The Don's Omega

Prologue

Elio

“Hey, Elio, can I get another beer and your phone number?” A drunk, older alpha with a thick white beard and bloodshot eyes asks, laughing loudly at his own joke.

“Gee, never heard that one before, Harry,” I say, but I smile so he doesn’t take offense.

After all, insulting the customers won’t get me good tips, and tips are what my younger brother Fabio and I mostly live on.

What they pay me here at Duffy’s is shit and without tips, Fabio and I would be homeless.

The bar is packed tonight, every cracked vinyl stool occupied and a group of alphas standing three deep near the taps.

Beer signs throw red and blue light across the ceiling and the jukebox in the corner is playing some country song about whiskey, women, and broken hearts.

The whole place smells like fryer grease and spilled beer and the pungent scent of the pine cleaner we mop the floors with.

A red-haired alpha named Pete winks at me from the end of the bar.

He’s attractive. Lean body, auburn hair and green eyes.

He has a really nice smile and an easygoing personality.

We hooked up a few times at his place after a couple of my night shifts.

He’s nice. I haven’t dated many nice alphas.

I appreciated that Pete waited until we knew each other for a few weeks before he hit on me.

It was a nice change. Most of the alphas try to get in my pants within six seconds of meeting me.

While I don’t tend to sleep with the patrons of the bar, Pete seemed worth the risk.

Besides, sex is fun, and God knows I don’t have enough of that in my life.

My phone buzzes in my back pocket but I ignore it because it’s a Friday night and the bar is busy.

Hank will not be pleased if I check my phone during my shift.

I keep serving customers, fending off horny alphas and enduring a few pinches to my ass when I go out to tables to deliver drinks.

Putting up with drunks is part of the job.

I’m not saying I like it, but I don’t have any choice.

I need this job and sometimes I think Hank wouldn’t care if the customers literally tried to fuck me on the bar, he just wants them happy.

Happy customers come back, again and again.

My phone buzzes once more a few minutes later and then again.

That makes me uneasy. I serve a few more patrons and glance at my phone.

I have to at least look at who it is trying to get hold of me.

It’s obvious someone is and it might be important.

With a nervous glance toward Hank, I pull out my phone.

I notice three missed calls from Fabio and three from a number I don’t recognize.

Fabio knows not to call me at work unless something is wrong, and seeing those missed calls from him sends a chill through me.

I don’t want to think the worst, but I’m a born pessimist.

Fuck Hank’s rules.

I set the bottle I’m holding down when another text arrives. It’s a message from my neighbor, Mrs. Padilla.

Elio, an ambulance just took Fabio. They’re taking him to St. David’s Hospital. He looked really bad. You need to go to him now.

Panic shoots through me and I almost bump into the other bartender, Grace.

“Careful,” she grumbles, scowling at me.

“Sorry,” I mutter. Stomach churning, I head toward Hank who’s standing at the cash register, counting money for a drop. “I have to go,” I say, already pulling my apron off. When he doesn’t hear me, I say louder, “Hank, I’m sorry, but I have to go.”

Hank looks up from the register, scowling. Until he sees my face. “What’s wrong?”

“My brother was just taken to the hospital in an ambulance. I… I need to go to him.”

He hesitates and I see it goes through his head to argue. Something in my expression must tell him not to bother because nods. “Of course. Go.” He doesn’t look happy about the situation, but I’m sure he knows I’m leaving no matter what he says.

I barely remember the drive. It’s just a blur of headlights and panicked thoughts.

I hurry through the automatic doors of the emergency room.

As the doors slide open, the smell hits me.

It’s that specific hospital scent of antiseptic cleaner and recycled air.

It takes me right back to the night my parents died.

But I push those memories away because they’re not helpful right now.

The lobby is small and grim, a handful of semi-comfortable chairs bolted to the floor in rows, most of them occupied by people staring at their phones.

A television mounted high on the wall plays the news on mute, closed-captioned footage showing the day’s most depressing news.

Why is there never any good news? Would it really be so bad to share some fucking good news for a change?

The floor is scuffed, beige linoleum, with a long black skid mark near the admissions desk. Fuck knows what that’s from. There’s a tired-looking older omega manning the desk and she doesn’t even look up when I stop in front of her.

“I’m looking for Fabio Conti.” My voice sounds steadier than expected. I don’t know how that’s possible. “He was brought in by ambulance.”

