10. CHAPTER NINE
“No, Colt, I don’t know why you’d move me and Penelope in right next to them. Are you crazy?” Ciara was saying into her cell phone as we all stood awkwardly in the hallway.
The buzz from my quickie with Artie had quickly worn off in the face of one very pissed off Ciara and the confused beta woman with her.
I’d known that we would probably run into her at some point. After all, I’d accepted a job with her brother-in-law to work at the same place she spent nearly every day at.
I just didn’t think that it would actually mean having her live in the apartment right across the hall from us.
“I don’t care if it’s the only available apartment in the fucking building, I’m about to pack everything back onto the truck and go live in a hovel with Penelope. See how Aurelia feels about that,” Ciara snapped, her brown cheeks darkening with a flush as her Irish accent became more pronounced with her anger.
I’d heard a lot about this woman in the few years since meeting with Leith. The guy had been so stupidly hung up on her that it had nearly made our pack fail before it could even get off of the ground.
She was flighty, selfish, and chock-full of baggage that would take anyone years to unpack.
And she was also one of the prettiest women I’d ever seen in my entire damn life.
Even dressed in a pair of baggy jeans, a white v-neck shirt, and the ugliest yellow raincoat ever—she was striking to look at.
The rain outside had soaked her black curls, making them hang around a high cheeked face and frame the plump, dusky pink lips that were pulled down into a frown as she listened to whatever her billionaire brother-in-law was saying on the other end of the phone.
Artie was buzzing with a strange excitement that I couldn’t quite place, and on the other end of the bond Leith was filled with a mixture of dread and a sappy longing that scraped over my skin like fucking sandpaper.
“Can you two please get it the fuck together?” I whispered to them, glaring at Leith who at least had the decency to look sheepish.
At my outburst, the dark haired beta woman with Ciara eyed me with a cool stare.
“I’m Penelope Nashtos, Ciara’s stepsister,” she said, finally introducing herself.
I pointed at myself. “Enzo, and these are my packmates Artie and Leith.”
“Oh I know about that one.” Penelope nodded at Leith who was standing just behind me.
My teeth clenched together. “All good things I hope?”
My words sounded so much like a threat that Artie and Leith put hands on my shoulders.
“Calm down, Enz, they’re not doing this on purpose,” Leith whispered in my ear. “Besides, I’m all right. Really.”
I shot him a look. I wanted to tell him that he clearly was not fine and that it was setting off every single one of my protective instincts standing here in this weird ass standoff with a woman who was as gorgeous as she was dangerous.
‘You protect every member of your pack, angioletto,’ my grandmother used to tell me when I was fourteen and miserable about being shipped off to Italy because I couldn’t stop getting into fights at my school in America. ‘Alphas are not supposed to hit recklessly. They were built to be the first line of defense for their omegas and even the weaker alphas in their packs. You are from a long line of first alphas, my boy.’
First alpha. It was an antiquated phrase that had long died off by modern standards, but it meant the alpha in charge who was responsible for everyone else in the pack.
I’d never understood that as much as I did now.
Between Artie’s eyes and Leith’s heart on his sleeve I had my work cut out for me and the women in front of me weren’t going to help one fucking bit.
Penelope frowned at me before glancing over at Ciara who was now arguing much more quietly than before. “She rarely talks bad about anyone despite her sailor’s mouth.”
That surprised me. Most of the female figure skaters I came into contact with were the ones who trained at the same ice rink that Artie did and they were always catty and ready to slice each other to bits at a moment’s notice.
“She does indeed have that,” Leith said from behind me and I could feel his elation through the bond.
Ciara seemed to be nearly done with her phone call. “Just grand, I suppose we’ll have to deal with it then. You are not getting any babysitting out of me for the rest of the year… no I don’t care if you have the money to pay for a nanny. I know you’re a billionaire, Colt, you don’t have to point it out. All right, bye.”
“So, what’s the verdict?” Penelope asked, crossing her arms over her chest.
Ciara looked up at us for the first time since we’d all filed out into the hallway to find them directing the movers into their apartment.
“It looks…” Ciara began, her light, almost whiskey colored, brown eyes filling with reluctance as she undoubtedly met Leith’s eyes behind me. “Like we’re going to be neighbors for the foreseeable future.”
“Seriously?” I blurted out before I could stop myself.
Ciara crooked a dark brow at me. “Seriously,” she repeated. “There aren’t any other apartments available that are big enough for me and Pen to live in. So I hope you don’t mind seeing my face around.”
