20. Olivia #2
Next I found Paulie, who seemed distracted, but once I got his attention, he was equally mystified as to my fiancé’s location. According to him, Keith had been right behind him when the game had ended.
“And how long ago was that?” I asked, my stomach dropping right out of my body and descending to whatever level of hell us shifters were sent to when we were naughty.
“Huh, I dunno. Maybe half an hour? Forty-five minutes?”
Forty-five minutes ago!
“Thanks,” I said quickly, feeling utterly hollow. Something was wrong. My brain was screaming it so loud, it was almost impossible to think anything else.
“Are you okay? You look kind of gray.”
I didn’t answer. Not because I was ignoring him, but because I smelled blood. Human blood.
I took off at a run. I didn’t have the sharpest nose in my entire pack, but I did know Keith’s scent like the back of my hand. It filled my nose when I fell asleep in his arms, soothed me whenever the world grew a bit too fraught, greeted me every morning when I woke up in his place.
But as I sprinted, fighting my inner wolf’s instinct to shift and protect her mate, I could only obsess over the idea that my mate was both missing and that I could smell his blood.
I threw the gate open, then skidded to a stop. Keith came stumbling toward me out of the tree line. His clothes were ripped, one of his shins was sliced open, and his blood-soaked pants were sticking to his thick leg. He was practically covered in dirt.
“Oh my god! Keith! Are you okay?”
I closed the distance between us, my hands hovering awkwardly around him because I wasn’t sure what he needed, what he wanted. But I was so full of relief, horror, and rage that more words wouldn’t come to me.
He didn’t answer. Although the corners of his eyes softened upon seeing me, the rest of his face was pure steel. He was in pain—I could smell it—but he was trying to be brave for me.
“It’s okay, I’m here,” I blurted, finally wrapping my arms around him. But when he winced, I let go.
That was when his gaze flicked to the side. I followed it to see none other than Vinnie and the various Tonys, who had been sitting and laughing among themselves while being far too drunk moments earlier.
But now they were silent. Silent and trying to look anywhere but at my injured fiancé.
Understanding hit me like a freight train, and rage surged through me.
“You!” I cried, turning to glare at my cousins. Instantly, they all started spouting excuses at once, but it only fueled the tempest inside me. “Shut! Up!”
Surprisingly, they did.
“Baby, it’s okay…” Keith murmured, and God, now I could hear the pain in his voice. I knew I had issues with boundaries and had spent far too many years trying to prove my worth by being the most helpful wolf in the world, but this went so far beyond that.
“No, it’s not! What the hell is wrong with all of you?! First, you pressure my baby brother into drinking so much that he’s sick for over a day, and now you purposefully abandon my guest, my future husband in the woods, after attacking him?”
“We didn’t attack him! He fell!”
I swore, if I was a witch instead of a shifter, the glare I sent Antonio would have caused actual lightning to hit him.
“And tell me, how exactly did he fall? Was he pushed? Tripped?”
No one said anything for a moment and I strode all the way into Vinnie’s space. All my cousins were taller than me, probably even stronger than me, but I didn’t give a flying fuck. They had hurt someone I loved.
“…flina’ol…” Vinnie slurred, staring pointedly at the ground.
“You wanna run that by me again?”
“I said he fell in a hole.”
“And how did that hole get there?”
“We dug it.”
“It was a prank!” another objected.
“It’s not a fucking prank if the person it’s being played on doesn’t find it funny!
It’s not a prank if anyone gets hurt! God, the lot of you are so spoiled and moronic that you forgot how to be amusing and traipsed all the way down to being overpowered bullies!
You all could do so much, but you’re here drinking too much of Great-Uncle Giuseppe’s wine, wasting your lives and potential to do what? !
“Do any of you have jobs? Are you applying yourselves in college? Do you help clean, cook, decorate, plan, or take care of the babies? Do you do anything outside of think about yourselves and set up tables? No! You just sit here, a bunch of selfish leeches, and you had the gall, the gall to hurt the kindest man I’ve ever met. ”
“Olivia…” Keith murmured.
“No! They need to hear it! You came here with pure intentions and have been nothing but incredible, and they spit in your face. You hurt him. You hurt him, and his blood is your responsibility!”
Some of the boys looked like they were getting mad, some looked like they were embarrassed, and a few others seemed genuinely ashamed. But I didn’t care. I was so mad that I needed to not see their sorry, stupid faces.
“Come on, let’s go,” I said, whirling back to Keith and gently offering him my arm. He took it, and I tried not to growl when he winced at the movement.
“You guys suck,” Miss Angela said from behind me and I belatedly realized that she’d rushed over during my diatribe.
Never in my entire life had I ever talked like that to anyone in my family, and honestly, it had far fewer curses than I’d wanted to say. I also never thought I’d have to talk to anyone like that, but their behavior was escalating, and if no one was going to say anything, then I had to.
I had learned so much since I’d decided to stop being a doormat and try to find out who Olivia was, and it turned out that she was actually pretty cool.
Pretty cool and pretty pissed off.
There was only one person I needed to make an apology to.
“I’m sorry for making a spectacle at your engagement party,” I said to Roma, who was watching with quite the pissy expression on her sharp features. “I don’t know how to make this up to you, but I will. I’m sure you understand my feelings.”
“Oh girl, you were nicer than I would be. So many stronzi di merda, I’m surprised we’re all not stepping in their shit. Go, we’ll talk later.”
Again, I didn’t know when Roma had gotten so cool, but I really, really needed to get closer to her. I hated to think that it was my own insecurities about her being the perfect Italian beauty that had made me lose out on someone who could be an amazing friend and sister-in-law.
But another time. Right now, I was too pissed off.
“Thank you.” I looked at my brother. “Leandro, my apologies.”
“What Roma said.” He wrinkled his nose. “I wasn’t a saint growing up, but even I wouldn’t do that to a guest.” He stepped past me to put his hand gently on Keith’s shoulder.
Although my fiancé looked somewhere between furious and wanting to fall through the crust of the earth, his expression softened ever so slightly at the comfort.
“I am sorry.”
“Thanks.”
It was a short conversation, perhaps even terse, but it was all that it needed to be and the three of us, even Miss Angela with her cane, continued our march out.
Of course, it would be far too simple for everyone to let us go.
A crowd amassed following us, with some calling to stop, to calm down, that it was just a prank, or that things could be talked out.
Some were still confused and asking what was going on in a mix of English and Italian.
Some were yelling at the boys, who were also trying to make a quick getaway.
Then there was Toni, who decided to try to catch up with us and tell me that I was overreacting and it was my fault that everyone was freaking out.
I wanted to fight everyone. I wanted to rip out their throats with my teeth. Although I didn’t have an alpha designation myself, I was my father’s daughter and my inner wolf was seething.
But I didn’t do any of that. I kept on marching, concerned only for Keith and Angela. I was glad that my fiancé wasn’t trying to mend any fences or say that it was okay. Because it wasn’t. It was so far beyond okay.