ELIANO #10
Over the next few days, Evan, Roman, Fred, and Bashir get ready to leave the island.
We throw together a small farewell in the cafeteria.
I owe Bashir for helping Salt while I was gone, and I’m honestly sorry we didn’t get more time to become friends.
He’s a solid guy, loyal to the core, completely devoted to his partner.
They decide to move back to Bashir’s hometown.
I also tell them about the BA Follow-Up program and suggest they look into it if the pregnancy works out.
Fred and Roman seem intrigued. The idea of a mostly self-sufficient town, where no omegas work in roles that would constantly distract alphas feels especially appealing to Roman.
But also to Fred, who is a little on edge about leaving the island and having Bashir surrounded by omegas.
Any one of them could turn out to be highly compatible and complicate things.
That kind of mess happens more often than anyone likes to admit in alpha-beta relationships.
Still, they’re both so fed up with the island and the program that staying just isn’t an option.
Once they’re gone, the whole place feels different.
A new security team moves in. Cameras go up along the fences. Motion sensors get added. There’s even an automated unit now, with small drones buzzing around the island and sweeping the shoreline.
The ferries get extra guards too. More cameras. The crew searches the vessel every time it leaves.
Gomez isn’t taking any chances.
The added security and Drax being gone are enough to make some couples reconsider leaving.
A few decide to stay after all. Roman, Evan, Bashir, and Fred don’t.
For them, the island is too tangled up with everything that went wrong.
They don’t believe staying here would magically improve their odds of having a child anyway.
Meanwhile, Salt talks to Senu on the phone every day, sometimes for almost an hour, about nothing in particular and everything at once. I can see how much it matters to him. It’s like he’s slowly transforming into a much softer and sweeter person, coming out of his prickly chrysalis.
As for us, the next few weeks are… sooo pleasant! Different from before. Almost like a normal married life. A real relationship.
We are much closer now, our daily interactions becoming more intimate, our sex growing more tender. I can literally feel it all building between us, the love, the trust. The bond grows into something palpable, not only the magical one tied to our fated status.
Having his brother again, even if only through daily calls, is like a huge weight finally slipping off Salt’s shoulders.
He just lives now. He laughs more. He worries less.
He’s convinced Blue will approve us for the program.
I’m not quite that optimistic. I stay cautious, but we both know that if it doesn’t work out, North Carolina and Mauro are still an option.
The last weeks of December pass quietly.
Even though the neighboring units are empty and the number of couples in our sector has dropped from forty-one to thirty-three, the staff keeps trying. They come up with new activities, nothing mandatory. Sometimes we join in anyway, just to get out and not feel stuck in the same four walls.
◆◆◆
One night, I am woken by a strange sound. My phone emits the soft chirp of an incoming text message. I rarely wake to sounds like that, but for some reason this one pulls me from sleep.
I lazily reach out, grab the phone, and glance at the screen, only to see I have two new messages.
To my complete shock, one is from Mauro and the other from Ennio. I unlock the screen immediately.
The first message, from Ennio, arrived about fifteen minutes earlier.
It reads: "If you are in your unit right now, leave discreetly and hide in a safe place. Hurry, there is no time to lose. Leave the phone behind."
Fuck. My hands shake as I check the second message. It’s from Mauro.
"Are you safe, Eliano?" That is all.
My body tenses up. I quickly pull the SIM card out of the phone. I jump to my feet, run to the bathroom, and flush the phone down the toilet. Then I rush back to the bed, grab Salt around the waist, and haul him upright.
"What the hell," he mumbles groggily, half asleep.
"We have to leave the unit right now! There is no time."
"But what’s happening?"
"Move!"
Almost dragging him with me, I rush to the hidden door in the bathroom, swipe Salt’s card along the wall, and activate the opening mechanism.
"Bend down. We move slowly through the bushes," I mutter through clenched teeth.
At one point I crouch lower and bury the SIM card beneath a clump of grass. I feel Salt trembling under my fingers when I straighten and we resume our escape.
We slip through the undergrowth bent low, then move from shrub to shrub behind the row of units, heading toward the lower-numbered ones.
"What is going on?" Salt whispers nervously, slightly out of breath.
"I got texts from Ennio and Mauro."
