Chapter 35
Chapter Thirty-Five
SANTIAGO
It’s hard being in Aleksei’s presence and not killing him. If Quinn wasn’t with us, I’m positive I would have pulled the trigger or stabbed him a hundred times already. He’s given me plenty of openings, and while I’d be fulfilling Ronin’s request-slash-demand, I’m more motivated to kill him for me.
My mobile vibrates in my hand, Valentine’s name flashing on the screen, but I mute the call before it rings a second time.
“Stay close to Kade,” I whisper in her ear before I fall back to speak with Valentine in private. I dial his number and he answers before it rings twice.
“You hung up on my wife?” he snarls, and my stomach drops. In frustration. Seriously, the De Lucas view anything, and everything, as an offense when it comes to their wife.
“I don’t have time for you acting like this right now,” I snap back, meeting his aggression with my own. “Put the better—no, the best—part of your pack on the phone.”
He chuckles, and even with all the distance between us, I can feel his mood dropping from here. His voice is calm, but he is not. “And now instead of apologizing, you’re telling me what to do?”
I stop walking, squeezing my eyes shut as rage clouds our kinship. I don’t want to lose control and start yelling at Valentine, but I’m so close to losing it. We’ve had a good working relationship up to now, sometimes I’d even call him a friend, but he’s unnecessarily pushing boundaries.
While neither of us is speaking, I hear the soft but insistent voice of Layne in the background. And then I hear Valentine growling as his anger keeps rising. He clears his throat, starts counting backward, getting down to zero before he speaks to me again.
“Santiago, my friend.” His voice catches, and what he says is laced in sarcasm as he physically struggles to concede.
He’s only trying because Layne is there, forcing him to be nicer.
“I apologize for being rude. My darling wife is driving me crazy because she should be in bed, relaxing, but instead, she and Dante are working. Her heat is approaching.”
“In a week, Valentine! In a bloody week. Give me the phone.” A rustle sounds as she wrestles the phone from him. But before she speaks to me, she’s talking with him again. “Did you apologize properly? Val, look at me.”
A door slams before I hear a soft, feminine inhale. “Hey, Santiago, sorry about that. I didn’t take any offense that you hung up on me.”
“Your husband did,” I bite back, dealing with the flood of Alpha-hole in my system.
“It’s okay,” she placates gently but firmly. She’s no pushover herself. “Anyway, I got your message, and I am confident I’ll be able to help.”
I scoff, unable to stop my disbelief. “Even without seeing the documents in question?”
She doesn’t answer immediately. If I was looking at her, she’d be staring right through me. “Even without. What’s with the attitude?” Her tone is as cool as her attitude.
There’s another ruffle of movement in the handset as I get passed along again. “Did you give my wife shit? I don’t give a fuck about any alliance, Santiago, I’ll kill you if you…”
Valentine’s twin is just as volatile and equally unforgiving. Probably more so actually.
“Jesus Christ, Dante! Put Layne back on, or you can fuck off too. I don’t have time for you either. The one time I ask for fucking help, and it’s a goddamn circus.”
I hang up on the De Lucas for a second time, barely stopping from smashing my phone onto the ground.
I get it’s a poor move on my part, and I may have reacted a touch irrationally.
I refuse to put Quinn in any situation where I am not one-hundred-percent confident of her absolute safety, and the De Lucas just made me question our relationship.
Layne De Luca only recently opened her law practice, and I’ve been watching her success grow. She’s a killer for her clients, but if I can’t triple check her credentials, and motivation for the sake of my Omega, then I’ll look for another lawyer.
I catch up with them on their walk around the Petrov compound.
Quinn twists around as I approach while still talking with Aleksei.
They’ve been in and out of a few of the smaller buildings.
Given Sergey arranged the tour, I suspect he’ll quiz Quinn later, or there’s something here he wants her to see.
Neither prospect sits well, and the whole situation adds to my less-than-chipper mood.
“Anything interesting?” I ask Kade as I move next to him.
He cocks an eyebrow, and it takes me a second to register his sardonic stare.
I’m still annoyed after my call with the De Lucas, and it’s throwing me off my game.
Almost everything we see would be interesting from Kade’s perspective, considering his occupation.
