ends up in his shirt sleeves, his usual bespoke armor draped over the back of his locked office chair.
They carry him straight into the lobby of All’s End, where Opal’s surprised smirk prickles at the back of his neck.
He’s still trying to figure out how to get to Isaac without Beau’s bulletproof SUV, without Beau at all—because Beau isn’t answering, and Connall’s running out of options.
If he’s really being honest, the words and the soft hand are the reason he’d said he’d see Isaac at all—despite how the mere thought has Connall’s palms so sweaty, Elias couldn’t help but feel them.
Because underneath all the sweaty palms and the uncharacteristic behavior, he can’t be surprised that his wolf is so eager.
They’d been born to build a pack.
Connall can at least admit that to them both.
“We could take a cab? Or an Uber?” Elias’s voice is hesitant, softened by Connall’s uncertainty. It pulls Connall out of his thoughts—away from the anxious spiral, from the realization that he’s about to get what he wants at the worst possible time. His life has never felt less in his control.
And that’s exactly why he can’t take a chance with Elias’s safety.
They won’t be riding around Nashville in an indefensible car driven by a stranger.
Vincenzo or the Takashiro scouts will have to work harder if they want to take Elias from him for something so mundane as a ride to the hospital.
The reminder that Isaac is unprotected at Lupine General makes his wolf pace and grind their teeth.
“No, it’s not sa—” Connall cuts himself off. He won’t frighten his mate. And he certainly won’t admit—even to himself—that Elias’s original fears about him at Quest might not have been wrong.
Opal makes a not-so-subtle cough from behind them. “You have a warehouse full of wheels, Boss. Just choose one. Personally, I like the—” Opal’s familiar lecture is interrupted when her phone rings. She answers it, waving them off with a wink.
She’s right, as usual.
Patrick Carnell’s fleet of status symbols is right next door under lock and key.
It’s not that Connall had forgotten they’re there (he has); it’s that they were Carnell’s pride and joy, and all of them were stolen from those who got tangled in his web or were purchased off the backs of drug addicts, human trafficking, and child prostitution.
“You have a warehouse full of cars?” Elias asks, surprised. He pushes open the big oak door, pulling Connall along after him. “Where? Can we walk there?”
Opal gasps behind them, and just before the big door shuts, Connall hears, “Holy shit. No fucking way. Can you handle it, or should I come down? I can get Billy on the door.”
The last hope that he could catch Beau for a ride disappears when he realizes there’s some emergent issue in the pits. He trusts that Beau and Opal have it covered, and so long as no one has died—or needs to—he’ll leave them to it.
Urging Elias along lest he hear more about the illegal fighting den under Connall’s legitimate bar, he turns toward the warehouse next door.
Under Patrick Carnell’s tenure, the huge building had been used to store drugs and weapons, shipments moving mostly in daylight hours while the bar’s patrons slept off their sins.
With no fear of the authorities, the old man’s empire had run without pause, day and night.
When Connall took over, he sold the mansion with its showroom garage and had the cars—some of them one of a kind, some custom-built—moved here. He’d meant to sell them, too, but somewhere along the way it had fallen off the list of priorities.
“You keep cars in here?” Elias asks as he trots along behind him.
“Yeah, I can’t even be sure they have gas or where the key fobs are.” He does remember the code to the security door, however, and he keys it in before pushing it open.
“How can you not know what’s in here? They’re your cars, right?”
“Fuck no. They’re mine now. I sort of—” Connall shrugs. “Inherited them.”
The alarm system begins its high-pitched warning, but Connall gets the code entered just in time.
Fluorescent lights flicker to life one by one, their low hum irritating his wolf as row after row of Patrick Carnell’s cars come into view.
Each dusty shape is a monument to opulence and greed, enough to turn his stomach.
The sale of a single one could fund the food kitchen at The Church of the Divine Goddess for a year, and his fingers itch to text Ollie—to have their contact at Sotheby’s here by morning.
“Holy shitballs. Is that a Rolls-Royce Ghost?” His voice is full of awe, but he leaves his hand in Connall’s instead of trying to get a closer look.
