by D. J. Heart
It’s an HD surveillance film screenshot of Merchant and an unfamiliar beta. Merchant has the much shorter beta pinned up against a brick wall, one hand held up like he’s about to smash it down on the beta’s face, the other tangled in the collar of the his shirt. The beta’s face is a bloody mess, and there’s a huge grin on Merchant’s face.
He looks like he’s having fun.
Logan flips through to the next picture. The beta is now on the ground, his midsection curled around Merchant’s boot like he’s just been kicked in the gut. The next picture shows Merchant stomping on the beta’s unprotected ribs.
Logan feels sick. This is what Merchant considers work? He closes the folder, not wanting to see the rest. He tries to breathe, but his nose is running and he’s crying.
Merchant has taken his hand off Logan’s thigh, sitting back with a helpless look on his face.
“They want me to get you to confess and record it on my phone and send it to the address they gave me. I don’t who they are or what they know. The guy who met me had a hood on and he wore sunglasses, and I think his beard was probably fake too.”
Logan feels defeated. Whatever evil things Merchant has done, he can’t get away from the fact that Merchant is his mate. His alpha. If Merchant wanted to, he could use his claim and the bond between them and make Logan do practically anything.
Logan would rather it not come to that.
“What was the address?” Merchant asks, his voice carefully blank. Logan takes a small piece of paper out of his pocket and hands it to Merchant. The note reads [email protected]. Merchant immediately pulls out his phone and writes a quick message, no doubt passing the email along to someone at Tank Security.
“How could you do it?” Logan asks. He needs to know. He needs to understand just what kind of monster he’s shackled himself to. Merchant shrugs, looking uncomfortable.
“I didn’t know what I was going to do when I left the Army. This was… easy, and I’m good at it.”
Logan looks away. It was easy? That’s his reason? How is Logan supposed to deal with that?
Merchant’s phone rings. He stands up and tugs off his gloves, answering it as he walks to the other side of the room.
“Are you sure?” he asks, after the person on the other end of the line is done talking. There’s another pause.
“I’ll take care of it.”
Logan stares at Merchant as he hangs up the phone, wondering what he’s found out.
“We tracked the number of the person who called you. We matched the address on the billing record to the physical location of the IP address of the computer that last logged into the email account you gave me. The number and account both belong to a beta named Jordan Lane. Have you heard of him?”
Logan nods. Jordan Lane is a hacker who occasionally goes after the big actors in the omega trade. If Logan remembers correctly, he was friends with some of the people who died on the boat Merchant blew up.
“What are you going to do?” Logan asks. Merchant clenches his jaw and looks away. Logan feels nauseated.
“Please don’t kill him,” Logan blurts out. When Merchant’s head swings in his direction, his eyes are blazing and hard.
“He shouldn’t have gotten involved in this.”
Logan ducks his head. He has no idea how to talk to this person. Was the Merchant he knew just a mask? A part Merchant played to lure Logan into his life and trap him there?
“And what about me?” he asks, forcing the words out, making them angry and challenging.
“You’re mine,” Merchant says, his voice hard. “Peter knows that you’re not going to do anything stupid.”
Logan takes it like the warning it was intended to be. He looks down at his lap, and he can’t stop the tears from running down his eyes. He’s been so stupid.
“Look,” Merchant says, running a hand through his hair and looking agitated. “I’ll talk to him. If I can make him see reason, then maybe I won’t have to resort to drastic measures.”
Logan looks up, catching Merchant’s eye. They stare at each other, and Logan swallows the lump in his throat and nods. He’ll take it.
“Thank you,” he says, wondering how he ended up in a position where he feels grateful that his mate is going to try not to kill someone.
“I need to go deal with this now.” Merchant dithers, looking like he’s about to leave, and Logan wonders what he’s waiting for. When Merchant crosses the room in five wide steps and crouches down in front of him again, he gets his answer.
“Stay in the apartment and wait for me. Don’t contact anyone.”
The words are imbued with every ounce of alpha authority that Merchant has, and Logan feels the commands take root in his brain. Even if he wanted to, he knows that there’s no way he could disobey either of the two commands.
“I hate you so much,” he says, and Merchant’s face crumples.
“It’s… I’ll make it up to you. I promise,” Merchant says, looking wrecked. He stands up abruptly and leaves the room, grabbing his helmet and gloves off the coffee table on the way out, and ten seconds later Logan hears the front door slam shut.
Alone, Logan sits exactly where Merchant left him and waits.
***
Merchant has never felt like a bigger piece of shit in his life. He practically runs out of the apartment, taking the stairs two steps at the time, and jumps on his bike with his heart thudding in his chest.
The way Logan had looked at him. It was awful.
