Chapter 27
STYX
CLOSER - NINE INCH NAILS
The tension level in my apartment is high. Too high considering it’s coming from six people who are in love and extremely close to becoming an officially bonded pack. A pack that has already had sex with each other in various combinations, presentations, and locations.
Which means this tension is not because of some itch that has gone unscratched.
I mean, I suppose it still could be.
Leon is itching to top Dimitri, and bottom for Rune.
The alphas haven’t actually been with each other yet, but they’ve been with everyone else and I’m sure that can make things a little territorial-ish until they can get down to business expanding that same territory.
And you’d think since I’ve only been with Leon while Dimitri watched, and given Rune the most exciting and challenging blow job of my life before he nearly split me in two after he very politely asked to fuck me, all in the name of calming him down once he found out about the shoot out behind Knotted Obsessions, I could be somewhat edgy.
I’m not, though. Not really. I’m very impatient. I’m beyond ready to start my life with my pack, to make us a family and start planning our future, but I’m not tense.
If anything, I’m enjoying the show.
Dimitri, Leon, and Niko have all been arguing for the last hour and a half about who the dead guys currently disintegrating in the barrels in my back yard are, and who sent them.
Leon thinks they might have been bounty hunters like him. A lot of the people he’s taken care of over the last couple of months have been contracted killers, hitmen, assassins, or hunters, so it’s not that far fetched.
It would be weird if they joined forces and formed some sort of group, though.
Which is what Dimitri said.
He thinks they were extensions of Boris’ Bratva that he sent after him to bring him back to New York.
Again, another alpha who’s not way off base. There are a few Russians cooking in the vats out in the woods, too. They could have come from the Volkov Bratva looking for the prodigal son.
Either way, whether Leon or Dimitri is right doesn’t matter because all of those people were after D in one way or another thanks to Boris’ BOLO for his only son.
That’s the point Niko keeps making.
He’s been blaming Dimitri for just about everything that’s happened to them since he and Liv left the shelter they were staying at, including when they were kidnapped and stuck at the center of that warehouse massacre.
Now that was a surprise.
Not finding out Rune and his sweet baby puppies were responsible for that mess.
I’ve seen him naked. His body is a beautiful, lethal machine, and his dick could be a weapon on its own, so the fact that he was capable of taking out that many armed men with nothing but his bare hands, a little creativity, and a lot of unfiltered rage isn’t shocking.
Throw in Cy, Bee, and Rus, and it’s kind of amazing there was anything left of those assholes for the cops to find.
The surprising part was the fact that Liv and Niko got wrapped up in all that bullshit well before he and Dimitri were on each other’s radars again.
I want to know how Niko was found.
He’d been hiding for a year and a half at that omega shelter, hadn’t gone anywhere but there, the RV campground, and the little store on site.
How did that group find him? Who was that group?
Were they local men with an ear to the ground and just happened to be in the neighborhood when they heard about Dimitri, or were they from out of town and sent after him?
My money is on somewhere in between.
To find Niko so quickly means they already had to be in Minneapolis.
Yeah, that could mean they were some kind of Bratva extension like Dimitri said but I don’t think so.
I’d never say it to him, but Alexei has the Russian mafia game on lockdown out this way and if someone was moving on his territory, he’d know.
Especially if they were connected to his uncle.
I think they were local boys who heard about the hunt for D, did some quick, shitty research that produced a photo of the two of them, and managed to find our omegas before anyone else. Probably by some stroke of dumb luck.
I do not think they were Minnesota born and bred, however.
Ever since our dads retired, Ransom and I have had a pretty solid relationship with nearly all of the various crime syndicates in the Twin Cities, and aside from Pushkin, we’ve never seen another Russian mafia family out here, and definitely not one we didn’t know about.
So, that group was recently local and jumped at the opportunity to make a fat payday when it was presented.
I’d still like to know how they found Niko so fast.
And why the fuck they were convinced he was Dimitri.
Sure, Nikolai doesn’t fit the male omega stereotype.
I don’t know if I’d think he was an alpha necessarily, not until he opened his mouth.