"What kind of texts?"
"A warning. Ennio told us to leave our unit."
We crouch in the bushes behind building number eighteen, already a considerable distance from our own.
I scan the area carefully but see nothing.
There is no sound of alarms either, which would have gone off if the cameras had detected anything.
Doubt creeps in, making me wonder if this is a false alarm after all.
"I don’t see any soldati," I murmur.
"Do you think they could get onto the island without anyone noticing?"
"I don’t know. Security has improved a lot, but the mafia has its ways. Believe me, if they set their sights on someone, it is incredibly hard to escape. They have connections everywhere, in the police, in offices, in banks."
We sit in silence for a moment, huddled together in the bushes. Nothing happens.
"Maybe it really is a false alarm," Salt murmurs, still trembling slightly, mostly from the night cold.
I wrap an arm around him. "Let’s wait a little longer. Ennio wouldn’t send that text without a reason."
At that exact moment, I hear a sound. It is high-pitched and piercing, as if projected from high above, and almost immediately another follows, this time from the direction of the security building. I lift my gaze upward. Something catches my eye, a brighter streak in the sky.
"What the hell is that?"
We both lift our heads, and then a sudden, sharp, shrill whistling sound reaches our ears.
The next instant brings a deafening explosion. A plume of fire and smoke erupts into the air, flooding the night with intense, blinding light.
"Oh, fuck," Salt groans, clinging to me, his lithe body pressed against my side.
"What a piece of shit, what a bastard," I mutter under my breath, a wave of anger surging through me. "I’m sure it’s Rocco!"
Silly me, I had been looking for soldati, not for more modern forms of warfare. A drone attack from the air. Of course. These are no longer the days when the mafia simply pulled up in front of someone’s house and opened fire with an old rifle.
"Damn it, that bastard will never leave me alone," I snap, half furious, half crushed. Something inside me breaks at the realization that I will never be free of this threat, even if I run to the other side of the world…
Unless.
A piercing possibility shoots through my mind.
I turn toward my True Mate. He is looking at me. I run my fingers over Salt’s pale face, the reflection of fire and smoke flickering in his eyes as it rises above the row of units. "Oh, Salt. I’m sorry." Then I draw my brows together. "But I will end this."
"Eliano, what are you saying?"
Shouts ring out around us.
We hear people running, spilling out of their units.
Thankfully, the two neighboring units next to ours were empty.
From what I can see in the distance, they were damaged as well.
There is a chance no one was killed, but that does not change how I feel, exposed, like a sitting duck. Rocco can reach me anywhere.
There is only one way I can protect Salt and our child.
Only one.
Eliminate Rocco.
"I need to kill my brother, Salt," I say quietly but with conviction.
Salt’s eyes widen in the dim light, the fire from the burning unit still reflecting in his irises, giving his face a slightly eerie look.
If we weren’t True Mates, I could go to Rocco, take a bullet to the head as my punishment, and Salt would be free and safe. But that’s not an option. If I die because of our bond, he dies too. I have to handle this another way.
"Are you serious?" he whispers. "You’ve always been against taking justice into your own hands."
"But I’m not alone anymore. What kind of alpha would I be if I let the ones I love be killed?"
Salt’s eyes are on my face, his lips slightly trembling.
"But he’s your brother." It’s obvious that for Salt the word brother carries a warmer and deeper meaning than it does for me, but he didn’t grow up among the Ferros.
"Not anymore. He’s just a murderer."
There is silence. We sit like this, nothing to add. It has to be done; there's no other way.
My arm is wrapped around Salt as we wait, staring at the smoldering wreckage of the unit.
Then I hear people running from the direction of the administration building. A quad arrives carrying several betas with fire extinguishers, and the team begins putting out the flames.
Still, I keep staring. It feels like having a millstone tied around your neck, unable to reach the surface because its weight drags you down relentlessly until, sooner or later, you run out of breath. I feel a deep exhaustion and a fierce need to free us. The madness in our lives has to end.
I desperately need a miracle. Or do I just need to work on that miracle myself? Damn.
"I'm taking a ferry to the mainland tomorrow," I say flatly. "We will never be safe here, Salt, as long as he’s alive. Simple."
In the half-light, Salt’s eyes settle on my face.