16 Franco
Restless.
All my mates were discreetly talking to the other packs that were being harbored down here with us.
They were making small talk and plans that might come to fruition later.
I just sat back and watched everything, but I’d been getting antsy in the last week while doing nothing.
My mind felt corrupt because I wasn’t furthering the safety of Jericho.
It was like this betrayal within myself in two different ways because I wanted to trust Kit, but I also didn’t trust anyone outside of my pack.
Who knew what seven years apart did to her?
Pacing a random hallway, I tried to learn the maze of corridors they created below the surface of the world.
I still couldn’t believe they managed building this down here, and it made me wonder how Kit knew to do it.
Speaking of the devil, she wore commoner clothes for the first time since meeting her again.
No high heels or perfectly fitted dresses, and her face blank, no makeup.
That looked like the girl I used to know, and I had to do a doubletake to make sure it wasn’t a ghost from my past. Like the others, I pretended to not feel anything even though she captured the air in my lungs at the slightest glance her way.
She rubbed the side of her head as though she had a headache, and I didn’t like that something troubled her.
Her guard was down because she thought no one walked in this hall, but I had been wandering them.
Her hair was still wet and flopped over her shoulder in a braid because she had no purpose today.
No performance to put on, and it made me see the old her had been there all along.
When she finally looked up, she gasped and jumped just a little. “Franco, I wasn’t expecting to see you over here.”
“Is there something to hide over here?” I raised my brow at her in suspicion.
I hated that I became wired like this, but I also couldn’t afford to bet our safety on an old flame from my past. Even if the feelings I had for her were still deeply rooted within me, I couldn’t bank on her being on our side.
“It’s nice to see some things never change.” Rolling her eyes, she moved around me to leave our conversation there.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I turned my body to begin following her. Like always, she tried walking faster to get away from me, but we both knew it was futile with how little her steps were compared to my strides.
She crossed her arms and stopped promenading, knowing I wouldn’t let her leave me with that.
“Please, like you don’t know how you are.
You literally question every intention of every minuscule thing, but not once have you thought about what I’ve already done for you.
Your pack is safe in my territory because I stuck my neck out for you. ”
“And let me guess, it was out of the goodness of your heart? You didn’t receive any type of payment for it?” Yeah, I knew that one would make her shut the fuck up.
She released her arms and placed a hand on her hip. “Leia is paying me with a favor, and by the way, you can report to Ryatt and Kayos that she’s okay. She contacted Beta this morning. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to tend to other things today.”
Ryatt wasn’t too pleased with his sister. Leia promised to reach out a few times a day to check in, and she hadn’t. Kit was helping her hide something, but I knew she wouldn’t tell us that secret. Before she could leave, I reached forward and took her hand to spin her back around. “I’m bored.”
“I have no doubt a Beta like you is,” she’s smarted.
Once she realized how bitchy she sounded, she shook her head and rubbed the sides of it again.
“Look, I’ll talk to Anika about putting you on a rotative shift to help guard the territory.
You won’t be able to go too far outside the compound to make sure your identity stays secure, but it should help with the itch you’re feeling. ”
“In the meantime?” I knew it could take days before she’d be able to get me in a rotation because I knew how compounds like this worked. They would already have a schedule up for the rest of the week.
Her eyes darted around us to see if anyone was there, but we didn’t see anyone. It made me wonder what hid down here from how far we had walked. “I’ll let you come with me, but what you see does not get repeated to anyone else. Can you promise that?”
“Even from my pack?”
“If I promise it’s not a threat to your pack, can you keep it from them?”
Mulling the idea over, I knew that if it ended up being something that could harm them, I could go back on my word. “Fine.”
Kit shook her arm out of my grip and went to a smaller door that most people would have walked by, believing it was a utility closet.
Interestingly enough, it took a key card to gain access to it.
She pulled the card out of her back pocket that made the red light go green for us to enter.
I found myself in a dark hallway that was dimly lit to keep people out.
This appeared to be a section they hadn’t renovated, and the cement looked like the buildings from above. The corrosion and rust had made circles and lines across the walls, but the foundation was still sturdy enough to hold. This place just kept getting more interesting by the passing day.
When we came to a new door, she used a different card to gain access, showing me that there was two for a purpose. Anyone who might have seen her at the first door would mistakenly think the same key card would open this one, but it wouldn’t.
Piquing my curiosity, I followed her through it to find something I wasn’t prepared for.
The room we were in had to be the size of two football fields, and it had certain lights that promoted photosynthesis for plants.
We were literally standing in a greenhouse below ground, and it was magical to see.
“Wow,” I breathed out. “This is incredible.”