He can definitely wield that tongue and swing his dick like one, but that’s just it.
Those bastards had him completely naked at one point and yes, they were torturing both of our omegas at the time, but how the fuck did they miss the fact that Niko doesn’t have a knot?
It wouldn’t have saved them at that moment.
It might have even made things worse if those idiots thought Liv and Nikolai could lead them to Dimitri, but come on.
That’s another thing that has me perplexed.
If they were that stupid, if they were so oblivious to something as obvious as that, how were they able to not only find Niko, but get past Rune, the dogs, and manage to keep Liv from gaining access to her mobile armory?
That requires intelligence, or at the very least a little forethought, and considering how that entire thing played out, it seems like that group was lacking both.
In my opinion, that eliminates bounty hunters, assassins, and contract killers.
They were too stupid to be any of those, which is something I knew before but was drilled home after I met Leon.
They definitely weren’t Bratva, either, though.
Not because of the collective IQ of twelve those men shared, that wouldn’t exactly rule out a connection to a criminal syndicate, but after reading the articles online and hearing firsthand how things were set up, they weren’t organized or refined enough to be from a crime family with a reputation like any of the ones I’ve heard of.
That brings me right back to the same questions I’ve been asking myself since the three beautiful men in front of me started arguing.
Who was that group, who were they working for, and how did they find our omegas so quickly?
“Knock it off!” Leon barks as he inserts himself between Dimitri and Niko before shoving them apart.
“If you’re going to argue with me, you can’t do it in Russian!
It makes my dick hard and it is very difficult to pick out what little I know in your native tongue with all the blood rushing to my crotch! ”
I roll my eyes and smirk as Dimitri shoves him back.
“That’s not my fucking problem, Leonidas!”
“Don’t call me that,” he snaps as he narrows his eyes. “Not when you’re angry. While you’re fucking me, or while I’m fucking you, or when there is mass fucking, fine, but not when you’re pissed off.”
“Really?” Niko huffs as he scrubs a hand over his face. “You can’t stop thinking about that long enough to try to seriously figure out who the fuck those assholes were that tried to kill Liv and D?”
That’s adorable.
It doesn’t matter what is happening, who is around, or literally anything else one could think of, Leon is always thinking about sex and can easily relate everything back to it in some way.
Granted, Niko has had the least exposure to Leon with his clothes on, him and the big guy, so they’re still learning how his libido runs the show most of the time.
And I think the bastards my staff are still trying to clean up off the back parking lot of KO were connected to the guys from the warehouse.
I don’t really know for sure why I feel that way.
Probably because that attack seemed as uncoordinated, unplanned, and unprofessional as the other, and it feels like there is a bigger piece missing from both puzzles that my gut says will connect them.
They were even dressed similarly from what Liv said.
I look down as she shifts around in my lap, watching as she rubs her cheek against my thigh while I continue running my fingers through her hair.
That’s part of why I’m letting The Three Stooges entertain me instead of sharing my thoughts and arguing with them.
Any other day I’d jump in and go a round or two just for the hell of it. Arguing is something I was born to do, literally since god blessed me with the crabbiest, most bullheaded big brother to ever live. I came out of the womb arguing with Ran and it’s become a favorite pastime of mine.
Not today, though.
It’s only been a couple days since Dimitri had his come to Jesus moment and the four of them cleared the air, so to speak, but our girl has been extremely clingy toward all five of us from the time Rune and I walked in on their afterglow until right now.
She hasn’t wanted to be alone, Liv is always touching at least one of us, and she’s been scenting the shit out of all of us whenever she’s in range.
She’s easily pilfered most of mine and Leon’s clothes from my dirty laundry, and I know she’s been stealing Dimitri’s shit from his truck.
Liv doesn’t think we’ve noticed but we have, and I know it’s because she’s trying to add them to her nest down in the RV without making it into some kind of production.
It’s cute that our girl doesn’t really know how to be an omega while she’s fully turning into one.
Doesn’t mean it’s been an easy thing for her to embrace, though.