Chapter 23
Maeve
I didn't spend the four days preparing speeches. I didn't pace the floors or cry into my pillows or let the fear of Callum McCarthy drag me back into the dark place I'd finally crawled out of.
I built things instead.
On Tuesday, I sat in the conservatory and called Lena.
Her face appeared on my laptop screen looking exhausted and electric, the way people look when they've been running on caffeine and ambition.
“Oh my God, you’re alive. How are you?”
I grinned. “Brilliant. Perfect. How are you? The cafe?”
"We got a five-star review," she said before I could get a word in. "Five stars. From the food blog. The one with the terrible name."
"'Edinburgh Eats' is not a terrible name."
"It sounds like a venereal disease. But the review was glowing. They called the lavender latte 'transcendent.'"
"You don't make a lavender latte."
"I do now. I invented it. I am an innovator."
I laughed and it felt strange. Good-strange. The kind of laugh that didn't have to check over its shoulder.
"I'm not coming back," I said. It was a sad ending, but my life was here now.
Lena's face stilled. "I know."
"No, I mean—the option to buy the lease is real.
The paperwork's been sitting on my desk for weeks and I haven't sent it because I thought—" I stopped.
"I thought letting go of the café meant letting go of the person I built there.
But that person's still me. She's just living in a house with too many chandeliers now. "
Lena was quiet for a moment. "Are you happy?"
"Disgustingly."
"Then send the paperwork. And tell your terrifying husband that if he breaks your heart, I know people."
"You know baristas."
"Baristas have access to boiling water and a variety of sharp implements. Don't underestimate us."
A customer tapped the bell that sat on the counter, Lena made a face. “Sorry. Later.”
I hung up and sat in the lemon-scented sunlight for a long time.
Letting go of the Highland Bean wasn't a loss.
It was handing a chapter over properly, closing a door I no longer needed to hide behind.
The café had been a sanctuary when I needed one.
Now it was Lena's sanctuary. That was how sanctuaries worked.
You found them and then they got passed on.
The next day, I called Presley.
This one was harder.
Not because I didn't want to talk to her.
Because I'd spent the last year editing myself into safe shapes, and Presley was the one person who'd always been able to see the rough edges underneath.
She'd known me in Ripon, when I was sleeping with a knife under my pillow and lying about my name.
She'd known me when survival was the only thing I had room for.
Her face filled the screen, all sharp cheekbones and sharper eyes, and behind her I could see the familiar chaos that was Mr. Barney. His tail flicking past the camera, the stack of books on the kitchen counter, the fairy lights she had around the windows.
“Where are the kids?”
“Sleeping. I’m having a couple of hours of me time.”
“And your alphas?”
“Work. Well Etienne claims he is working but he keeps bringing me snacks. My temperature is rising and we’re going to add to the family with this one.”
I squealed. “Exiciting.”
"You look different," she said immediately. “Are you going into a heat?”
"Hello to you too."
Her head tilted to one side. "No, not a heat. You look less like you're about to bolt. It's unsettling to see you so relaxed."
"Because I found my pack." The words came out before I'd planned them.
Presley's eyebrows went up and then down and then settled into something that was trying very hard not to be smug.
"Three Russian alphas."
"Russian."
"Very Russian. And Bratva. One of them threatens to take out the toaster."
"He threatens the toaster." She blinked.
"It burns his bread."
“Tel him to turn the temperature down.”
“Where’s the fun in that?”
Presley laughed. “Still wicked, Maeve.”
“Yep. I’ve still got it.”
Presley leaned closer to the camera. "Are you telling me you accidentally married three Russian mafia alphas?"
"It wasn't accidental. It was… intentional." I paused. "And I only married one. Technically. The other two come as part of the very lovely package deals."
“And they’re yours?”
I smiled so hard, my cheeks hurt. “Caramel, storm clouds and champagne.”
“You’re admitting you have a scent?”
“I went to kill my ex alpha and their pheromones put me into a heat. I hadn’t had one since my bond was dissolved. I thought I was fucked.”
Presley stared at me for a long moment. Then she threw her head back and laughed, the same bright, filthy laugh I remembered from the caravan park when I'd told her I'd never been drunk and she'd produced a bottle of corner-shop vodka and announced she was fixing that immediately.
"Only you," she said. "Only you would run from one alpha and trip over three more."
"It's a gift."
"Is it real?"
