Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
Patrick
Doing a goddamn favor for Wilder is not high on my list of priorities at the moment. He tried to blow us off to fuck his stepsister in his office.
Lacey.
I’ve heard him talk about her before, but this is the first time I’ve had the chance to put a face to the name.
She’s cute.
Pretty enough.
He can still handle that bullshit on his own time. He has a perfectly nice house to fuck her all over. He actually tried to guilt us into watching her friend.
That isn’t happening.
Okay, it is.
But not out of guilt.
Apparently, Lacey was attacked last night, and her friend could be a target as well.
While that is not my problem, I do like the idea of Wilder owing us one.
Maybe he’ll actually get his head out of his ass and push the Chapmans to honor the contract or pay us what we’re owed if they want to back out.
If Vanessa actually gave a shit about wanting to bond Malachy, watching over a random omega and her kid could be problematic.
Omegas are known to be possessive and downright catty to others of their designation.
Malachy has spent the last five years celibate in preparation of honoring the contract. Hell, I cut back on even casual hookups because it seemed in poor taste.
My younger brother, Cormac, has never shown interest in anyone, so he didn’t have to make any drastic changes to his life. But he’s acting shadier than usual as we exit the warehouse, following our conversation with Wilder.
I’m still not sure how I feel about Wilder’s stepsister listening in on our family business, but considering Wilder was locked inside her, there was no prying the two of them apart.
We get into the car, and I pull out of the parking spot to exit the fenced-in area.
Cormac frowns out his window. “You can drop me off downtown. I need to do some shopping.”
“What?” I scoff. “We need to head home, update Malachy, and get in place to watch that woman.”
“Fine,” he mutters. “Take me home. That way, I can leave from there and have my vehicle.”
I quirk an eyebrow at him but don’t push.
He’s been off lately.
More so than his normal self, but I have other things I have to focus on at the moment.
Malachy is in his own little world, twisting the bottom of his beard as I try to explain the circumstances. It tries my patience, but he’s not who he was three years ago. Hell, he’s not even the same guy I remember from last year, and that scares the shit out of me.
It would do nothing to yell at him.
All that does is trigger the never-ending rage, so I calmly repeat myself for the third time. “Wilder wants us to keep an eye on her. She has a young son and no pack to offer her protection.”
“It’s not like you can’t assign someone to keep watch over her,” he finally says, his hazel eyes meeting mine.
God, he really does look like a mountain man these days.
The straight brown hair on the top of his head is so long that it falls over his forehead and into his eyes.
His beard is curly and probably four or five inches long at his chin.
He hasn’t been to the barber in so long that his eyebrows are curling.
No wonder Vanessa runs at the sight of him.
“Wilder asked us to keep an eye on her as a personal favor,” I say, trying to stay calm. I’ve already mentioned that several times, but I’ve never gone rabid, so I have no idea the mental effects he’s facing. “It won’t hurt to have him owe us one.”
Malachy shrugs. “It’s not like she’s going to go through with the union. You know it. I know it. Hell, the other families know it.”
“She’s pretty, but she’s also a goddamn pain in the ass. It would be a blessing if they come up with the funds to back out,” I tell him truthfully. “She smells nice, but there are more potent scent matches out there just waiting for us to find them.”
“Before I lose the last shreds of my humanity?” Malachy scoffs. “Highly fucking unlikely, but I’ll put myself down before I let it get bad enough that I’m a threat to you or Cormac.”
I sigh, shaking my head. “We can protect ourselves, and there are other options. In the meeting with Wilder, he mentioned there are scent clinics now that you can go to. You pay a few hundred bucks and cuddle up to an omega for a few hours. Wilder has Grim in sessions.”
Technically speaking, Grim won’t need those appointments anymore since he bonded Lacey.
I wonder how Wilder is handling having his second-in-command bonded to the stepsister he’s been obsessed with for years. Ultimately, that’s none of my business. I have other things to focus on—like saving my brother’s goddamn life when he’s too stubborn to do it himself.
“Nothing will fix me. Not until I sink my teeth into a scent-matched omega,” Malachy says, proving my point.
“No, but gaining access to omega pheromones can stave off any further decline,” I say, trying to make him see reason. “It’ll be enough to help you hold on until we figure this clusterfuck out.”
“Yeah, because any omega is going to be happy that her alpha was going in to pay by the hour to cuddle up with some other omega.” Malachy scoffs again. “It’s not fucking happening. I’m not pulling the same bullshit our dads did. Look how that ended up.”
I grimace, but it’s not the same situation.
Not in the least.
While our dads were great fathers, they royally fucking sucked at being decent husbands.
They pushed not one but two wives to an early grave with their inability to keep their dicks out of other women.
I’m honestly shocked they managed to cheat with a bond, but our dads were never what I would consider good men.
They embodied what their fathers showed them was expected of men in the lifestyle, and they never got the hang of thinking through the repercussions of their actions.
You’d think Malachy’s mother hanging herself would have been enough to scare them into treating their next wife with unwavering respect.
It wasn’t.
By the time my and Cormac’s mother came along, they’d already shipped Malachy off to Ireland to be mostly raised by our grandparents. He came home on occasion, stayed for a few weeks or a month here or there, and they shipped his ass back.
It’s also why he has an Irish accent when neither Cormac nor I do. Well, at times I end up sounding like the rest of my family and our men, but that’s just from conversing with them day and night.
Cormac and I were only allowed to spend the occasional summer with our grandparents, so we were never fully immersed.
Malachy learned how to rule from the old-timers, but by the time he came home to live with us year-round, he had a chip on his shoulder and a hatred of everything my fathers stood for.
Not that I can blame him.
After losing their first wife, they should have cleaned up their act.
They just didn’t.
My mother was equally traumatized by her alphas’ behavior, but rather than taking her own life, she leaned into a fondness for drugs and alcohol. Being married to my fathers gave her a nearly never-ending supply of substances to numb her pain, and eventually, she overdid it.
Still, soaking up omega pheromones to avoid going rabid is completely different than what my fathers did to my mother, and I tell Malachy that.
“If you find the right omega, they’ll be grateful that you were able to hang on as long as you have,” I tell him, my exasperation spilling into my tone. “Either way, we have to get over to that woman’s house and keep watch. Wilder passed along her information.”
“That’s not going to help matters if the Chapmans find out about it,” Malachy says with a snort. “Then again, fuck them. I saw the way Vanessa looked at Moretti at Grigoryan’s party.”
Emory Moretti runs his family, but I had no idea about Vanessa’s interest in him. If it’s mutual, his family could more than afford to buy her out of our marriage contract. However, everything I know about Moretti says he won’t go that route.
The Morettis are loyal to no one but themselves, and they’re one of the more cutthroat families.
“If you don’t want to outsource shifts to the team, you’d best take the first watch,” Malachy says, drawing me out of my thoughts. “I’ll swap with you around eleven p.m. If we can ever find Cormac, he can take over at seven or eight tomorrow morning.”
I nod.
That’s actually not a bad plan. With there only being three of us, we’re going to have to get creative.