“And you can’t just go back to where you came from?” I asked, knowing that I sounded like a complete asshole, but the alternative was having her close by to make Leith feel like shit.
“Enzo,” Artie chided, his fingers digging into my arm.
Anger flashed across Ciara’s face, this time directed at me, and she tilted her head to the side as if to size me up. “If you must know, back where we came from was our parent’s house. Her mam and my dads just got married and it’s a bit crowded there with newlyweds and a teenage omega and all that. Not to mention getting the riot act every time we go out.”
“Even though we’re both creeping on thirty.” I heard Penelope mutter under her breath.
“It’s fine by us, just excuse Enzo. He can be a prick when he hasn’t eaten,” Artie explained, giving me a gentle shove back in the direction of our apartment door.
Ciara’s snort filled the hallway. “I’m sure that’s what it is,” she said, her voice sarcastic.
I opened my mouth to argue with her some more, but Leith’s hands were firmly steering me away from the conversation.
“Have a lovely day,” Leith called over his shoulder and I heard Ciara respond in kind, her voice softer when she was talking to the freckled beast currently manhandling me.
Once the apartment door was shut behind us I whirled on him. “Have a lovely day? What the fuck, Leith?”
Leith glanced over at Artie who’d crossed the room to throw himself on the only piece of furniture in the living room—a velvet settee that he’d refused to part with when we were downsizing for our move. “Don’t look at me. You explain it to him yourself.”
I looked between the two of them with confusion. I hated when I was left out of something, especially when I was left out of something that they both knew. “Am I crazy? Did you two have a conversation about that woman out there without me?”
Leith sighed, his broad shoulders sinking. “I’m not angry with her anymore, Enz, and I don’t think I ever was. When I realized we were coming here and would probably run into her, Artie and I talked everything out.”
“And what conclusion did you come to?” I asked, already dreading his answer.
“I like her still and I’d like to see if something is still there—Artie’s okay with it and if you don’t like it then we can discuss—but I want to fix whatever happened and figure it out this time.” Leith’s jaw clenched with a surprising stubbornness which was uncharacteristic for the Scot.
He was the quintessential go-with-the-flow man and had been ever since we’d met three years ago.
“You’re okay with it? You?” I wheeled around to look at Artie. Where Leith was calm, Artie was the opposite. I’d seen him crawl all over the both of us when another omega slanted even the slightest of flirty looks in our direction.
Artie shrugged one shoulder. “Why wouldn’t I be? She’s properly gorgeous and she smells absolutely divine.”
“I’d say you need to get your eyes checked—but we already know how that ended last time,” I told him with a shake of my head.
“Ouch, love, a blind joke, that really hurts,” Artie said, clearly unfazed by my jab.
With a heaving sigh, I rolled my eyes and threw my hands up. “I’m saying no. To all of it. She’s our neighbor and nothing more. We have no more room left in our lives for her bullshit, we barely have enough space for our own.”
With that I turned and headed for the back hall where my bedroom would be, my insides churning with frustration.
“He’ll come around, Lei, he always does,” I heard Artie say before I shut the door.
That was where he was wrong. If there was one thing I could be stubborn about it was Ciara Callaghan. They may have forgotten how shredded Leith was after she’d blown through his life, but I hadn’t.
If I couldn’t get her to move back to wherever the hell she came from, then I’d protect my packmates from her blast radius.
Even if they hated me for it.
“And this is the studio where you will work after the games with a panel of other sports commentators,” Hideo Nomura explained as he led me through the massive studio space.
I was a bit surprised that the vice president of the whole place was showing me around, but I was quickly learning that things ran a little differently here than at a typical broadcast company.
“We have a deal with ESPN,” Hideo continued as he walked me around the curved desk. “We film from here and take on overhead costs and the percentage of ad revenue and viewership is kicked back to us.”
“Why not just have commentators from ESPN?” I asked, more curious than anything.
Hideo shot me a wry smile. “Colt is obsessed with all parts of winter sports and wants to do as much in-house as he can. Wait until you see his plans for an adjacent medical clinic outside of our PT department.”
I never understood how someone whose career trajectory was through the atmosphere could sell off his successful security business and throw all of their ducks behind a Sports Complex like this.
There had been no guarantee of success and yet Colt had done it anyway.
It was insane, and perhaps a little bit impressive.
I was still irritated with the elusive billionaire for moving Ciara Callaghan right across the hall, though.
In the three days since our hallway discussion I’d run into her almost every morning because she went on a pre-dawn run at the same time as me.
She didn’t say anything to me and I didn’t to her, but I could feel the tension as we set off on our opposite paths.
