Chapter 8
eight
Jo
Iinvited Mabel to the house to have pizza with us, but she declined.
Instead, my guys and I sit around the living room with Declan, Ozzy, Fuzzy, and Helaena, with two stacks of pizzas on the coffee table.
I’m wedged between Sam and Hayden on the floor, our backs to the couch, with Kole and West sitting on the floor on the other side of the coffee table.
Fuzzy and Helaena look mighty cozy, tucked into the corner of the couch as she blinks up at him with a rosy smile. Ozzy’s eyes keep catching on them, a look of longing on his face.
He must really miss Sam’s mom.
“So, does the world know about the demise of Senator Richard Pierce yet?” I ask, taking a bite of my pizza. The only thing I feel in the bond from Hayden is a misplaced pinch of guilt. Without looking at him, I send a wave of reassurance.
Declan sighs from his armchair. “No. Which is…strange. It should have been front page news, considering the fact a government official died in a damn fire in a rich-as-hell neighborhood, but there hasn’t been a word anywhere. Not online, not on the TV…”
Sam frowns. “Do you think…is it possible that Xavier is covering it up?”
“Why would he?” Kole tilts his head, taking a bite of his own pizza. “A senator murdered in his home by a raving omega lunatic and her equally unhinged mates seems like a good opportunity to press the narrative that alphas and omegas are dangerous.”
“He must need him alive,” I muse, picking a piece of pepperoni off my pizza and handing it to Turnip.
She takes it, sitting on my shoulder happily as she nibbles on it.
“Or, at least for the world to think he is. He must have somethin’ up his sleeve.
I wouldn’t put it past him to use the beloved Senator to plant the seed in the minds of the people—that this drug…
’medication’ is something that’s needed.
All it takes is one well-timed social media post.”
Turnip squeaks at me, and I roll my eyes, handing her another piece of pepperoni. “You need to be patient.” She glares at me, chittering defiantly. “I know that you wouldn’t need my pepperoni if you had your own slice of pizza, but you also don’t need a whole slice of pizza.”
Do I think Turnip can actually speak to me? No, but why would I do us both the disservice of pretending I don’t know exactly what she’s saying?
Ozzy stares at me like I have a second head as he watches Turnip on my shoulder, and I suppress my grin.
“We could screw with his plans,” West offers, glancing at Declan. “You have a plant in the FBI, right? Can’t we just…anonymously hint that maybe something happened to the senator and they can check on it?”
“Before we do anything like that, we need to sort something else out first.” Dec looks around the room. “Regarding our…data leak.”
“We haven’t dealt with the rat yet?” I huff. Turnip lets out a defiant squeak on my shoulder, and I look over at her in exasperation. “Turnip, I told you. It’s just a phrase.” She snatches a piece of pepperoni from my plate and scurries off my shoulder and onto…Sam’s.
Well then.
Sam’s brows shoot up but he tries to hide his smile as he scratches behind her ears.
“Wright and I came up with a plan, but we need you to be on board,” Declan says slowly, looking around the room.
“Why?” Sam asks suspiciously. “Will it put her in danger?”
“No…It just…kind of uses you as bait—but not in a way that puts you at risk. It has to do with your plan with the Vasiliev brothers.”
“We don’t have a plan with them yet.” I frown.
“Right, but the rat doesn’t know that.” Declan grins.
“We’ve narrowed down our suspect pool to anyone who’s accessed our safehouse locations in the database in the last month.
That gives us five men. We’re going to give a fake meeting location to each of them, and see which location makes it to the ears of the senator. ”
“Okay…but he’s dead, remember?” Hayden speaks up next to me. “The informant won’t be able to reach him.”
Declan nods once. “Right, but in this case, the world not knowing about the senator actually plays into our favor, because we can assume that if the world doesn’t know…”
“Neither does the leak,” Sam finishes for him.
“Exactly.” Declan leans back into the couch. “Aidan finally cracked the code on all of the senator’s communications. However the rat was sending him information, we’ll find out about it.”
“So…” I take another bite of pizza, feeling some relief at the fact there’s the beginning of a plan in place. “We lay our rat trap,” Turnip squeaks, I roll my eyes, “and once we take care of that, we let the world know that Senator Pierce has met a terrible fate.”
“Risky, considering you’re the ones that killed him.
