Chapter Thirty – Mercedes
Warren and Darius aren’t home to eat dinner with us, so Nic and I eat with his parents. We retreat upstairs afterward. I hop in the shower, trying to keep my mind off things, but it’s a futile endeavor. After I change into my pajamas, I find myself gravitating toward Nic’s room, where I find him currently doing push-ups on the floor in front of the bed.
I lean on the doorframe for a moment, but even freshly-showered, he must catch a whiff of me, because he stops working out and rolls onto his backside, grinning at me and saying, “You can come in, if you want.”
As I step inside, I debate on closing the door, but in the end, I don’t. I simply go towards him and sit on the floor near him.
His brown hair is a little slicked with sweat, his black eyes examining me. “How are you holding up?” A question surely meant to be innocent, but one that pulls on everything I’m trying to ignore.
“I don’t know,” I answer him honestly. “Can I… can I ask you something?”
He playfully knocks his foot with mine and says, “Sure. I’m an open book when it comes to you.”
“Your mom said something happened a few years ago, and I remember Darius saying he failed the pack four years back. What happened?”
For the first time ever, Nic appears uncomfortable. He runs a hand through his hair, averting his gaze to the floor between us. The way we sit on the floor, his body faces mine, so I can see the subtle shift in his body language, and I know he doesn’t want to talk about it. The omega in me doesn’t want to stir the pot, so to speak, but at the same time, my curiosity refuses to be ignored.
Nic takes his time in finally speaking, “There was a job. It was supposed to be simple. Just a security position. Protect the client’s shop while Pax and the others went after the problem at its source. We were short on employees—the flu was really bad that year. I volunteered for the job.”
So far, it doesn’t sound awful, but it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out things turned sour.
“The… problem was bigger than we realized. The shop I was guarding was under the scrutiny of the local mafia—people with enough money to pay off your typical law enforcement. The shop owner owed them money, and they refused to back down until they collected. We didn’t know. Darius blames himself for not looking at everything with a microscope. Alabaster Security blindly trusted the client’s word instead of looking into both sides and making sure there wasn’t anything being hidden from us.”
A knot forms in my stomach as I tentatively ask, “What happened?”
He nibbles on the inside of his cheek, his dark gaze rising to meet mine. Instead of answering me right away, he moves so that he kneels before me. He grabs the back neckline of his shirt and tugs on it, lifting it up and over his head to reveal his toned, muscular torso… and the two bullet wounds on his chest. One is on the far side of his left pectoral, and the other—the other rests dangerously near his heart.
I want to say something, but the words die in my throat. All I can do is stare at the two scars, at the risen flesh that tell me more than enough, and wish I could turn back time for him.
As he bundles up his shirt and sets it aside, he says, “There was a shootout. The loan sharks weren’t expecting me to be there—and I was alone. No backup. I managed to defend my position and the client’s store, but they got me, too.”
“Nic,” I whisper his name, a pang of regret for asking about all of this gnawing at my insides.
“I didn’t die, obviously, but it took me a while to get better. I spent a long time in a hospital bed, while Darius and Warren worried over me.” He sighs before furrowing his brow together and staring hard at me. “Our pack was never the same after that. Darius blamed himself, Warren hated himself for not working the job with me, and I hated that I caused a rift in our pack.”
“It’s not your fault. None of it is your fault.”
He gives me a soft smile. “I know that now. Most of the time. Sometimes I feel myself slipping backward and thinking about what life would be like if that never would’ve happened. I was twenty-one. Still pretty green when it comes to the hardships of the business. If I would’ve known, obviously I would’ve worn a vest under my clothes anytime I was there.”
My eyes widen. “Does that mean this could happen again? One of you could get shot on the job?”
“No,” Nic quickly says. “I’ve been on desk duty for a while, playing the middleman between our company and potential clients. I help Darius out and look at contracts. Warren is usually at the warehouse, trying to get information out of certain… problems. It won’t happen again, I promise you.”
He reaches for me after that, and I let him. I let him, and my eyes fall once again to the scar near his heart. If that shot was just an inch or so to the right, Nic wouldn’t be here with me right now. The notion fills me with a cold chill I can’t quite describe.
I never felt anything like it before. The pain. The anxiety. The loss. Growing up how I did, without a family, without anyone who really cared for me… I didn’t know I could feel like this.
“Hey,” Nic whispers softly, pulling me onto his lap. He takes my chin between two fingers and forces me to meet his dark stare. “I’m okay. It’s nothing to worry about now.”
I want to believe him—he is so obviously okay, but that indescribable feeling inside me refuses to go away. “Is that why you wanted an omega? To try to get things to go back to the way they were before you got shot?”
“At first, yes, but when I met you… I just knew.”
“You knew what?”
The smile he gives me right then is full of dimples and earnestness, and it warms me to my core. “I knew you were meant to be ours,” he whispers, dipping his head low to mine, his lips meeting my mouth. “And I think, finally, you’re beginning to realize it, too.” The kiss deepens, swallowing up any reservations or denials I might have buried inside me, ready to come out.
Maybe… maybe he’s right. Maybe that same realization is dawning on me as the days go by, as these guys prove themselves to me over and over.
I wrap my arms over his shoulders and around his neck, kissing him harder. To say I’m happy Nic is alive and well would be the biggest understatement of the century. He’s the one who found me. He’s the one who brought me into their lives and made me believe in them. He’s the one who’s been nothing but gentle and kind and understanding this whole time.
He’s been more than I deserve, and I don’t doubt that will continue to be true if I decide to stay with them.
To stay or go…
My plan was always the latter, but now… leaving this pack would kill me. Leaving Nic, Warren, and even Darius would be like driving a kitchen knife straight into my heart while hoping for the best. There would be no way for me to survive it.
Though it’s the last thing I want to do, I pull my mouth off Nic’s and whisper, “When the others get home, after they eat… bring them to my room. There’s something I need to show you.” And then I crawl off his lap, breathe out a hard sigh, and leave him on the floor.
If I can’t leave them, if I can’t force myself to say goodbye to pack Alabaster, it means I need to tell them everything.