Chapter Ten
Laken
Dragged from a restless sleep, Laken's body ached in funny places as he blearily blinked his bedroom into focus.
Fuck, how did I get here? What time is it?
He had no recollection of coming to bed.
His last memory was clutching a whiskey bottle, drowning his sorrows.
Crapola, who had put him to bed? That question was chased by a more important one.
Had he let anything slip out? Popi had been coaxing him for weeks, trying to pry out what was up with him.
Fuck’d if he could—or would—say. Being vulnerable was not Laken’s go to state.
Hell, it was the last place he liked to be.
The lack of clothing, the surrounding scent, and softness of warm, cotton sheets beneath him said someone had helped him to bed. He had most definitely not been in any fit state, he knew that by how shit he was feeling. He was more wrung out than a dish cloth.
Rubbing wearily at his gritty eyes, he licked his dry lips, working to swallow past the godawful taste in his mouth. It was like he’d bitten an animal that had spent some time digging in shit. How did he know this? Desperate times when homeless!
Seconds ticked by as it slowly dawned on him how light it was in the room.
Whoever had put him to bed hadn’t bothered to shut the curtains.
One squint at the sun ripped a groan from his dry throat while he rolled to sit and try to get his few remaining brain cells to fire.
He quickly wished he hadn’t when the room tilted weirdly before righting itself, making his stomach rock and roll and the dryness in his mouth get taken care of as it watered unpleasantly, nausea swimming inside his guts.
Another groan of distress came while he ran shaky hands through his hair, which hurt somehow, along with his dick.
What the fuck had he done to himself? Unfortunately, the hammering at his temples made it impossible to find an answer.
And if that wasn’t enough, it registered there was another noise competing with it—his phone.
The annoying chime didn’t let up, coming from the direction of his beside cabinet, and it was fucking unrelenting.
Someone wanted to die because it was making the hammer at his temples increase its tempo to match.
A rasped curse cut through chirpy chimes as he reached for the offending phone.
With no consideration to how he might look, he pressed to accept the video call with death on his mind.
One groggy eyed look at Rue’s shocked expression said he’d made a massive mistake, and he internally cursed his shitty luck for not checking who the caller was.
He didn’t look too closely at his image on the screen.
He really didn’t want to make the headache worse.
Licking his lips, he scowled at his misfortune, laying the blame squarely at the tiny feet of the menace persecuting him into madness. Paris… the least said about that the better when it brought with it what he’d found on his return.
“Holy fuck, are you home with a hangover when you’re supposed to be at work?”
That is exactly what the fuck I’m doing.
Rue’s high-pitched squeal caused Laken to wince and grunt in distress because, fuck, if his luck couldn’t get any worse, it had to be Rue, his youngest brother and the one he was closest to, who caught him out.
Hell, he’d have preferred Jupiter, or one of his other brothers.
They would at least see the humor in this situation and wouldn’t ask too many questions—maybe.
With how his luck was recently, he couldn’t be sure about anything any more.
He reached for the glass of water he noticed on the bedside table, needing a distraction and something to take away the taste that reminded him he’d drank way more than was sensible.
Something he hadn’t done in years. Although the thumping in his head and the nausea greasing his guts weren’t going away anytime soon.
Downing the water like the glass might be snatched right out of his hand, he hoped it would also help with all manner of his ailments, including the rather obvious heat of embarrassment perfusing his cheeks.
Which wasn’t helped by the wide-eyed man gawping on the screen, appearing like he didn’t recognize him.
Of late, Laken didn’t recognize himself either.
For years, he’d perfected the image he wanted to portray and distance himself from his shady past. One he never wanted to touch his adopted family.
Now, that felt like it was slipping away from him with his perfectly tailored world unravelling around him.
The letter he’d received in the post was the first of three, each holding a thinly veiled threat.
He was sure the next one would bring what the blackmailer actually wanted.
He could only think it would be money. What else could they want?
While he waited for the other shoe to drop, it made life feel like water flowing through his fingers with no way to stop it.
For that very reason, he had taken to spending a lot of time since he’d gotten back home from Paris ignoring the shit happening in his life.
He could get a black belt in avoidance, he had become that talented at it.
He didn’t want to deal with it when he’d have to admit what the fuck was happening to him and just no, he wasn’t ready for that—if he ever would be.