She looks up, squinting. “What was the name?”

“Fabio Conti.”

She types something into her computer. She’s moving so slowly I want to scream. I’m tempted to tell her never mind, I’ll type it in for her. The fear eating at me is making me light-headed. I’m sure she’d move faster and with more purpose if it was her little brother who’d been brought into the ER.

“Are you family?” she asks.

“I’m his brother.”

She sighs. “Go sit down by the double doors. Someone will come get you in a bit.”

Really? That’s it, lady?

“Do you know why he was brought here?” I ask hoarsely. I know nothing. No details. Absolutely no information at all. I’m dying inside and she just looks like she’d like a nap.

“Sorry, I don’t have any details.” Her tone doesn’t sound like she’s sorry. She sounds borderline annoyed I bothered her. It’s obvious she just doesn’t give a shit. Does she even have a heart?

I move toward the chairs, but I can’t sit.

I’m way too wound up. I stand near the doors with my arms crossed and my fingers digging into my own biceps.

I’m trying to keep it together, but no info is literally torture.

I watch every person in scrubs who passes through like I can will one of them to stop and talk to me.

But it’s not working because no one tells me shit.

Twenty minutes pass and it feels like an hour. Then a doctor pushes through the double doors and says my name. When I meet her gaze, she waves me over, and I’m following her down a hallway.

“Your brother was conscious when the paramedics brought him here.” The doctor is walking fast and talking faster.

She’s an alpha, maybe my age, dark hair pulled back, and she has the kind of calm that I recognize as professional.

She’s not calm because things are fine. She’s calm because she’s looking at things analytically and not emotionally, like me.

“He was experiencing significant chest pain, shortness of breath, and a rapid, irregular heartbeat.”

“Is he okay?” Because, let’s face it, that’s all I care about.

“He’s stable,” she says emotionlessly. “We’ve run an EKG, blood work, a chest X-ray, and an echocardiogram. The EKG shows an abnormal rhythm, and the echo shows significant thickening of the heart muscle with obstruction to blood flow.”

My anxiety grows. She said he’s stable, and that word should make me feel better, but it doesn’t. I can tell from her face and her tone of voice that there are bad things coming. My gut is churning so hard, I’m surprised I don’t puke from the stress.

“So, what’s actually wrong with him?”

She grimaces. “Let’s talk in private.”

Yeah, that’s not good.

Things must be dire if she doesn’t want to tell me out in the hallway. She takes me to a small room that has two chairs and a box of tissues on a side table. The fact that they have a room set aside specifically for conversations like this makes my stress levels rise.

“What’s going on?” I ask, trying not to freak out.

She clasps her hands in her lap. “Well, your brother collapsed because he has a condition.”

“Okay.” I swallow hard. “What kind of condition?”

She grimaces. “It’s called hypertrophic obstructive cardiomyopathy,” she says. “HOCM for short.”

Just the name alone gives me anxiety. I know it’s really bad just because there are so many words and syllables. “I’m sorry, I don’t know what any of this means. Can you please just tell me what’s happening in normal words?”

Her cheek twitches. “Sorry. HOCM means that the muscle of his heart, specifically the septum, the wall between the two lower chambers, has thickened significantly. It’s obstructing the blood flow out of his left ventricle.”

I’m listening. I’m hearing the words. But I’m not understanding the meaning.

“Is that why he collapsed?”

“Almost certainly. The obstruction can cause arrhythmias, which is what we saw on his EKG. In a case like your brother’s, where the thickening is this pronounced, the risk of sudden cardiac events is real.”

Sudden cardiac events. I know what that means. She means his heart could stop.

“What do we do?” I ask, because that’s the real issue.

I don’t ask why him or how it could have happened to such a nice kid.

None of that matters. All that matters now is how do we fix this?

Because the answer to that is always the same for me when it comes to my brother: Whatever it takes. I’ll do that.

“He needs surgery.”

“All right.” I grit my teeth.

She sighs watching me. “It’s a procedure called a septal myectomy.

A surgeon removes a portion of the thickened septum to open up the outflow tract and restore normal blood flow.

It’s an open-heart procedure, so it’s significant, but for patients Fabio’s age with his level of obstruction, the outcomes are very good. ”

“Okay. Let’s do it.”