Chapter 33 Soren
Soren
“He dances, right?” Connall asks, his voice controlled. “Where?”
Soren wishes they’d had time to work through all the ways their new pack had missed each other in the city over the years. To talk about the coincidences and the ways Fate had tried to push them together. Instead, every conversation feels like a minefield waiting to explode.
“The Glory Hole.”
Connall slams on the brakes and pulls the truck to the side of the road, heedless of the blaring horn from the city bus behind them. “The Hole? My club?” His scent is even colder than his gaze. “For. How. Long?”
Soren didn’t know, and Quinn hadn’t shared the details, especially since most of their time had been spent fucking and avoiding anything that might make it harder to leave afterward.
“Little more than a year, I think. Cage work only, but not for any lack of trying on Jewel’s part.
She’s a…” Soren lets the word trail away.
He’s not one for calling women names, even ones who would stab you in the back and sell your organs on the black market for fun and a fifty-dollar bill—but crazy bitch easily comes to mind.
Connall growls, and he pounds a fist on the steering wheel. “Fuck. She’s dirty and deep in Vincenzo’s pocket, Ren.”
That shouldn’t be a surprise, and Soren supposes it’s not that Jewel is a Vincenzo spy, it’s that Connall had allowed her to keep breathing. “What? Why is she still running The Hole if you know she’s a plant?”
Connall sighs and slides the car back into traffic, his foot a little heavier on the gas than before.
“She was Carnell’s asset when they liked to run—” He looks to Isaac, whose head is following their conversation like it’s the Wimbledon final.
Elias, on the other hand, looks pale and has bitten his lower lip, leaving it bloody.
“Hey, mouse. Stop that. You’re making yourself bleed.” Soren pulls the soft lip from between sharp white teeth and uses his thumb to wipe away the drops of fresh blood.
“Sorry.”
“Yeah, fuck that.” Soren sucks the blood off and then offers his hand. “Squeeze this instead. It’s going to be all right.” Not for the first time since they left the safe house, Soren wishes he’d let Isaac convince him that they should bond when they had the chance.
Connall looks regretful but continues. “She ran some shady shit. Well, shadier shit, and when I cut her off, she turned to other revenue sources.”
Soren knows exactly what trafficked in and out of the club before Carnell was put down. “So why not just take her out back and shoot her?”
Connall huffs. “Contrary to my burgeoning reputation, I try not to shoot people. And it suited us to feed her information. Better the devil you know, right?”
Made sense to Soren, but it hadn’t made keeping Vincenzo out of Connall’s hair any easier.
Sometimes he’d just wanted to mow them all down and raze their headquarters to the ground.
Salt the earth and make sure none of them live to plant the seeds of growth in Nashville again.
The Carnells and the Vincenzos did similar work—liked the chaos and fear their brand of evil wrought on the people in their territory.
It was as if they got off on being extra evil, less a business opportunity and more a kink.
“How had I not known Quinn danced there? I’m in there every week, for fuck’s sake.” Connall hits the steering wheel again. He sighs and runs a hand through his wavy hair. “Not that I would have done anything but run the other way.” He gives a self-deprecating snort.
Isaac rubs his nose on Connall’s shoulder, and the cab suddenly smells like key lime comfort. “It’s okay, Alpha. You know now, and we’re all together…or we will be soon, right? You can make sure she’s being nice to Quinn and Kai…and make sure they don’t leave us again.”
“Yeah, baby. I’m going to do my best.” He makes another left at a light, not waiting for it to change to green. The early morning traffic is so light that he’s ignoring all the traffic signals, keeping a steady, fast pace toward the club.
A faint buzzing fills the car, and Connall fumbles for the phone as he runs a red light, this time narrowly missing a tractor-trailer with a photo of a giant hamburger on the side.
“Fuck. Answer that, will you?” He hands the phone to Soren.
A photo of Beau Johnson’s smiling face fills the screen. It’s disarming, given he’s never looked at Vexley without his heavy brows down over his narrowed eyes—usually in exasperation and with muttered oaths about bodies and cleanup. Soren answers, “Yeah?”
He’s met with silence. “Con?”
Connall brakes as an unhoused person crosses the intersection at a snail’s pace. He waits until the man is on the other side before making a right. “Yeah. Where the fuck are you?”
“I was just going to ask you the same thing. You’re in town?”
“Yeah, handling some…stuff.”
“You got a runner?” Beau snorts. “Karma’s a bitch.”
