Chapter 9
Chapter Nine
Malachy
Istow my gun, frowning as the woman trembles.
Patrick gives her a reassuring smile and prepares to move her hands to the side, but someone honks on the nearby road, and she jolts. The gun goes off, the gunshot ringing out through the mostly quiet night air.
Pat hisses.
Motherfucker…
She shot my brother.
The grass explodes a few feet away, and thank God the bullet didn’t embed into the side of the apartment building.
Charlotte squeals as Patrick wrestles the gun from her and shoves it at me.
“Take this,” he snaps.
I avoid touching the hot barrel and take the weapon from his outstretched hand, disassembling it before dropping it into the cargo portion of the woman’s SUV.
I keep the mag.
She’s a goddamn menace.
A delicious-smelling pain in the ass.
A dangerous, delicious-smelling, pain-in-the-ass menace who should never be allowed to touch a firearm again.
“Fucking hell, that stings just as bad every damn time.” Patrick applies pressure to his wound on the outside of his bicep as blood seeps around the rip in his coat.
“Oh God, I shot you. I didn’t mean to…” she chokes out. “I’m going to prison.”
“You’re not going to jail. It’s a graze,” Patrick says, but the look on his face betrays how much pain he’s in.
At the same time, I say, “You barely clipped him, but this is a busy area. Anyone could call the cops. Go get your son. We need to get out of here.” I nod toward the apartment building before focusing on my brother.
“Get moving, Pat. I’ll get her back to the house.
If the cops show up with you bleeding all over the place… ”
They’d likely try to take all of us in, but I keep that part to myself.
I stride over to the area of destroyed ground, hitting my knees to dig around for the bullet. It’s probably too deeply embedded for me to locate it with my hands, but I’m still going to try.
I look over my shoulder, and Charlotte has stripped out of her coat and pulled off her shirt. She holds it to Patrick’s bicep while he stares at her tits. They’re covered by her bra, but damn, she has a lot of cleavage.
“Patrick!” I bark, catching his attention. “Get moving.”
He nods, holding her shirt against his wound to block the bleeding. “I should go. Get your son and anything else you can’t leave behind.”
Watching the woman get her sleepy son into his car seat is strange.
She carried him out in his pajamas, meaning she must have taken my warning about being quick seriously.
She didn’t bother changing him into real clothes, but she did have him wrapped up in a blanket.
She also took the time to find herself another shirt and to get back into her coat.
I was able to find the bullet with some digging. Maybe the snow helped to buffer it—I don’t fucking know—but it only made it six inches into the ground.
I look around for a hose or anything to wash off the sidewalk, but we don’t have time to waste.
My hands are filthy from digging in the dirt, and I wipe them off before heading to the SUV.
“Get into the passenger seat. You’re not safe to drive. I think you might be in shock,” I tell her, trying to keep the growl out of my tone. It’s practically impossible, so I hold my palm out for her keys. “It’s cold. We need to get the heat running for your son, and you’re not driving like this.”
“I have to get out of Boston. You should have gone with that other guy,” she says, sounding dazed.
“That’s not happening. A friend asked us to keep an eye on the two of you, and that’s what I intend to do. You’ll come stay with us for a few days. Just until we get a better handle on what’s happening.” I quirk an eyebrow, wiggling my fingers. “Your keys, Charlotte.”
She blinks at me repeatedly before digging the keys from her pocket and dropping them onto my outstretched hand. “I don’t even know you. Why would I go with you?”
I sigh.
Is this what my brothers deal with when I get lost to the fog?
I’m annoyed, but she’s still an omega, and I’m sure this is overwhelming.
“You’re in shock,” I remind her, stepping to her side.
I wrap my arm around her shoulder and guide her to the front passenger seat.
“It’s normal to be confused. My name is Malachy O’Connor.
Ya shot my little brother, but it was just a graze.
He’ll live, but we’re never going to hear the end of it.
He’ll be complaining about it until long after I’m dead.
” I pull open the door, giving her a gentle shove toward the seat. “There ya go. Now, in with you.”