Kit shrugged as though she’d been unprepared for my compliment. “I had a good teacher.”
When she said it, she directed it to me because I was the one who lived outside in my mother’s garden when we were young.
Kit would tag along when I needed to keep my hands busy because she learned she needed the same thing.
She called me a good teacher which also told me she’d been the one who created all of this. “You did this?”
“Not overnight,” she said with a blush. “I was put in charge of this project with Anika, and it took us just over two years to fully complete. Now, if anything happens above, we have the capability to survive down here. Of course, the meat markets are still above ground, and we have no interest yet in becoming vegetarian, but it’s nice to be able to rely on it if we need to. ”
“This was why you let me come, wasn’t it?” She knew my hands were idle, and I hated it. Despite all the years that sat between us, this woman still knew one of the things that I held nearest to my heart.
“That, and it would be nice to have some help getting all these beds weeded before the evening comes. If you’re up for the challenge, I wouldn’t mind the help.
There’s gloves on the wall over there, but I highly doubt you’ve changed your ways.
” She turned away from me, going toward the back of the greenhouse where the last bed sat before the fields.
She began her work on the opposite side of me going from back to front, so I knew to do the opposite on my own end.
My hands were eager to dig in the dirt as I began pulling weeds with my naked fingers.
She put on her garden gloves to keep her hands nice and smooth without getting cuts or dirt under her nails, but I needed to feel the earth around my skin.
The others didn’t quite understand how it hushed my worries, but they never asked for an explanation either.
A small smile crept over her face as I watched from afar.
The only sound between us was the humming of electricity that kept the lights going in this room, and a misty spray that was handling the field right now.
The background noise made it easier to lose myself in the project before me, but I couldn’t deny how I let my face keep lifting to take her in.
As though I didn’t exist, Kit moved around in her own world. Slowly, she began to hum without thinking about her audience. I forgot how serenading her voice was, like an angelic hymn. It made goosebumps raise on my neck, and I had to shake out a shiver because my body tried to respond to it.
Seeing her like this became nostalgic as I remembered our younger selves.
While there was still a great burden on my shoulders from being a seat in the mafia families, back then, I was still young enough—no, I’d been na?ve enough to believe our future wouldn’t become what it did.
I was stupid and selfish, and my choices hurt the woman who stood on the other side of the room as me.
Even though her neck bore the mark of someone else, I was glad to have this moment with her again.
My soul eased into believing she hadn’t changed as much as she pretended.
After spending hours walking around each table and thinning the problem areas out, she came over to help me with the last few on my side.
From doing this so often, she had gotten faster at it.
She had no idea that I hadn’t touched a garden since my mother’s death.
Kit didn’t even know that my mother was gone, but I knew better than to ruin this moment between us.
Clearing my throat, I was a lot calmer than when I started my day this morning. “Thank you for letting me come with you.”
“You’re welcome,” she replied, with an easy smile. “It was nice to have the company. I usually do this by myself, but I do have two rotations a week that I don’t handle. I just prefer the weeding because it brings me peace once a week when I come to do it.”
“There’s just something about a garden that makes you feel better,” I sighed. As we finished up, I could see her contemplating something beside me.
“You know, if you’re interested, I could put you down here instead of guard rotations. You’re the one person I still trust handling my plants after all this time.” Her smirk was kind and teasing even though we had too much history between us.
“Are you sure?”
“I learned everything I know from you, Franco. Just like I learned to shoot a gun from Kashmir, and to ride a motorcycle from Kayos. I know your strengths, and this is yours.”
Nodding my head, I let my eyes take in the finished garden. All the plants were growing beautifully, and I could see the rotation she had started when she planted certain sections before the others to bloom at different times. “I’d love it down here.”
She took off her gloves and put them in her back pocket before wiping her face and smearing some dirt over her head. “With everything going on, I appreciate you being willing to help with this. I have a lot to handle in the next few days.”
“I can definitely take this off your plate,” I promised her. “Also, I owe you an apology.”
“What for?” I could see the confusion within her stare because she didn’t understand my reasoning. I couldn’t begin to make a list of all the things I needed to say to her, but I would start with the obvious.
“For trying to hurt you when you were with Jericho by the window. I don’t know what you’ve been through the last few years that made you a fighter, but my mind wanted you to still be the same Omega I once knew.
Then you took me down, so that was a wakeup call.
A punch in the face from reality, and I didn’t like it. ”
“How many of us truly like our realities?” Patting my arm, she gave my cheek a simple kiss before waiting for me to leave with her. Her question sent my mind into a spiral because I could see the honesty and hurt within her eyes that told me she didn’t like hers.