“Fuck off. How do you know this shit?” It’s followed by a quick smile.
“I’ll never tell. I got my fingers in a lot of pies.” It’s followed by a pained oof. “Hey! I’m driving. You wanna crash this, beauty? Ow! Why must you hurt me?”
Whoever Beau is speaking to is too quiet for Connall’s phone to detect, but Soren has stopped listening.
As Connall turns toward The Hole, billowing black smoke and a reddish-orange glow rise on the horizon, bright enough to match the morning sun.
He cracks a window, and the wind carries the scent of melting plastic and smoke.
Something is burning hot and fast, and someone used a fuckton of accelerant to do it.
A sliver of dread courses down his spine.
For one stupid second, his mind tries to make it anything else—an overturned truck or a dumpster.
Isaac goes unnaturally still beside him, all restless energy gone at once, and Elias makes a small sound in the back of his throat like he’s already trying not to cry.
“Connall, is that—” Elias whispers.
Soren knows the answer before Connall can answer. The Hole is on fire.
“Beau, get emergency vehicles to The Hole, now.”
“That’s why I’m calling. Already on it. Wait…are you incoming?” Beau groans.
“I’m already there.”
“Goddess-fucking-dammit. Wait for me. I’ll see you in ten.” Beau disconnects.
They rocket into the parking lot, and the fire is worse at the back of the building and along the side.
“Look!” Elias points, and there, at the side of the building, is Connall’s white Mustang.
“They’re inside?” Isaac asks, and it’s followed by a moan.
In the next instant, he’s trying to climb over Soren to get out the passenger side before Connall has even thrown the car into park.
He’s got the window down and his head halfway out.
Only Soren’s hands around his waist keep him from pitching out headfirst when Connall slams the car to a stop far enough back to leave room for the emergency vehicles.
“Stay here, Izzy.” Soren opens the door. “I mean it. I can’t worry about both of you, too. Eli, keep him here.”
“No! Kai and Quinn are inside! They’re inside!” Isaac cries, struggling against Elias, who has him in a bear hug as he struggles.
“We don’t know that, Izzy. Let them work,” Elias says, tears on his cheeks betraying his words. “Be safe.”
Connall takes off at a run toward the front doors, where only a little smoke has seeped out from the glass doors.
Soren follows easily, catching up. Even thirty feet away, the heat is intense enough to sting.
“They’re inside, Con. Fuck.”
“I’m going in,” Connall has torn the sleeve off his white shirt and is trying to wrap it around his head to cover his nose and mouth. They’re close enough now to see that there’s brownish blood and hair splattered over the glass, and a single smallish bloody handprint.
Soren breathes through his mouth, worried for an instant that he might smell burning coconut under the chemical accelerant and smoke.
He can’t let Connall go in. He’s their Alpha—the glue holding them together, and if he goes, he takes Isaac and Elias with him.
“You can’t. You’re Alpha. It has to be me.”
“No, absolutely not,” Connall insists, his face transformed into a rictus of fear. “I just found you.”
“It has to be me. We can’t wait for the firefighters. This place is in a low-service zone. There’s no way they’re making this pile of shit a priority at eight in the morning.”
Connall is shaking his head. “No. It’s my responsibility, Ren. Mine. You’re all mine.” The words are growled out, and his hands are claws at his sides.
Soren wants to soothe his mate, feels their bond burning with Connall’s conflicted fear, but they’re out of time. “Every minute we spend arguing, the fire gets worse, and Quinn and Kai could be—”
“No,” Connall says again, but he lets Soren take the white fabric from his hand.
Just then, a familiar purple car carrying Mario Vincenzo and two of his biggest goons pulls up. They don’t get out, but the car sits, idling menacingly.
The same old instincts to protect Connall surge, and his claws drop. This is what he’s been doing since he followed Connall to New York—standing between his Alpha and the worst the world can throw at them, even when Connall didn’t know. Especially then.
But Quinn and Kaian are inside. He meets Connall’s gaze and nods toward Vincenzo’s flashy Cobra GT. “You got this?”
Connall’s eyebrows go up, but he nods. “Bring them out, Ren. And for fuck’s sake, don’t die.”
Soren grins to hide his fear for Quinn and Kaian, and for his Alpha, who he has never—not once—let fend for himself.
“Yeah, you too.” He kisses Connall hard just to hear him groan.
He finishes tying the white sleeve around his face and picks up the heavy trash can beside the door. The plastic bag inside has already melted to the rim; it’s metal hot under his hands. “Stand back.”