Kicking his bike into gear, Merchant pulls away from the curb and speeds down the street. According to Dawn, Jordan Lane lives just outside the city, and he was accessing the internet just ten minutes ago.
Merchant still hasn’t decided what he’s going to do. He can’t afford to let Jordan continue whatever it is he’s doing, but he doesn’t want to hurt his relationship with Logan further by killing him.
By the time he parks his bike a few houses down from Jordan’s, he still hasn’t decided. Locking his helmet away in the fake fuel tank, he makes his way up the sidewalk and into Jordan’s driveway.
He knocks on Jordan’s front door.
The door opens an inch, and before Jordan has time to peek through the slot to see who it is, Merchant kicks it open and makes his way inside. Jordan cries out, stumbling back, staring at Merchant with wide-eyed recognition. Merchant slams the door shut behind him and advances on the beta.
“Fuck,” Jordan exclaims, turning around and trying to make a run for it. Merchant catches him by the collar of his shirt and slams him back into the wall, pressing his hand over the beta’s mouth.
“I am very angry with you, Jordan,” Merchant says, his voice low and perfectly level. “Do you know why?”
Merchant takes his hand off Jordan’s mouth and the beta gasps for breath. He’s breathing hard like he’s just run a marathon, but then his eyes narrow and his expression transforms to one of defiance. It’s impressive, considering his feet are dangling three inches off the ground
“You killed my friends,” he spits out. “And I’m going to expose you.”
Merchant tries to make sense of the answer, but he’s honestly thrown. He thought Jordan was trying to expose the fact that the sinking of The Pink Lady wasn’t an accident, not something Merchant had done.
“What friends are they?” Merchant asks. He’s not denying anything—he might very well have killed someone Jordan knows—but he doesn’t understand how exposing Peter is going to avenge that.
Jordan sneers. “Taylor Blake, Sara Goldberg, Joshua Farrell, and Elizabeth Baker, you fucking piece of shit.”
Merchant lets go of Jordan’s collar and takes a small step back. He’s never heard of any of those people.
“Who?” he asks, keeping Jordan boxed in against the wall with his wider body.
“They were on The Pink Lady when you blew it up, you sick fucker,” Jordan says, sounding furious and cornered.
Merchant frowns. “I didn’t blow up The Pink Lady,” he say
s. “Why would you think that I did?”
Jordan snorts. “Yeah, right. Like I’m going to believe that.”
Merchant punches him, grabbing him by the collar again to prevent him slumping to the floor. He leans in close so that they’re almost cheek-to-cheek.
“Listen to me you self-righteous little fucker,” he says, low and furious. “I didn’t blow up anything.”
Merchant has done many awful things, but acts of terrorism are not among them. Even he has his limits.
“Of course you wouldn’t confess. I’m not stupid.”
Merchant laughs, and it’s mean. “I don’t mind confessing to you,” he says. “I’ve killed dozens of people. Michael Bridges, Dev Goodman, Payton Trent... the list goes on. Now tell me, why do you think I blew up The Pink Lady?”
It occurs to Merchant that if Jordan believes that he was the one to blow up the yacht with the omega rights activists on it, then so does Logan. He doesn’t know if he should feel relieved or furious. Of course Logan would react like that if he thought Merchant was a mass murder. It would be a completely reasonable reaction.
Merchant punches Jordan again. He’s not relieved, he’s furious. If Jordan hadn’t told Logan that Merchant was the one to blow up The Pink Lady, then none of this would have happened.
“You’re the one Peter Tank turns to when he needs someone killed.” Jordan’s nose is bleeding, and the last punch split his upper lip.
“Sure, but Peter Tank never ordered anyone to blow up The Pink Lady.”
Jordan’s expression shuts down. “I have proof that Richard Cruz paid Tank Security to kill them. I’m going to expose him and you—”
“Are you trying to make me kill you?” Merchant interrupts. He grabs Jordan by the arm and drags him further into the house, finding the living room, and pushes him down into an armchair in the corner.
“It doesn’t matter if you do,” Jordan says, staring up at him with a defiant expression. “If I die, the proof gets leaked.”
Merchant grins. “Yeah, we found your little Dropbox account,” he says, enjoying the way Jordan pales.
“So,” he says, bending down and leaning into Jordan’s space. “Tell me why I shouldn’t string you up and make it look like a suicide.”
Jordan doesn’t answer, his eyes wide.
“You see,” Merchant says. “I don’t actually want to kill you. Your friends died—and Peter was very angry when that happened, by the way; the person who authorized it was dealt with—and I get that you were upset. I get that you want revenge. Now tell me why it isn’t enough that Richard Cruz is dead and all his omegas have been rehabilitated?”
Jordan doesn’t say anything. He’s breathing hard, and Merchant has no idea what he’s doing. Jordan’s backup plan has been dealt with, and everything is positioned for Merchant to take him out and be done with it.