I was pretty sure she could sense that I didn’t like her.
Leith and Artie hadn’t spoken about her since that day, but I could tell that they were still thinking about it.
When we’d driven into the Complex this morning—me for my tour and them for their first day as official SSC athletes—I could feel both of their anticipation like they were waiting for something.
And when I’d seen Ciara twirling on the ice as I dropped Artie off, I knew what that thing was. I didn’t like that Artie was still going to skate even with his worsening eyesight, but the last time we’d fought had been about that and I wasn’t looking to have that experience again.
Having my omega mad at me was like being put through a woodchipper. I could feel every one of his emotions and they grated like glass against my brain, the alpha in me torn in between the strong protective instinct constantly riding me and wanting him to be happy.
But every time I saw him get on the ice I heard his doctor’s warnings about how a potential concussion could cause the swelling behind his eyes to worsen and even prematurely make him lose the rest of his already failing vision.
I wished I could just wrap him up and keep him hidden and safe so nothing could get to him. Or that I could somehow magically cure his eyes. Either or would be fine with my anxious ass at this point.
The best I could do, however, was try to help him maintain whatever vision he had left for as long as possible.
It was the main reason I’d pushed so hard for the move to Seattle—even if it meant putting us in Ciara Callaghan’s orbit again. The specialist we’d finally met in person yesterday was at the top of his field and worked specifically with Artie’s type of glaucoma.
It was worth every sleepless night over the past three months trying to coordinate a move, accepting a new job, and picking up our entire pack and leaving a country that I’d come to think of as my home over the past decade.
“Mr. Santoro?” Hideo’s voice cut through my thoughts and I blinked, looking up at the man with a blank expression.
“Sorry, my mind was elsewhere for a moment, what were you saying?” I straightened my spine and shoved all of my roving thoughts to the back of my brain—they could until later. Right now I needed to focus.
“I was just telling you that, while we’re still in pre-season practice, there are going to be things for you to do air-wise. Are you familiar with the NHL’s past season?”
I’d spent so long keeping up with the UK’s EIHL that finally being back on the NHL side made my head spin a bit.
The memories of being young and watching my dad scream at the TV while my mom shook her head and chided him were some of my favorites from before I moved to Italy to live with my Nonna.
I knew he still watched it, though it was without my mom now that she’d passed. My sister was the one who scolded him now when his shouts woke up one of her seven million children when they came to visit on Saturdays.
“Pretty familiar,” I told Hideo as we left the studio behind. Truthfully, I’d brushed up on it again before we left the UK so I’d be prepared. “I know that the Stallions took home the cup this season after they returned from the Olympics.”
Hideo’s grin was broad. “Yep and Colt hasn’t shut up about it since. It was a win almost a decade in the making. I swear he might love that trophy more than he loves our pack.”
He was joking—at least I hoped he was joking.
Everything I’d been able to dig up about Pack Stone, which admittedly wasn’t a lot, told me that they were a very close knit group that rarely appeared in media outside of sports or charity events.
“Well, it’s looking good again for this upcoming season, especially with the trades that were made.”
Hideo lit up at that. “Yep, snagging Park and Corning was almost sheer dumb luck by the end of the Olympics. They had at least five other teams breathing down their necks, so we were pleased to acquire them.”
Jae-Sun Park the defenseman and Joshua Corning were older players, not as shiny as some of the rookies stepping onto the ice this year, but they had what those rookies couldn’t dream of yet: they had a record and a dazzling performance in Scotland to boost their popularity.
Not to mention Park was easy on the eyes. It felt like every time I opened my TikTok to doom scroll at night I came across some thirst-trap edit of the Korean-American skater.
But he was mean-as-shit on the ice and had garnered the nickname Wiz thanks to his ability to appear out of nowhere to defend the players on his team. I looked forward to watching how he gelled with the team and to see if the ‘dream team’ that other media outlets were touting the Stallions as was actually going to come to fruition.
“Let’s head back up to the head office, Colt’s got some more paperwork for you to sign before we let you go for the day. Your omega and packmate are also starting their first days on the athlete’s side right?” Hideo asked as we stepped onto the elevator that would take us straight up to the office he shared with Colt Stone. I hadn’t been there yet as Hideo had greeted me at the door, but it made me nervous to meet the man in person and not on a Zoom call for the first time.
“Yep, Leith is excited to meet the curling team you’ve paired him with—they’ve been chatting over text so it seems like a good match.” That had been another sore spot about leaving the UK.