She climbs in without complaint.
Thank the Lord.
The kid sleeps in the back seat while his mom loses her shit in the passenger seat. I find myself driving like an old man, even if I should be focused on getting out of the area as quickly as possible. The roads are icy, and I’m not used to driving with a child in the car.
It’s intimidating, but I made a good choice with having Keegan drop me off. My original plan was to have him drive Pat back to the house, while I kept Patrick’s car, but once I spotted the SUV backed up onto the sidewalk, I had a bad feeling.
Fear took over as I spotted the gun, and now I have to live with the fact that I threatened an already terrified woman.
She trembles in her seat, glancing out the window as we drive. Her stress pheromones are everywhere, and they’re setting my instincts on edge.
Not to mention, she smells indescribable. As I first came to a stop behind her, I had other things to focus on. Patrick was in danger, and the fog was close to taking over. The rage was slipping in, and I was about to lose myself to the decay.
Somehow, a few huffs of her electric scent settled my mind enough that the red tinge to my vision began to subside.
Hell, maybe Patrick was right when he suggested I should go to one of those pheromone clinics.
I’ve been around omegas before.
Not one has ever produced a reaction like I felt when my nostrils flared with Charlotte’s scent.
I didn’t know human beings could come in lightning scent, but that’s what she smells like, and it’s really fucking with my head.
The worst part is being able to sense her fear while not being able to fix it. It’s like I’ll climb out of my skin if I don’t figure out how to help her feel better.
Ya fecking fool, you’re the cause of it. You held a gun to the poor woman’s head.
Her chest rises in rapid pants, and she pulls a hand to push against her stomach.
“I’m sorry about threatening you,” I say, clearing my throat. “I didn’t know what was going on when I first walked up.”
Yeah, like that makes it any better.
“I’m going to have to leave. I know I complain about the weather, but I really do love it here. I don’t even understand what’s happening. Why would Lacey lie to me?”
“What do you mean?” I ask, glancing between her and the road.
“She told me the guys she ran into watched her walk to the bus when she was leaving the Christmas market, but your brother said she was attacked. Then he said maybe those guys’ friends would come after me…” A sob escapes her lips, and she bends in half.
Or she tries to.
The seat belt catches her, and she unclips it.
For a second, I think she might open the door and try to jump out.
Not that I could blame her.
I’m a complete stranger, and she has no idea where we’re headed. I’m betting the only thing keeping her inside the vehicle is that she can’t run without her son.
The seat belt flings against the window, and she bends in half, sticking her head between her knees.
A whine fills the air, and the hair on the back of my neck stands on end as my instincts demand that I demolish the problem.
Alphas can bark omegas, betas, and even weaker alphas into submission, but an omega’s whine is equally as powerful when it comes to forcing alphas into action.
“Shh,” I coo, stretching my right hand over to pat her back. “You’re okay. I promise. We’re going to keep you safe.”
“I don’t even know who you are,” she chokes out, but it’s muffled. “This is all my fault. We have to leave. I thought we were safe here…”
She’s clearly running from something—possibly her son’s father.
“You’re going to be all right. No one in Boston is going to come to my family’s door to fuck with you.
” I continue patting her back, but hell if I know if it helps.
“Just breathe. You’re safe. We’ll get the two of you settled in, and you can get some actual rest without constantly looking over your shoulder. ”
It’s a fifteen-minute drive to get to our neighborhood. My fathers bought the existing houses and all the nearby property thirty-plus years ago. What started as a small collection of houses has expanded over the years, and now the men rent or buy directly from the family.
The disposable muscle gets the smaller houses closer to the entry gate. As we weave through the streets, the homes grow larger and grander. The mini mansions are where the enforcers and other higher-ups live. The road dead-ends at the second gate, and past that is the driveway for our house.
Charlotte sat up a while ago, and she twists to face me as I pull up to idle in front of the massive gate. “Okay, who are you guys? This might look like a neighborhood from the outside, but I recognize it for what it really is.”