“Have you taken some vacation time? Cause I’m pretty sure you’re supposed to be at work.”
“Not when I can’t fucking concentrate,” Laken snarled, forgetting himself in his misery. Placing the glass down with a clatter, his hands trembled so badly he barely got it to sit right. “He’s everywhere I fucking turn, I can’t escape!”
Laken’s gaze skittered about, convinced the tiny culprit of his main torment would materialize out of thin air. Damn sugar gliders could hide in the smallest of places.
“Smells like Popi’s cinnamon rolls,” he muttered to himself when it was all he could smell, despite how lousy he probably stank right then.
The damn sugar glider was all he could think about these days, and why—if he was being honest—he’d found himself staring into the bottom of an empty whiskey bottle.
Because yeah, when the blackmailer decided to tell him what he wanted, Laken wasn’t sure he’d be able to pay the price if it came with a risk to his family.
“Escape who?”
Laken blinked groggily at the screen and worked to get his eyes back in focus, feeling like he was saying way too much for comfort. Except he couldn’t seem to stop the words spilling from his damn lips. “My iddy-biddy PA. Who else?”
He groaned and ran a hand over his beard. “How can someone be so small and take up so much room in a brain?” he demanded angrily, on a roll. “Do you know how small a sugar glider is? They can fly right into the palm of your hand when they’re pissed off and refuse to let go of your fingers!”
Laken balled that very hand to remove the odd tingling that he could recall too vividly for his liking, and resisted sniffing it.
“How long?”
Rue’s question gave him a sharp nudge back into reality.
“How long, what?” Laken had no fucking clue what Rue was talking about. Perhaps he was still drunk?
“Have you been in love with Isley?”
The sharp nudge became more of a fist plowing right into his solar plexus, and a memory of the night before attempted to float past his panic and failed.
“I’m not,” he spluttered, sobering right the fuck up at such a preposterous assumption. He was not in love with anyone. “He’s the bane of my existence.”
Laken didn’t need to look at his brother to know that he didn’t believe him, but he was stupid and checked anyway, feeling so damn lost. It was a feeling he hated because it came with a past he had fought hard to escape, but clearly hadn’t.
Rue, no, all his adopted brothers had murky pasts they wished to escape—except they had never worked the streets like Laken had to survive.
Done things that could haunt their present.
They didn’t have the same sullied stain on them that could be exploited.
“Do you wanna talk about this?” Rue asked in a tone that brought Laken’s haunted gaze to the screen.
Laken unenthusiastically shook his head. “Nah… not now.”
Not fucking ever. He had nothing to offer. It was as simple as that. Especially for someone as pure of heart as Isley, so it was a total non-issue. And when the shit hit, Isley would not want anything to do with him.
Bullshit.
Fuck off.
Nice, real nice.
“I’m just at the end of the phone when you’re ready,” Rue said softly, causing Laken’s chest to hurt as he blocked his animal side. He pinched the bridge of his nose, pulling his thoughts from his troubles.
“What did you ring for?”
“I wanted you to be the first to know I’m mated.” He said it like he was ripping off a plaster, fast and without hesitation.
The phone fell through Laken’s lax fingers at the shock.
It clattered to the floor, and Laken bent and grappled to pick it back up with hands suddenly like tentacles he had no control of.
The stab of jealousy stole his breath, and he did everything in his power to lock that away. It had no place between him and Rue.
What he noticed when he met Rue’s gaze was sympathy, recognizing he’d failed. Rue knew more about him than any of his other brothers as they came from the same rescue home.
“You are!” Laken croaked past his closing throat, “Who is it?”
“Monty and Kendrick, the guy from the bar.”
The hook-up Rue had mentioned at the ranch. Holy fuck, two mates. “You claimed them both.”
He wore a flabbergasted expression, causing Rue to snort in amusement.
“If you could see your expression.”
“I can, you dork. We’re on video chat,” Laken pointed out, with some amusement returning at Rue’s dorky behavior.
“You threw me off with this hobo look you got going this morning.”
“Drop it,” he said sharply, then sighed dejectedly, hating the look of hurt Rue wasn’t quick enough to hide. “Ignore me. I’m happy for you, genuinely.”
He was. Rue deserved all the happiness after his biological parents were killed. Unlike him, Rue’s family didn’t reject him.
“I know you are.” Rue gave him a rueful grin. “And that’s why you were my first call.”
