Chapter 7
seven
RANSOM
My blood was absolutely singing.
It had been running hot and fast since the second I walked into the kitchen and caught the bright, sweet punch of her scent.
It hadn’t stopped. I was buzzing with the kind of raw, feral adrenaline I usually only felt right before the chute opened and two thousand pounds of angry bull tried to put me in the dirt.
But this was infinitely better.
I grabbed two cold beers from the fridge, then strode out into the cool night.
The kids were safe at my mother’s house for a sleepover, which meant the ranch was uncharacteristically quiet.
No toddler chaos, no Wyatt asking Stetson a hundred questions before bed.
Just the vast, open dark and the heavy reality that our entire world had shifted on its axis today.
Stetson, Boone, and the others were already out back at the firepit. I detoured toward the barns.
His scent signature hit me before I saw him, dark and unapproachable, thick enough to choke on, bleeding out of the shadows near the open bay doors.
I stopped at the edge of the gravel and tossed one of the bottles into the dark.
A hand shot out and snatched it from the air before it could hit the dirt.
“Brooding in the dark is terrible for your mental health, brother,” I drawled, leaning my shoulder against the weathered wood of the doorframe. “Come have a drink.”
Colt looked up from the hay bale he was perched on, and the moonlight caught the hard, punishing lines of his face. His thumb was rhythmically stroking the silver chain around his neck, a nervous tic he’d carried for three years. He looked gutted.
“I’m fine right here,” Colt rasped.
“No, you aren’t.” I twisted the cap off my own beer and took a long pull. “You walked away from her today. Stetson said you didn’t even give her a chance.”
Colt’s jaw flexed, giving away his defensiveness. “She doesn’t need me crowding her. If the pack wants her, you keep her. I’m not standing in your way. I’m not going to be the reason we lose something else.”
The agonizing guilt in his voice stripped the easy teasing right out of my system. He was carrying the weight of Easton’s death like an anchor chained around his heart, convinced he didn’t deserve to share in the warmth sitting up in our house right now.
“Nobody is asking you to step aside,” I told him, keeping my words steady.
“If we keep her, if she stays, she’s yours too.
But I’ll tell you right now, she isn’t the kind of woman who’s going to wait around while you figure out if you’re allowed to be happy, especially if she reads your standoffishness as rejection. ”
Colt stared at the uncapped beer in his hand. “I won’t force her to stay. That’s her choice.”
“Damn right it’s her choice,” I agreed. “But trust me when I say I know you, Colt. You can’t keep chasing shadows.
We’ve all loved and lost, but that’s no reason to deprive ourselves of a future.
Easton wouldn’t want you to be miserable and alone.
” I let that sink in, feeling the words in my soul, because Colt wasn’t the only one who’d lost someone.
“Think about it, alright? Now let’s go. I’m bringing your ass to the fire. ”
I didn’t wait for him to argue. I turned and walked toward the backyard oasis, knowing he’d follow. Colt wouldn’t abandon the pack, even when he desperately wanted to abandon himself.
The fire was already roaring by the time we reached the stone patio.
Flames snapped and spit into the night air, casting long, dancing shadows across the faces of my packmates, who I considered to be my brothers.
Boone was leaning forward, poking a heavy iron rod into the embers.
River sat in the oversized Adirondack chair to my left, his graham cracker scent rolling out in a calm, steady wave, though his amber eyes were too sharp.
Stetson was standing by the stone retaining wall, nursing a glass of dark amber whiskey. Gideon sat closest to the fire, looking like a man waiting for a jury verdict.
I dropped into the empty chair next to my twin, stretching my booted legs out toward the heat. Colt lingered at the edge of the light, folding his tall frame onto a cedar stump.
“Alright,” Stetson rumbled, his timber cutting through the crackle of burning wood.
His scent was dominant and thick, carrying the absolute authority of the pack leader.
“She’s asleep. The kids are gone. Let’s talk about the elephant in the room.
” He shot a heavy glare at the Beta. “Or, more accurately, the Omega Gideon hijacked from the registry.”
Gideon didn’t flinch. “I did what I had to do.”
“You stole our scents,” Stetson corrected, “and forged my signature on the forms.”
