Chapter 23 - Gabriel
“I knew something like this was going to happen,” Bridget said, distraught. She was pacing the living room, gripping the roots of her hair with wild eyes. “He’s going to die and it’s my fault.”
Maggie had just called to tell us someone had attacked Nathan, and the police had been dispatched for shots fired at his apartment. She promised to let us know as soon as she had any other information.
“He’s going to be okay,” Andrew said, trying to sound soothing. He was watching Bridget pace like he wanted nothing more than to grab and hold on to her, but he hadn’t touched her at all.
My heart broke for her. I knew what it was like to feel responsible for someone else’s pain, even if it wasn’t fair or true.
The burner phone buzzed again.
“I wish I had more to tell you guys. There’s nothing useful at the scene, just a bunch of blood, an enthusiastically unhelpful roommate, and his girlfriend, who keeps asking if they’ll be on the news,” Maggie said grimly.
I could hear the murmur of voices in the background, a distant siren abruptly cut off.
She had called in a lot of favors to get access to Nathan’s apartment.
She dropped her voice lower. “The assigned detective thinks Nathan might be dead, actually. Which is good for us.”
“It is?” Bridget asked.
“We don’t know how they found out about you being with us. And not everyone in this department is squeaky clean. So yeah, let’s let them think he’s dead for a while.”
“Corruption,” I said, the word bitter in my mouth. It had been a fact of life in Italy as well.
Bridget’s face blanched in horror. “But we can’t just let people think he’s dead! What about his friends? His mom?”
“Yeah, I’m not saying it’s ideal. Speaking of, he obviously can’t come home. Any ideas on where he could stay?”
Bridget looked at me, then Andrew.
“Bring him here,” Andrew said before I could answer. “We’ve got room.”
“Alright, I’ll have Soren call you. Just… keep Nathan where you can see him for now.” Maggie cut the call.
“Are you sure about this?” Bridget asked into the silence that followed. Her expression of mingled gratitude and misery broke my heart even further. “You don’t even know him.”
“But you do. And no friend of yours is going to get hurt if I can help it,” Andrew said softly, finally reaching for her. He gripped her hand tightly for a moment before letting go. The bond was a jumble of desire, anxiety, and determination.
“We will do the same as before,” I said firmly. “Let me call Jason.”
After I made the arrangements, I circled the couch and grabbed her hands. “Per favore, carissima, sit down. I will be back before you know it with your friend.”
It would complicate things even more. Another Alpha in the house, with an unbonded Omega, would certainly cause issues. But we would handle it.
She nodded, but still looked lost. I tugged on the bond. Andrew walked up cautiously, then opened his arms with a small smile. “It’s going to be okay. We promise.”
Bridget hesitated for a second, then embraced him. He sank into the armchair with her in his lap, purring loudly.
“I will be back soon,” I murmured. Andrew met my eyes with a grim look. He was already calculating the trouble to come. But until then, Bridget was in excellent hands with my Alpha.
Nathan Manalo was exactly as I remembered him. Stoic. Severe. Handsome, but stern. As we drove back to the apartment, he said little, and his citrusy, woodsy scent was strong but not unbearable.
“Is she alright?” was his first and only question.
“Si. And she is very anxious to see you.” I started the long, confusing route I’d planned. It took us through a tunnel, into two separate parking garages, and then back through the tunnel.
“Thank you,” he said when we parked in the garage attached to our building. “I know this is an imposition.”
I turned off the ignition. Silence fell. “Do you love her?”
Nathan looked sharply at me. He didn’t respond.
“You do. I am Italian. We are experts in love,” I said with a rueful smile. “It is only fair to tell you, we love her too. Maybe not the way you do, but it is growing every moment we spend together.”
“Why are you telling me this?” His voice was clipped. “It’s none of my business.”
“Because I will not have you fighting over her. Andrew will control himself. Will you?” I didn’t mean to sound aggressive, but I needed him to understand.
“Yes,” he said simply.
“Bene. Then we go up.”
I knocked on the door to let them know we’d arrived. The flood of emotions in the bond was nearly overwhelming, and I didn’t want to walk in on anything that might bring the inevitable tension to a head so soon.
The lock scraped, and the door swung inward. Bridget’s eyes found Nathan and welled with tears. “You’re okay. I’m so sorry for getting you involved in this—”
“No apologies.” Nathan interrupted her gently. “It was my choice.”
“Let us go inside,” I reminded them. Bridget’s eyes flicked to me, and she stepped back to let us in. I crossed quickly to where Andrew was watching the scene unfold and placed a hand on his arm. “Calm, mi amore,” I murmured. He nodded, distracted.
Nathan stood awkwardly in the kitchen, his hands in the pockets of an ill-fitting black wool coat. I pitied him walking into another Alpha’s home.
“Can I hug you?” Bridget asked, her voice breaking slightly.
Nathan’s look of surprise was there and gone in a flash. “Yes,” he said, after the barest hesitation.
Bridget wasted no time embracing him. He responded with careful movements, and when his left arm wrapped around her back, he gave a hiss of pain.