“And what’s that?” I ask, rolling down my window.
The guards won’t recognize the vehicle, and they’ll want to do an inspection. Although, I’m sure Patrick warned them that I’d be right behind him. Once they spot me, they’ll wave us through.
“A compound,” she says.
Two men approach from the guard booth, but I ignore them.
I turn back to Charlotte, saying, “You’re not wrong.
The O’Connor family has lived here for the better part of thirty-five years.
All the streets we drove through are filled with soldiers who are loyal to my brothers and me.
That’s how I can guarantee that you and your son can rest easy while you’re with us. ”
She snorts.
Or scoffs.
I frown.
I’m actually not sure what that sound means, but I don’t think it was good.
The boy sleeps soundly in the back seat as I park the SUV in the driveway near the front door.
Keegan and O’Riordan file out as I look at Charlotte. She’s staring up at the house with a look on her face that I can’t decipher.
On the bright side, she’s no longer sobbing.
That made for a tense trip.
“They’ll get your vehicle settled into the garage somewhere,” I say, keeping my voice low. “Think about which things you’ll need to be comfortable tonight. The rest we can carry in tomorrow morning.”
“Okay.”
“Come on, let’s head in.”
With a heavy sigh, she nods and reaches for the door handle.
We both climb from the SUV, and I head around to the back passenger seat to help with her son.
I step over, giving Keegan a quick rundown of what he should do with her SUV. By the time I step back to the vehicle, she has the door open, and she’s in the process of unbuckling her child.
I’m shocked the tiny woman is even able to carry the boy around with how tall he is in comparison to her.
“You know which bags and supplies you need?” I ask, keeping my voice low.
I sound ridiculous, but I can’t help that. My voice is naturally deep and growly. If I talk in my regular tone, people always think I’m yelling.
I’m not.
I’m just loud by nature.
“Why don’t you grab what you need, and I’ll carry your son?” I offer. “There are a lot of stairs between us and the bedroom you’ll be staying in.”
She jolts, spinning to face me. “If you’re not very careful, he will wake up.
If he wakes up, he’ll see we aren’t at home, and this will become an amazing adventure.
He won’t fall back to sleep for hours. Not to mention, I’m sure this giant house isn’t kid-proofed, and I’ve already had one breakdown tonight. ”
She’s not wrong about the house.
Hell, this place wasn’t kid friendly when Patrick and Cormac were little, but we can have the housekeepers do a sweep of the lower level.
Her cheeks are pink, and her eyes are swollen. It’s dark, but the lights on the front of the house are bright enough to highlight that much.
“If you’d rather make two trips, I completely understand.” I nod into the vehicle. “But I swear, I’m not going to run off with your son. It’s icy, and I can tell how tired you are. I just thought I’d offer, but you don’t have to accept.”
“I’m shaky. It’s probably better if I don’t risk it,” she whispers. “Thank you.”
I nod as she steps out of the way, moving to grab the things they’ll need for tonight.
Well, feck.
Now I actually have to do the thing and pick the kid up. Not to mention, I need to do it gently enough that I don’t wake him.
Charlotte is exhausted.
She needs rest, not to spend several hours chasing her son around a house that isn’t childproofed.
I’m a big bastard.
I had to move the seat all the way back to fit into Charlotte’s compact SUV, and leaning into the back seat isn’t any easier. The kid, whose name I really need to ask, grunts in his sleep, stretching his arms as I heft him to my shoulder.
He grumbles something without fully waking as I reach back into the vehicle to grab his blanket.
He’s a solid kid.
He has to be forty or forty-five pounds, and he’s tall.
Hell, I’m closer to seven feet than I am six, and the boy goes from my shoulder to a few inches down my thigh. He has to be a future alpha, and not solely based on his size.
No matter how hard I try, I can’t pick out exactly what he smells like, but it’s close to cedar with something nutty. Either way, his scent is too strong to be a beta, and it doesn’t have the sweet tinges that would signal the possibility that he might present as an omega one day.
The main question is, where the fuck is his father?