” Sam’s dad speaks up for the first time since we sat down, and we all turn to him with apprehension.
“I just mean…” he shifts uncomfortably under the attention.
“Are you sure you want to bring light to the fact that he’s now…
deceased? Couldn’t that implicate you five? ”
“You make a fair point,” I concede. “But, a few things come into play here. The first of which bein’ that as far as the public is concerned, we’re all still residents at Thornfield and it would have been impossible for us to be there.
Second is the fact that we were taken into Senator Pierce’s home in secret.
Nobody saw us comin’ or goin’, and we made sure to clear away any physical evidence before settin’ the place on fire.
There’ll be no way to place us at Pierce’s home.
” Though, I do wonder what happened to that scientist we left downstairs.
“And lastly,” Dec cuts in, “when we reveal he’s dead, it will have to come out that Xavier was the one covering it up, which will put some of the suspicion on him.”
“What about Adela?” Helaena looks worried as she leans forward. “She’s the one who found you after, right? What if this…Xavier tries to pin it on her somehow? Put her back into Thornfield?”
My lips tighten into a line. I hadn’t thought about that.
West saves me from an internal spiral, though.
“He can’t.” He shakes his head. “There’s no way anyone would think that a pregnant teenager could take out one grown man, let alone four if they find the three bodies downstairs.
Besides, Xavier cares too much about image.
He’ll be forced to keep her safe if only for the sake of appearances. ”
“I worry about her,” Helaena frowns. “All by herself with that awful man…”
“We’re goin’ back for her once this is all over.” I give her a reassuring smile. “Plus, Vander…he won’t let anythin’ happen to her. He’s not on our side, but he’ll protect Adela, I can tell.”
“He better,” Fuzzy grumbles, holding Helaena close to him, “That girl is probably the one innocent person in all this.”
I sigh, leaning my head on Hayden’s shoulder. We need to take care of the Beta Liberation Union as quickly as possible so we can finally get Adela out of there.
Kole’s purr rumbles against my back as I pout, holding my cell phone to my ear. “You’re sure?”
After dinner, I felt the need to work off all the pizza, especially now that I need to be in tip-top shape. Kole, despite already having worked out this morning, joined me in the gym as I ran on the treadmill, pointedly ignoring the dull ache in my abdomen.
Usually the space has at least one or two guards working out off the clock, so I lucked out with it being empty tonight.
When my phone started ringing, I had scrambled to answer it, eager for good news from the doctor regarding my heat.
“I’m sorry Jo,” Doctor McFadden sighs. “There’s just no way to stop it at this point. Your body has been putting it off for too long. Suppressants are virtually pointless with how far gone your hormones are.”
My chest squeezes as my eyes screw shut tight. “So what you’re sayin’ is…”
“Your heat is imminent, Jo. I would suggest staying home and letting your pack help you with the spikes until the real thing hits. After that, you may be a bit irregular in frequency, but you should expect to go into heat once every three months or so.”
“Doctor McFadden, I don’t think you understand. We are in the middle of an impendin’ war with a bunch of beta supremacists—”
“Unfortunately, your hormones do not care one way or another about wars or beta supremacy, or anything else for that matter. Your sister is safe, which you were most concerned about. Take it as a win that your heat stayed away long enough for you to accomplish that.” His voice has that firm-but-kind no-nonsense quality to it that makes me want to stomp my foot and argue until my face turns blue.
“Fine. Thanks.” My words are clipped, and I hang up the phone, disappointment and anger churning in my gut.
“It will be okay, Lisichka,” Kole murmurs into my hair before pressing a kiss to my temple, which sends a delicious whiff of gunpowder and rain up my nose. “We will take care of you, as we always have.”
“How much of that did you hear?” I frown, turning in his hold and looking up at him.
“Not much, besides ‘your heat is imminent’. That seemed pretty self-explanatory.”
“Yeah, that’ll do it.” I laugh bitterly as I walk over to the hanging punching bag in the corner and grab my grappling gloves from a hook on the wall.
I need to hit something, and while I should probably go for the boxing gloves, I prefer to practice in the same conditions I find myself in when I fight—and I don’t have padding on my fists when I’m beating the shit out of someone.