“You’re hurt,” Bridget said, and pulled out of his arms. “What happened?”
“I was shot,” Nathan said in his deadpan tone.
“With a gun?” Bridget’s voice went up a full octave.
Nathan gestured with his forearm. “Yes. But it’s fine.”
I rolled my eyes. Alpha pride. “This is what all the Alphas say until they are nearly dying from an infection. Let me see it.”
He opened his mouth, to protest probably, but then he looked at Bridget again.
He shrugged out of his coat. The shirt underneath was soaked in blood from elbow to wrist. Bridget gasped, and it admittedly made my stomach turn. There hadn’t been this kind of violence in my life for years, and certainly not since meeting Andrew.
“I wrapped it already. The bleeding slowed down,” he said, as if this wasn’t a gruesome sight. When he rolled up the sleeve to show a measly strip of gauze, already scarlet from his blood, he looked surprised. “Oh. I thought it slowed down.”
“Fucking hell, man, that looks nasty,” Andrew said, looking at Nathan with something approaching respect. I rolled my eyes.
“Ci sei o ci fai?” I asked Nathan angrily. “Are you truly this stupid? Sit down.”
Call it paranoia or just preparedness, but I had a full medical kit in the bathroom. I retrieved it and stalked back to the living room. Nathan was on the couch, Bridget next to him.
Andrew was keeping his distance, but he watched the two of them carefully. I arrayed the tools I’d need on the coffee table and propped the moron’s arm with a stack of towels to soak up the blood.
“This will hurt,” I said, then started disinfecting the wound.
To his credit, Nathan kept his stoicism throughout the cleaning. It was a nasty graze, the edges ragged, and there were bits of fabric from his shirt stuck to his skin.
“See? You would have had a nasty infection,” I told him, using a gloved finger to show him the stray material. “This is going to hurt even worse,” I warned.
Bridget grabbed his right hand and squeezed while I plucked the embedded fabric away and rinsed the wound again. While I cut away the ragged bits of flesh with a pair of small scissors, Nathan turned his head towards Bridget with another hiss of pain. She was watching me work.
Once I was satisfied, I threaded the needle. “Ready?”
Nathan set his jaw. “Yes.”
When I finished the last stitch, Andrew stepped forward to carry the bloody towels to the laundry room. “You good?” he asked Nathan. Nathan’s head wobbled in what could have been a nod. “I’ll get you a drink.”
“You will probably not die now,” I said, wrapping his arm firmly in gauze. Nathan looked pale and sweaty from the pain.
“How do you know how to do that?” Bridget asked while I placed all the used tools in a bag to be thrown away. She was still clutching Nathan’s right hand, her fingers white from the intensity of her grip.
“Remember, carissima, I worked for bad men. There was always a need for someone to stitch a wound.” I removed my used gloves and didn’t say that it was Matteo who often needed stitches.
Now that the most pressing matter was resolved, we needed to settle the next issue.
The apartment’s third bedroom was small and had only a futon, some spare exercise equipment, and the other clutter Andrew had shoved in there when he was preparing for Bridget’s arrival.
I felt guilty putting our newest houseguest in there, but kicking Bridget out of her room was not happening.
The best option would be for Bridget to move into our room, but I didn’t think she would respond well to the suggestion, especially now that Nathan had arrived.
Do not think about it, I told myself for the fiftieth time that day. There would be a correct moment to dissect the complicated feelings I had about her sharing our bed, in more ways than one, but now was not the time.
While Nathan sipped from the glass of whiskey Andrew had poured for him, we showed him the futon he would obviously not fit on. “This is great, thank you.”
“You can have the other room,” Bridget said quickly. “I don’t need that much space and the bed is way more comfortable—”
“No way,” Andrew said at the same moment that Nathan said, “Absolutely not.” They exchanged a look. Andrew’s eyes flashed with a challenge.
“You are both saying the same thing, amore mio,” I whispered before a fight for dominance could erupt. It had only been thirty minutes. They could at least have the decency to wait twenty-four hours.
I had seen this play out before. When a new member joined Pack Agnello, there was always an uneasy period during which they had to work out their position in the group. For a pack of violent men, this usually involved fistfights, light stabbings, or, on two memorable occasions, murder.
I trusted the two men in front of me to confine themselves to yelling, maybe barking at each other, or perhaps just aggressive looks until one backed down.
One thing was obvious. Bridget had deep feelings for this Alpha, and if we wanted her in our lives after this, he would probably be involved too.
Sleep didn’t come easily that night. Not only did other gunshots I’d stitched keep flashing in my mind, but more recent events kept intruding, too.
Bridget’s soft sounds of pleasure, the feeling of her pressed against me, the soft skin of her breast, and, of course, her scent.
It had been thicker than ever the night before.
Not as potent as an Omega’s perfume could be, but still enough to cause a physical reaction in me.
I’d been rock hard as I watched my Alpha touch her.
How much of that was a reaction to her and Andrew’s scents?
How much could I attribute to the arousal I felt flooding from Andrew?
Underneath that, it felt like there was a seed of something else.