The flight to get here was full of guarded revelations, but at the same time, we both needed to reach a point where we could rely on each other, for her sake.
His appointment to Interpol was something he’d spent his whole life aiming for, something to do with his sister getting involved in drugs when they were young, but he locked up tighter than a duck's asshole after our moment of sharing.
I make sure Aleksei isn’t listening when I rephrase my question. “Anything I need to be aware of in order to keep Quinn safe?”
He shakes his head quickly. “She’s fine.
Santiago, someone needs to stop the Petrovs.
Sergey is in deep, working with someone on a new drug, but it’s not a party drug, it’s designed like a tranquillizer.
If you add in the poor kids we saw at the reception, and those women who are clearly traffickers, it’s a fucking awful situation.
I’m not going to be able to let it go and not do something. ”
His words spill out of him, and his scent spikes before he looks away from me and takes a few steadying breaths, locking down his emotions and firmly putting his mask back on.
“Was it him that hurt your sister? Am I reading this right? Was it Sergey that gave your sister drugs?”
Kade turns back and he’s done a good job compartmentalizing, until his eyes fall on Aleksei. His features twist in ire. “How could Aleksei let this happen? We have to get her away from him and break their bond.”
I check where they are, flooded with relief we’re on the same page. I laugh unnecessarily, like we’ve shared a joke, slapping him on the back. “We abduct her and kill him. I know places we can hide out afterward.”
He talks out the side of his forced smile as he rejoins them. “Make it fucking happen.”
And in an instant, all the scratching sensation on my skin, and the all-consuming frustration that has been riding me hard, stops.
There’s immense relief that Kade sees and understands the situation.
What we have to do is going to be fucking horrific, especially the breaking of their bond, but I’d do anything to ensure Quinn is rid of the Russian.
Of course, I selfishly hope, at the end of this, she’s happy to be next to me and Kade, but if all that happens is she’s free, then I’d be equally happy.
Nothing is going to happen today. It will take us a few days to organize.
My phone buzzes in my pocket. Checking the screen, the text is from a different number, but it has to be Layne.
The tone of her message is what I was after all along—a promise to do her best and an assurance of client privilege and confidentiality.
There’s a second message, a generous offer to help in any situation.
She might have written that with or without her husbands’ knowledge; regardless, it’s an olive branch.
Given it looks like Kade and I are about to piss off a few Russians, I accept the peace offering with both hands.
“Quinn,” I call out. Aleksei and Kade stop, and the both of them jump straight into high alert. “It’s all good. Can I borrow you for a few minutes?”
Despite where we are, and what they’ve supposedly been seeing, she’s all smiles.
She turns first to Aleksei, talking quietly with him before doing the same with Kade.
I know her well enough to know she’s not asking for their permission.
As much as she tries to hide it, Quinn is an Omega at heart.
A generous one. It gives me hope that she’ll be able to forgive me one day.
She starts walking closer, and her sweet vanilla scent hits like a freight train.
I'm so in tune with it now, but it still stuns me with how it makes me feel.
I want to smear her scent all over my skin while I feast on her, though that daydream gets put on hold as reality sets back in when she looks at me in question.
“Do you have your phone?” I ask. The shift in my thoughts of ravishing her to protecting her is so natural.
“Of course.”
“I have someone for you to speak with. I’d offer you my phone, but I never want you to doubt my integrity or the lengths I’d go to protect you.” She doesn’t know it yet, but I apply that sentiment to more things than what she realizes.
She reaches for my hand, and the smile I get as she draws me closer is like seeing the sun for the first time after a long, cold winter.
“I trust you,” Quinn says.
I think she forgets where we are and the warning Aleksei gave us, or her heat is lingering. Either way, I want the easy, touchy-feely woman standing in front of me like I’ve never wanted anything.
“One day,” I murmur as I free my hands from hers.
“One day,” she confirms.
And I pray like never before that we do get that one day. Soon.
I pull my phone out before I decide today is the day. “The number I’m giving you is for Layne De Luca. She’s a lawyer in our world, and she has an impressive client list. But none of those things matters. I’m mostly sure I trust her, which is why I’m sharing her details.”
“Mostly?” Quinn laughs, but her eyes get guarded.