Leith’s former curling team and he had been on the brink of separating ever since Artie’s diagnosis. They didn’t understand the time constraints that the constant doctor’s visits would entail and I was pretty sure that it had ended soon after they failed to make it through to the final round of their event three months ago.
I’d never liked Connor and the two others on the team, but they’d been Leith’s friends longer than I knew him, so I’d kept my opinion to myself.
My poor packmate had a heart of gold when it came to others, but had trouble setting boundaries so he could protect himself. It was why I felt so protective over him and pushed for him to speak up for himself when he didn’t like something.
His new teammates were a group of the calmest guys I’d ever met and were very go-with-the-flow, perfect for Leith.
“And is your omega settling in well?” By the way that Hideo asked the question, I knew he was referring to Artie’s blindness.
“He is. We’ve got to walk him and Charm through the whole place later to get them familiar, but he can still see enough to navigate on his own.” Pack Stone knew all about it as a full health check was required before an athlete could start at the Complex.
They hadn’t balked, thankfully, but had instead asked what sorts of accommodations he would need.
I was half-grateful and half-disappointed that they hadn’t told him he couldn’t compete on the ice. That it was too much of a liability.
It would have made it easier to sleep at night. Which in turn made me feel like a complete asshole to even consider it.
The elevator dinged and we stepped off together. The entire top floor of this section of the Complex was administration with the head office overlooking the hockey stadium. I’d seen it from the ground earlier when Hideo took me through the hockey locker rooms and it had looked like half a bird’s nest jutting into the dome.
Stepping inside of the luxurious space, we were immediately greeted by a woman behind the desk. She had dark hair pulled back out of her face and a light blue blouse that cut across slender shoulders.
“Hi there!” she said, her smile warming even more when Hideo came in behind me and shut the door. “Is this the new guy?”
Hideo’s chuckle filled the room as he moved past me. “Yep, did you get the packet all together for Colt and me to go over it with him?”
The woman held up a green folder. “Of course I did.”
Hideo took the folder and flipped through it before closing it and patting the woman on top of the head with it. “And that’s why you’re the best secretary we’ve ever had, Aurelia.”
The woman just shook her head with a grin. “You have to say that—I’m your wife.”
“Doesn’t make it any less true,” the man sang before heading to one of the doors that flanked the receptionist desk and knocking on it. “Yo, Colt, you in a meeting?”
“If I was then I wouldn’t want you banging on my door,” came the dry reply from the familiar voice of Colt Stone.
Hideo just smirked and opened the door, gesturing for me to go inside. “I know that, I just love bugging you.”
Hideo handed Colt the folder before turning to me. “My office is right across the way if you ever need me. It was great talking to you.”
With that he left the office, closing the door behind him as we went.
Colt stood and held a hand out to me. “Hi Enzo, it’s great to finally meet you in person.”
“Likewise,” I said, giving his hand a firm shake before sitting in one of the seats in front of the desk.
“We’re going to go through paperwork, the upcoming season and your responsibilities and any other questions you might have, okay?” Colt opened up the folder and started organizing the documents inside.
I’d known there were some things for me to sign, but I was surprised at the rest. Was it typical for a CEO to do employee onboarding?
Colt continued on, explaining what a typical day would look like for me and how home game days would work.
Once he’d finished, I signed my way through the stack.
“Great, now that that’s all done, I look forward to seeing your work this year. I don’t think I’ve ever heard such electric commentating as when I was listening to yours during that semifinals game.”
His compliment warmed in my stomach and I sat up a little straighter. “Thanks, I appreciate it.”
I turned to leave, but Colt made a noise behind me. “Did you say something?”
When I looked over my shoulder at the other alpha, he looked like he wasn’t sure if he wanted to say his next words.
“I didn’t put you across from each other on purpose,” he finally said with a sigh.
I faced him fully again with a frown. “What do you mean?”
“Your pack and Ciara. It really was the only open apartment in the building. I thought Aurelia was going to tear me a new asshole for it after Ciara called that day.” The corner of Colt’s mouth quirked up into a wry smile.
Feeling awkward, I just shrugged. “It is what it is.”
It wasn’t what it was, but I didn’t need my brand new boss knowing that.
“For what it’s worth, Enzo, Ciara is a good person. She just has trouble showing it sometimes.”
I held in my snort and nodded. “Thanks for getting me all set up. I’m excited to get started once the pre-season games begin.”
With that I turned on my heel and left the office.
I didn’t care how good of a person Ciara Callaghan was. No matter how I shifted my thinking, my instincts still told me that she was going to hurt my packmates somehow—even if she didn’t mean to.
I just didn’t know that that pain would one day affect me too.