“Why don’t you want to kill me?” Jordan challenges. Merchant laughs.
“Because it would make my mate sad. He doesn’t like it when I kill people, so I’m trying to show some restraint when possible.”
“I’ll stop trying to prove that you and Peter were responsible for the bomb.” Jordan says. He sounds sincere, but Merchant doesn’t know how he’s supposed to know if he’s telling the truth.
“Okay,” Merchant says. “I believe you.”
“You do?” Jordan sounds disbelieving.
“I do. And if I find out later that you’re lying to me, I’ll come back for you.” Merchant leans in closer. “And it will take you years to die. Do you understand?”
Jordan swallows heavily and nods, looking scared. Merchant steps back, feeling weird that Jordan isn’t dead or groaning in pain on the floor, and walks out of the room. As he’s walking down the driveway, the front door open behind him, he wonders just how mad Peter is going to be.
Getting his helmet out of the fake fuel tank and straddling the bike, Merchant makes his way back home.
He needs to make up with his mate.
***
Logan still hasn’t moved from the couch when he hears Merchant come back home. About two hours have passed, but it feels like more.
This time Merchant takes off his boots and jacket before walking into the apartment. Logan listens as he moves closer, looking up when he hears him standing in the door.
“How did it go?” he asks, feeling numb.
“Good,” Merchant says. Logan has no idea what that means. He watches, wary, as Merchant moves closer and sits down next to him. He’s grateful when Merchant keeps a few inches of distance between them. “We agreed that he would back off.”
Logan breathes out slowly, relief washing over him.
“I think there’s something we need to clear up,” Merchant continues. Logan turns his head, wondering what he’s going to say now.
“What?” he asks.
“Jordan thought that I was the one to bomb The Pink Lady. He was wrong. Peter didn’t even know about it. The manager of the Cruz account was the one who made the call, and Peter was pissed when he found out.”
Logan closes his eyes and just breathes. He has no idea what he’s feeling.
“Logan?” Merchant asks, sounding nervous.
“But you’ve done other things,” Logan says. He needs to know what he’s dealing with.
Merchant nods.
“Are you going to keep doing them?”
Merchant shakes his head. “I got a job offer to head up the domestic division of Topgrunder. I’m going to take it.”
Logan snorts. He recognizes the name. Topgrunder is infamous for their dubious ethics and warmongering.
“Are we going to be okay?” Merchant asks when Logan doesn’t say anything.
Logan takes a deep breath. He honestly has no idea, but he wants them to be. They’re in this for the long haul.
“I hope so,” he says. Merchant’s shoulders relax, and there’s a hint of a smile on his face.
“Yeah?”
Logan nods.
Merchant scoots closer, closing the gap between them, and tentatively wraps his arm around his shoulder. Logan closes his eyes and leans against Merchant’s side, enjoying how right it feels.
“I’m sorry,” Merchant says, kissing the side of his head.
Logan doesn’t reply.
Chapter 17
Merchant wakes up with Logan in his arms, and it feels so perfect and right that he can’t help but smile. Then he remembers the shitshow of a day he had yesterday, and he winces.
Logan had said he hated him.
Merchant wonders if he meant it, or if he was just angry that Merchant took advantage of his claim to take away his free will.
Logan makes a noise and shifts, obviously waking up.
“Logan?” Merchant asks.
“Yeah?” Logan yawns.
“Did you mean it when you said that you hate me?” Merchant is hyper-aware of the fact that he’s holding Logan tight against his body, and of the fact that Logan could destroy him with a single word.
“No,” Logan says, sounding sleepy. “But I’m pissed that you used your alpha voice on me. That’s seriously not cool.”
“I’m sorry,” Merchant says, grinning into Logan’s neck.
“Don’t do it again,” Logan says, not sounding upset.
They lay like that for a few more minutes, but eventually Merchant has to piss. He pulls away from Logan and makes his way to the bathroom, and by the time he’s done emptying his bladder, Logan is in the shower.
Merchant joins him, stepping under the double spray and helping him soap up, enjoying the feeling of soap-slicked skin under his hand. Logan relaxes, letting the water and Merchant’s hands work the knots out of his muscles, and when Merchant reaches down and starts jerking him off, he doesn’t object.
His own cock aching and hard, pressed up against Logan’s lower back, Merchant jerks Logan to completion without worrying about himself.
Logan makes a small noise of pleasure when he comes, shooting his load onto the shower wall,
and Merchant feels his own balls pull tight in arousal. Making Logan feel good—taking him to the edge and over—is one of the best feelings in the world.
By the time they’re in the kitchen making breakfast, Merchant almost feels like it’s just any other day.
“So what’s your plan for today?” Merchant asks when they sit down at the table to eat their eggs. Logan shrugs.