Even though they’re not Connall’s cars, and even though he loathes the excess luxury, his wolf still likes Elias’s soft voice, twitching nose, and bright lemon-tea curiosity. He wants to bask in the feeling that, in some small way, he’s responsible for impressing his mate.
“There are fifty-six cars in here.” He doesn’t look at Elias. “We should choose one and get to Isaac.”
Elias’s face falls, and his scent turns to shame. “You’re right, shit. We’ve been gone a long time.”
Connall doesn’t know how to begin to comfort him. He hates the droop to his shoulders and how he shifts his weight from side to side. The quicker they get to Isaac, the quicker everyone will feel better.
The cars are lined up in long rows, dark, dusty, and neglected, but the rack of key fobs is neatly labeled.
“Fuck, this is a bad idea. They probably won’t even start.”
Elias laughs softly. “We won’t know unless we try. Or we could always take that cab?”
Choosing a random fob, Connall clicks the unlock button, clenching his jaw when nothing happens.
The label says Rolls-Royce. He hangs it back up and chooses another.
A Maserati by the logo, and when he presses the unlock button, the lights flash once on a forest green Maserati nearby before they flicker off.
“We’re going to be here all night,” he growls under his breath, really starting to sweat when a Lamborghini’s lights do the same.
“Is there anything older than the 1980s here?” Elias asks, pushing his glasses up his pointy nose, and rummaging through the fobs looking for something specific.
“The car batteries in older cars last longer. Not as much electronic parasitic drain or some shit. Eureka! Oooh…a Mustang. Hmmm…where are you hiding…?”
He waves the metal keys with a triumphant grin before pulling Connall after him down the first row of cars and then the second until he finds what he’s looking for.
It’s a beautiful, white classic Mustang. Probably older than he and Elias combined, but one Connall remembers Patrick Carnell had treasured. He called it his 007 car, with the smug certainty of a man who thought every beautiful car belonged in a spy film.
“Ohhh, it’s gorgeous.” He pulls Connall over to the driver’s side. “A 1967 Ford Mustang V8 automatic in Wimbledon White. Way more reliable than the Maserati. My dad would be freaking out right now.”
Why the idea that Elias has parents comes as a surprise to Connall, he can’t say. Of course, he has parents. He probably comes from a nice little family in suburban Tennessee.
It’s a strange feeling to be with someone he knows nothing about.
There’s no carefully formulated dossier on Elias Durand sitting on his hard drive, no list of idiosyncrasies and pressure points mapped out for Connall’s plans.
A tingle of something sizzles down his spine.
Anticipation. Curiosity. Maybe. But he finds that, at the very least, he doesn’t mind.
“What’s so special about this one?”
“It’s a real time capsule. Looks factory.” Elias grins, cheeks pink. “My dad restores cars for a living. Have you heard of Wild Steel Restorations in Memphis? That’s my dad and his crew. The mid-century American era is his favorite.”
“And he’s passed on his love of cars to you?” Connall asks, genuinely curious.
“I guess? I mean, I can change the oil and the tires. But Dad? He loves cars. Loves the history. It’s how he met my Pops.”
The scent hits him the second he opens the driver’s side door—Patrick’s rancid olive oil scent, faint but still nauseating, like memory trying to rot its way back in.
“Oh, hey. Are you okay?” Eyebrows down over his beautiful eyes, now full of worry and not fond memories of his family.
Connall feels a squeeze to his hand. They’d been like this for so long, Connall had forgotten that Elias still hadn’t let go of his hand. Not since Connall had come around from behind his desk and offered it had his beta let go.
Now Elias uses it as a tether, drawing Connall up and away from the car so he can press his other palm to his cheek.
“When did you eat last? You should—” Elias stops himself, teeth catching his lower lip.
The gesture is so gentle. Loving, almost. The kind of thing that lovers shared when times were tough, and they needed a simple touch to just keep going. It hits him that he’s not had this level of physical comfort in decades, and that it doesn’t bother him like he’d thought it would.
He likes it so much that he could easily become addicted to it.
Connall removes Elias’s hand from his jaw—the loss of heat feels wrong. “We should go.”
“Oh. Yeah. Sure.” Elias’s eyes shift away, but he visibly gathers himself. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have done that. I mean, we hardly know each other—”