The hand he was dragging through his disheveled hair, stopped.
“You haven’t rung Dad and Popi?” he questioned in shock. Popi would have Rue’s hide for not telling him first.
“Didn’t I just tell you I wanted you to be the first person I shared the news with?”
Laken’s throat thickened with emotions. “Right. I’m honored, but you know I’m gonna gloat about this, right?”
He needed to stuff the icky emotions back where they belonged, out of sight and his mind.
“I wouldn’t expect anything else. So, if you wanna drop that nugget in the group chat, go for it.”
For the first time since he answered, Laken grinned widely. “Hang on.”
Laken came out of the screen and opened up the alphahole group chat, so named by Jupiter, the wind-up merchant that he was. Laken secretly agreed it was a perfect name for them with how they all moaned and complained in there.
“Is Kendrick planning on moving to Hazardville?” Laken questioned while his phone blew up with notifications.
“I’m moving to Bayfield permanently.”
Bayfield was the town closest to Silas’s ranch.
Rue had returned recently to Bayfield with several omegas that came from a factory they’d purchased in Drinkwater.
Laken didn’t dwell too hard on why the omegas had needed a safe place to stay.
It was a sad story that made his past seem wonderful and sunny, if he discounted some fucker messing with him.
Laken had thought he was missing something when Rue had eagerly volunteered to head back to the ranch, but now it all made sense.
Laken switched back into the call. “How’s that gonna work? Dad and Popi will not be happy to hear that news.”
They’d all come home to Hazardville when summoned after Dad and Popi decided to step down from Starling Enterprises, the fashion company they’d built together.
“I spoke to Dad about the potential when he came up for their spying ‘anniversary’ visit.”
Laken wasn’t surprised by this when Popi was up in all their business. “I figured that might be what they were doing. How did he take it?”
“They’re okay with it.”
Laken checked the group, laughing. “You need to go read the chat.”
“Will do. Are we good?” Rue’s question was hesitant.
“We are. I’ll see if I can wangle a trip out your way to meet my future brother-in-laws.” Rue's gawping response gave Laken time to end the call quickly. “Bye.”
Laken stared at the group chat for long minutes, reading the comments once more when he didn’t want to think too hard about why he suddenly felt lonely.
Alphaholes
Laken: Another one bites the dust!
Kodi: What are you talking about? And where the fuck are you? We had a meeting at nine am!
Laken: I asked Charlotte to reschedule it.
Shit. Shit. Shit. He’d totally responded without thinking. He couldn’t go back and question if Isley had said differently. He read through the rest of the group chat to make sure he didn’t have to come up with some other excuse.
Booker: What are we missing, Laken?
Silas: Clearly something when his reference sounds like he knows something we don’t.
Laken: Rue is mated!
Kodi: No fucking way! Please tell me it’s not his PA.
Laken: Kendrick…
Jupiter: I figured.
Laken: How so?
Jupiter: The way he eyefucked the guy at the bar, same as he was doing to Monty. Does he have two mates? Laken, spill. You seem to have all the goss?
Kodi: Wait up. Two mates? Who would be that fucking crazy?
Laken: Rue.
Kari: Good for him.
Kodi: Is it fucking really? This will give the remaining PAs damn ideas. That leaves me, Laken, Kari and Jupiter as the only single ones now! Did some fucker put something in the water? I don’t wanna catch whatever this is.
Jupiter: Why are you freaking out? You do have a choice, and mine is to remain just as I am.
Silas: Jup, I can’t wait for the smug smile to get wiped off your face when you fall. It will be epic. And Kodi, I don’t think you got anything to worry about, no one would want your overreactive ass.
Kodi: Thank fuck!
Jupiter: Hell will freeze over first, so be prepared because I know you hate the cold Silas.
Booker: How’s this gonna work when he comes home?
Rue: I’m mated, which means I won’t be coming home. Kendrick is happy in Bayfield, and so am I.
Dad: You better call your Popi before he hears this secondhand, son.
Rue: On it.
Taylin: Someone wanna tell me why you aren’t all ragging on Rue’s ass like you did me?
Jupiter: You’re just special.
Taylin: Fuck off. I can hear your sniggers through the wall, Jup!
Fuck, there are few of us left still single. His mood soured for no real reason, and the pounding temples, which he’d ignored during the call, were back to playing a lousy tune.
Fuck my life.