I hate how helpless I feel. How the fuck am I supposed to help with anything if I have to worry about a damn heat coming at any moment? It’s not like we can just ask Xavier Bowen to hold off on any of his evil plans until my hormones have figured themselves out.
Kole follows me, positioning himself behind the bag and holding it on either side as I slide the gloves on. He’s silent as I take up my stance, and swing my fist, hitting the bag with a warm-up punch.
I follow up with a few quick jabs, feeling a little bit lighter every time I make contact.
We really should put one of these bags in our own basement so I can blow off steam whenever I want.
My chest loosens when I fall into my drills, my mind going numb as I settle into my routine.
Jab, cross, hook, rear kick.
Jab, hook, body, front teep, rear kick, elbow.
Jab, jab, cross, jab, rear kick, body, hook, jab.
I don’t know how long I push. How long I let myself fall into the blissful silence of beating something with my hands. Sweat runs down my back, my chest heaves as I churn out combo after combo—
“—Jo!” Kole’s panicked voice has me blinking, my breathing labored as the room comes back into focus.
My gaze settles on Kole’s perplexed expression as he continues to hold the punching bag, which has something red streaked across it.
It’s only then that I realize my hands are throbbing.
Looking blankly down at my knuckles bleeding through the gloves, I peel them off, wincing as the material sticks to my skin.
“Great, now I gotta wash these,” I mutter, tossing them to the ground. They land on the mat, blood smearing on the floor. Dammit.
A shadow darkens my view, and I look up to see my Russian giant standing in front of me, looking at me with concern.
Gently, he takes one of my hands, hissing when he sees the way they’ve been rubbed raw.
“Why did you not stop when you started to feel pain?” His voice is barely controlled, and I can tell he’s mad.
“I didn’t feel pain,” I say lamely, shrugging. “It didn’t even register that there was anythin’ wrong until I heard you callin’ for me.” His lips purse as he leads me to the wall, where the guys have a first aid kit hung on the wall. “Kole—”
“Sit.” His voice is harsh as he grabs a chair. He stops, closing his eyes briefly while he lets out a breath. Sky blue eyes pierce my soul as they open and meet mine. “Please, Lisichka.”
Huffing, I sit in the chair, and he appraises me for a moment before giving an approving nod and grabbing the first aid kit.
He opens it, sorting through it until he finds some alcohol wipes, antibiotic ointment, gauze, and medical tape.
“You don’t think that’s a little much for some scraped knuckles? ” I arch a brow.
“I do my best to not let my instincts get in the way of who you are, lyubov' moya.” Kole doesn’t look at me as he rips open a wipe and starts dabbing at my knuckles.
“You would not be who I fell in love with if I asked you to change. However, I must ask…is it a core part of your personality to needlessly injure yourself while training?” He meets my eyes, a wry smile on his face.
“For if it is, we may need to revisit that aspect of your behavior.”
“I wasn’t tryin’ to, honest.” Guilt churns in my gut at the sight of my alpha on his knees, gently caring for injuries I caused myself. “I just…get lost in my mind sometimes.”
“You are not the only one here who can care for you now.” Kole dabs some antibiotic ointment on my knuckles before placing some gauze on top.
“If you hurt yourself, you are also hurting me. Us. You…you are my heart, lyubov' moya.” His voice strains with more emotion than I’ve ever heard from him.
“My omega. You do not need me to protect you from the vast majority of the threats in the world, but it seems that you do need me to help protect you from yourself.”
I swallow the lump in my throat. “How…how do you s’pose you’d do that?”
“Well,” he wraps the tape around my hand, securing the gauze before picking up my other hand and starting with the alcohol wipe, “it seems that we are going to be entering into many dangerous situations in the days to come. Between killing my father, dealing with Xavier, and trying to find Whitmore, you are going to be in imminent danger more often than not. I just…” He sighs, wrapping my hand with the ointment and gauze.
“I will never ask you to not do what needs to be done. I only ask that you do it…only if it needs to be done. You have four hearts attached to yours now, you know.” He finishes taping my hand and places it over his heart.
“We will lighten the burden for you, if you will let us.”
“I want to let you,” I tell him truthfully, putting my free hand against his cheek. “I really do. I just…might need some reminders now and again.”
“That,” he gives a feral grin as he moves his free hand around my waist and pulls me flush against his chest, “I can do.”