“Are we really going to sit here and pretend we’re mad about it?” I interrupted, barking a laugh. I looked around the circle. “Stetson, you were literally vibrating in the kitchen. Boone practically spoon-fed her. And I don’t think Riv has blinked since we walked through the front door.”
River took a slow sip of his beer. “She’s stunning.”
“She’s a goddamn force of nature is what she is,” Stetson muttered, taking a swallow of his whiskey.
“She has her guard up so high I couldn’t even see the top of it.
I challenged her today, and she didn’t flinch once.
Just looked me dead in the eye and calmly offered to call a jet to take her back to New York.
She handed me the out like it wouldn’t completely tear this pack apart. ”
“So, what’s the verdict?” Boone asked quietly. He rested the iron rod against the stones and looked up, his shoulders relaxed but his dark eyes intensely focused. “Are we keeping her, or are we putting her back on a jet to New York tomorrow? I know what I want, but I’m only one of six.”
The loaded question hung in the air.
“We aren’t sending her anywhere,” River answered immediately, the conviction in his voice brooking zero argument.
“Stetson already admitted it would tear us apart if she left, so how is this even a question? In case you hadn’t noticed, she’s our scent match.
That changes everything. There is no reality where we put her on a plane. ”
Stetson sighed, dragging a rough hand down his beard. The fight drained right out of him, leaving only the exhausted truth. “No. We aren’t. My inner Alpha nearly clawed its way out of my chest when she threatened to call her brothers.”
Gideon let out a long, slow breath, resting his forearms on his knees as he stared into the fire. “Good. Because her brothers would probably murder us in our sleep if they thought we rejected and disrespected their sister…”
The shift in the Beta’s tone made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. Even Colt shifted on his cedar stump, the crunch of his boots against the gravel signaling he was finally paying attention.
“What aren’t you telling us, Gid?” Stetson demanded, his eyes narrowing.
“Her name is Julia Cristenello,” Gideon said quietly.
I let out a low, sharp whistle. “The Silver City Cristenellos?” I asked, my mind recalling the national headlines I’d seen over the years. “The organized crime family?”
Gideon nodded. “According to her file, she registered under her mother’s maiden name to hide it for a while, but apparently something happened and she went back to using her given surname.
She’s twenty-four, boys. She was designated at eighteen.
For six years, she has been sitting at the OMA, dodging courtship offers because every pack who caught wind of her real identity just wanted to sink their teeth into her family’s money and power. They didn’t want her.”
A vicious spike of protective rage flared in my chest. “Bastards.”
“So she thinks we’re just another pack looking for a payout?” Boone asked, his jaw tightening. “Or looking to use her?”
Gideon shook his head, his gaze tracking the dancing orange flames.
“No. If there’s one saving grace to this whole mess, it’s that she found our profiles by accident.
I don’t have the exact details on how it happened, but I had agreed to a different match with a scent sympathetic Omega when I got a phone call from my OMA representative.
She stopped the original pairing and told me we suddenly had an unquestionable scent match.
She overnighted Julia’s information and her scent card, and the rest is history.
” He dragged a hand through his ash-brown hair.
“Given how far we are from her old life, I don’t think she’s worried we’re using her for power or a payout.
Though she wasn’t exactly thrilled when she learned about my little... uh... plan.”
“You mean deception,” Colt said dryly from his cedar stump, the bitter edge of his scent curling through the smoke.
Gideon winced, offering no defense.
I didn’t give a damn about the logistics. I just cared about the woman sleeping upstairs. I reached across the space between the chairs and snagged the thick manila folder resting on the stones beside Gideon’s boots. “What else do you know about her?”
I flipped the file open on my lap. My pulse gave an enthusiastic kick against my ribs.
A glossy, high-resolution photograph stared back at me.
Dark, fiery eyes, a confident tilt to her chin, and a pretty, bow-shaped mouth built for pure sin.
Tucked into the front pocket of the folder was her official OMA scent card.
I pulled the heavy paper free, brought it directly to my nose, inhaling deeply.
A satisfied groan rumbled up my throat as the intoxicating hit of her sweet fruity signature flooded my senses all over again.
I forced my eyes to actually focus on the printed text beneath her picture. A wide, giddy grin stretched across my face as I scanned the administration’s red-inked notes. “Oh, this is fantastic. According to the OMA, she’s a documented troublemaker.”
Stetson released a low laugh. “Could’a told you that.”