Chapter 30
LIV
I had no idea there was a fair going on.
Which isn’t really a shocker. It’s not like I’ve been an active part of the community since I got here. I’m almost positive I haven’t gone anywhere other than Knotted Obsessions and Styx’s property since he hired us at the club.
This isn’t exactly the kind of place I’d find any pertinent information on criminal organizations or anything remotely close to one.
Definitely not at the local grocery store, or gas station.
A Farm and Fair Funfest, as it’s called, is so far off my radar I can’t imagine guys like Alexei or Ransom hanging out by the face paint looking to make a deal for one hundred kilos of god knows what.
This is the last place I’d expect to see someone like either of those two or their affiliates.
Carnival games and rides, food trucks, live music and square dancing.
There’s supposed to be a dog show later, after the 4H auctions are done and the best in show winners are announced.
I wandered over to my current location shortly after I got here, taking up my perch on one of the many folding chairs just outside the Junior 4h-ers ring, and I’ve enjoyed every minute of watching the kids practice with their prize pets.
I bet the biggest crime happening on the fairgrounds today is the amount of shit all the cute barnyard babies are leaving each time their tiny hooves trot around the ring.
No sooner do I finish my thought do I see none other than Ransom fucking Adder stop in front of a carnival game, the milk bottle one, and reach into his back pocket for his wallet.
I frown as he pays the carny and gets the balls to knock the bottles down, pausing to pull his ass-length rust-colored hair up into a sloppy bun and roll his shoulders like he’s about to pitch a no hitter during the playoffs.
What the hell is he doing here?
I look around the game aisle to his left and right, searching for some scary thug or slick-looking gangster, but I don’t even see other people waiting behind him.
It actually looks like everyone has given Ransom a very wide birth, and that is definitely because he looks like he has a stick up his ass.
Until he doesn’t.
I watch him finish tossing the third ball, knocking down the bottles with a crash and when he steps to the side and reaches for the enormous, fuzzy, bright pink unicorn, he smiles.
Ransom Adder, the crabbiest human I have ever met, bar none, is smiling and holding a pink unicorn stuffy out to…
My head pops up and my eyes go wide as I watch him hand his prize over to a little girl; a petite little thing who can’t be more than four or five years old.
She’s adorable and excited, jumping up and down with her freckles, stormy blue eyes, and loose, dark rust-colored curls spiralling down her back and ending just above a rainbow tutu.
My brow furrows and I squint as if that’s going to explain what the hell is going on, but it doesn’t need to, not when any idiot could see that the brightly dressed, bubbly ball of energy bouncing around by his side is his daughter.
She has to be. Everything about her screams Adder, save for the much happier disposition, but when Ransom’s icy shithead facade cracks and he smiles at her like she hung the sun, the moon, and the stars in the sky, like she is the literal center of his universe, the relationship becomes even more clear.
How did I not know he had a kid? And she’s possibly the cutest kid I’ve ever seen, so I’m more annoyed than anything else because that’s the kind of energy I need in my life.
I might give her dad a run for his money in the crabby department, but I love kids, I always have, and a little girl like that would take care of my baby fever for a while, easily.
I had no idea, and I can honestly say my flabbers have been gasted.
Styx is going to be in so much trouble for not telling me he had a niece.
I rub the center of my chest as my eyes well up, the thought of my beta enough to bring tears flooding down my cheeks again.
Not because he failed to mention something kind of big, I’m not very happy about that, but it’s not enough to make me cry like a baby.
Neither is the cute little boy headbutting his goat. Adorable, but not a tearjerker.
Watching Ransom pick up his daughter and Superman her above his head, his princess laughing and squealing while he flies her through the air… That is choking me up, and it would have even if I knew about them ahead of time.
But I didn’t.
I didn’t know about them just like I didn’t know this fair was a thing, so it’s safe to say I never planned on being here right now, watching such a sweet moment between father and daughter, either.
Then again, I didn’t plan for anything that’s happened in the last few hours.
I rest my chin on my knees and smile through my silent tears as Ransom kisses his baby before putting her down and taking her hand, then clearly lets her lead him to their next bit of fun.
It’s really cute, and very out of character for him, but it’s making me cry.
I haven’t exactly stopped crying since I left the barn, so it’s not like it was going to take much for a fresh wave to hit me.
God, I’m such a fucking mess.
I can almost hear Styx now, telling me that it’s okay to be a mess. If anyone else was in a situation like this, they’d be a mess, too. He is a perfect beta; the calming voice of reason, the caretaker, the observer who’s in sync with all of us.
I know deep down that he’d be right.
If he was here, giving me a pep talk and trying to get me to calm down, saying it makes sense to feel the way I do.
It’s a good thing he’s not, though, because I don’t want to hear it.
I just want to be upset. I want to be a mess. I want to lose my shit and come apart for a little while so that maybe I can begin processing what I just learned.
Then again, I’m not really sure I’ll ever be able to fully get a handle on the mind fuck of finding out members of my bonded pack are the ones who murdered members of my dead one.
I’ve been trying to figure out what happened, the who and why of what felt like a senseless attack, for such a long fucking time, and getting some of those answers so abruptly has my head spinning. It would even if it wasn’t Niko and Dimitri.