The question landed harder than I expected. I looked down at my hands. They were steady. They'd been steady for weeks now, and I still wasn't used to it.
"I'm scared it is," I said.
"That's how you know."
"That makes no sense."
"It makes all the sense. If it wasn't real, you'd just be pissed off. You're scared because it matters." She leaned back. "Do they smell like you?"
"They do." Tears stung my eyes. “They really are mine.”
"Then be theirs. Stop being scared and really be theirs."
"I married one of them. I am theirs."
"I know you Maeve. I remember how scared you were. I bet you’re holding back. Tell them. They already know, probably. But they need to hear it from you."
“Okay.”
On Thursday, I spent the afternoon in Artem's office with a Bratva solicitor who was so discreet he didn't even have a name.
Artem introduced him as "our legal counsel" and left before I could ask follow-up questions.
The man was small with round glasses, and he walked me through every document with patience.
The solicitor showed me the estate deeds. The legal protections. The Petrov name and what it meant in sixteen jurisdictions.
"I am not dependent on them," I said.
"No, Mrs. Petrov. You’re not. Your pack wants an omega who stays because she wants to not because she has to."
I swallowed the lump that found its way to my throat.
I want to.
I chose them. And when my father walked through the door on Friday, I needed him to understand that every choice I'd made since running from his house had been mine.
That night I couldn't sleep.
The phantom ache was back. Not Finn's bond, I knew that now, but something older. The cold dread of a man who had spent my childhood treating me like inventory. I slipped out of the bedroom, checked on Mac and found Fergus at the foot of his crib, one eye open, the fuzzy sentry on duty.
“Good boy.” I left the room and walked through the dark house to the pack’s den.
I expected it to be empty. It was past two in the morning, but all three of them were there.
Artem at the wet bar with a glass of scotch he wasn't drinking. Ivan stretched on the sofa with a book on his chest. Gregor at the window, staring out at the dark grounds like he expected my father to make a move before dawn.
They all turned when I crossed the threshold.
"Couldn't sleep?" Artem asked.
"No."
I walked to the oversized armchair and curled into it. None of them moved toward me. They just waited. Champagne and storm-clouds and caramel wrapped around, and the chill in my bones started to recede.
"My father didn't care about me," I said. The words came out flat, rehearsed. I'd been practicing them at three in the morning for four days. "He sold me to Finn O'Shea because Finn offered him a territory settlement in Belfast. I was currency."
I tapped my shoulder. The scar.
"Finn O'Shea," Artem said. "We had business with him."
"In Prague," I said.
Gregor turned from the window. "You were in Prague for Finn."
"I was running out of options. My body ached all the time and I thought the bond was still active somehow, even though I'd had it dissolved.
Then I went to London to visit Presley and it got worse.
I felt him everywhere. I found out Finn was in the city and I had to leave immediately.
That was when I knew the bond wasn't dead. "
Ivan's face went very still. "You went to Prague to meet him alone."
"No. I went to Prague to kill him alone. Subtle but important difference."
Artem's glass stopped on its way to the table. Gregor turned fully from the window.
"What?" I said, heat creeping up my throat. "Don't look at me like that. I had a plan."
Ivan's voice was careful in the way it got when he was trying not to laugh or shout and hadn't decided which. "What plan?"
"A very elegant one involving a knife, an emergency exit, and admittedly limited knowledge of Prague street layouts."
"That's not a plan," Gregor said. "That's a headline."
"Well, I didn't do it, did I? I was interrupted by three men with excellent bone structure and a very aggressive approach to personal boundaries."
Artem set the glass down. "Boundary issues."
"You tracked me to the alley where I was waiting for Finn, and then tracked me to Scotland."
"You used my credit card. You wanted to be found."
"I was about to pop a baby and had nowhere for him to sleep."
Ivan's mouth twitched. "Good story."
"I was being resourceful."
Artem held his finger in the air. “Tell us more about Finn.”
The room eased as I told them about Finn, not as a confession, but as intel. The way a partner tells her pack something they need to know before a fight.
"Where did you visit your friend in London?" Artem asked. "Where did you feel Finn?"
"The Hastings Tower. Presley's pack, Henry, Etienne, Fritz. She'd just bonded with them."
Artem nodded. "Henry Hastings. The corporation. They're building our new central London complex. We've had meetings in his offices for months."
"I didn't feel Finn's bond there," I whispered. "I thought I did. But..."