That all-consuming vendetta, the plan of avenging Dante, Jay and Emery, it was the only thing keeping me alive for two goddamn years.
Things may have shifted and changed as I found my true pack, my fated pack, but it didn’t stop me from feeling like my only mission was to get revenge for what I lost, for who I lost, and that piece of the puzzle was basically handed to me on a silver platter by the last people I thought would be involved.
What’s worse than that? Than feeling like my entire purpose for breathing just came to a screeching halt?
I don’t actually feel as bad as I probably should.
Yes, I feel terrible about Emery, Dante, and Jay.
I will always feel terrible about how senseless their deaths were, and how there wasn’t any way to stop them from happening.
But I couldn’t have stopped them, I know that, and I should have died, too.
I used to be so fucking angry that I didn’t.
I was pissed that they left me alone, that we were robbed of whatever our future was supposed to be, but I can’t go back and change things, and I’m at a point where I don’t want to.
Losing our baby is something I’m not sure I’ll ever let go of.
It still hurts, but it’s a different kind of pain.
One I can live with, one I’ve accepted and know happened for a reason, and I don’t necessarily feel badly about that anymore.
I’ve embraced that pain as a reminder, as an example of how I can and will continue no matter how hard things get, and I will never forget the tiny, beautiful being who was going to make me a mother and let me give them the life I never had.
Our baby taught me so much, more than I even realized at the time, and I will never forget the pain that comes with that.
And yeah, the survivor’s guilt I’ve had for the last few years has shifted into something else entirely now that I know who was responsible for those deaths.
It still feels shitty, I still feel bad but having that regret shift from surviving when I shouldn’t have to feeling almost responsible for what happened isn’t why I don’t think I’m feeling the way I should be right now.
I’m fucking relieved.
I’m relieved to have some of the answers I’ve been searching for, relieved I don’t have to fail my first pack by never finding them.
Part of me feels a little responsible for their demise since the execution of it was carried out by two of my soul-bonded mates, but the longer I’ve been sitting here thinking about it, the less I feel that way.
Dimitri and Niko were doing their job. They didn’t know us from Adam, it wasn’t personal or anything other than an ordered hit they had to follow through on, and I know that’s true.
I know it because they gain nothing from lying to me or our pack, they have no reason to hide what happened and frankly, they couldn’t if they wanted to.
I can sense the truth in my mates, right down to my bones, so there is no doubt in my mind that it was just another day at work for them.
Which is where the inaccurate emotions come into play even more.
I’m relieved, and I’m not mad, or upset with Niko and D. Not anymore.
I was, don’t get me wrong. That was way too shocking not to lose my goddamn mind over, but blaming them as if they knowingly murdered my first pack, as if it was some personal attack against us, is irrational at best, fucking insane at worst. Not to mention, I love Niko and Dimitri, Styx, Rune, and Leon way too much to let a shockingly horrible coincidence dictate our future.
As if that thought lifted the black cloud looming over my life, the one I've been living every moment under, just waiting for the storm to hit and take me out of this world, a lot longer than I want to admit, I realize I’ve stopped crying. And I’m smiling.
Thinking about a future with those men, wondering what else fate has in store for us, it’s calming, it’s real, and it makes me fucking happy.
I have control this time.
I have a say in what happens.
Fate might have brought my mates to me, but we’re the only ones who get to decide what we do with our life together. If I want to finally start living that life, I better hurry up and get back to the farmhouse now before my epiphany turns into a panic attack.
I place my hands on the wood, gripping the bench on either side of my hips and watch the families around me enjoying the fair as I get to my feet.
Maybe I should bring my boys to this.
I have no idea if anyone other than Leon would agree to going let alone enjoy their time here, but they won’t say no to me.
And if I throw in the fact that Styx has a niece, that we all have a beautiful, bubbly ball of sunshine out there that he hasn’t mentioned once, I bet we can bring her with us, too.
With what I have no doubt is a stupid smile on my face, I brush the dust off the ass of my jean shorts and take a deep breath, only to have it knocked from my lungs before my air supply is cut off completely.
I kick my legs as I try to scream, flailing my body back and forth against the much larger one.
I’m desperately trying to break free from the deadlocked grip its arm has around my chest, pinning my arms to my sides and squeezing life out of me, pushing what little air I had left, out against the cloth covering my nose and mouth.
I jerk against the man holding me, squirming as hard as I can, wiggling and twisting the best I can when suddenly my body starts to go limp.
My vision blurs around the edges as it starts to fade to black, my ears ringing as my pulse drops a few beats above medical emergency level, my hands turning icy cold while my legs stop moving.
This has to be karma.
Karma for my fucked up responses to everything I learned today.
That was fucking fast.
Let’s just hope my mate bond is too new for any of my boys to feel what’s happening to me now, or whatever the hell I’m about to go through.
I don’t want that for them, don’t want my punishment to become theirs, and that runs through my mind on a loop until I hear something that changes the game entirely.
“Watch her fucking head, you stupid piece of shit. You break it, you buy it, and Hayk has a big ass price tag on this omega bitch.”
Then I promptly pass the fuck out.