by Merel Pierce
She wondered idly if this was what love felt like. If so, it certainly did seem silly. Silly and delightful and maddening all at the same time. She allowed herself the luxury of daydreaming with reckless abandon, idly pondering the possible outcomes of a future that seemed less bleak than it had only days before.
It wasn’t long before the exhaustion caused by her alpha’s vigorous attentions began to take its toll, and December grew tired. So weary in fact, that when her eyes drifted closed and her chin dropped to her chest, she hadn’t the awareness left to realize that the panic room door was still ajar.
***
He limped down corridor at a determined gate, leaning heavily on the crutch propped beneath his arm as he made his way towards the office at the end of the hall. He didn’t bother to knock, instead turning the knob and shouldering his way into the room with a pained grunt. The elderly suited man behind the desk glanced up only briefly, raising a finger to signal silence as his attention returned to the phone currently pressed against his ear. Gio moved forward, hobbling to a stop directly before the large wooden desk.
“No!” He countered furiously, unwilling to be kept waiting. This was too important. “Now!”
His father frowned, annoyance flashing through dull eyes as the old man shot his son a sour look. Unbothered by the threat in the younger man’s tone, he merely continued his conversation. “Yes, well. He has an hour left to dispose of Petrovski. Considering he was originally given a week to complete this goal, I’d say we’ve been more than generous.” He shook his head as he glanced down at his desk, picking up a bronze signet ring that was lying on the blotter.
“No. I am tired of his excuses. Remind him of what he stands to lose if he does not complete the task he’s been given. It would be a shame for his family to pay for his incompetence, but that is precisely what will happen if he does not eliminate his target. It should have been easy, given their close association, and yet he keeps us waiting. No more excuses, Marcus.”
The old man lifted the ring to assess it more closely, turning it over between his fingers as though bored. A double-headed eagle spanned the center of the piece, a small family crest emblazoned across its chest. The sides were adorned in scrollwork set with tiny ruby and emerald chips, an uncharacteristically gaudy and distinctive accent.
The ring was Russian, no doubt belonging to a family member of the man his father had blackmailed into murdering Petrovksi. He leaned forward, slamming a fist down on the desk angrily. His father’s eyes narrowed as he sat the ring aside and glared up at his son. “Yes, one hour. And Marcus? Bring me his omega when it’s done. Spoils of war, so to speak.”
Business concluded, he returned the phone to its cradle, sighing as he folded his hands together and looked up at the angry alpha opposite him. “And what, my boy, is so important that you would burst in here and proceed to disrespect me like some unschooled cur?”
It was Gio’s turn to narrow his eyes. He pointed a finger at his father in accusation. “You knew I was in the transfer station, and you hit it anyway? I was practically crippled for fuck sake!” A look of weariness crossed the older man’s wrinkled face, one brow quirking as he sat back in his chair and considered his son with disdain.
“Someone’s been telling you stories, Gio.”
A growl of frustration erupted from his chest as the injured alpha lifted his crutch and abruptly swept the contents of his father’s desk onto the floor with a clatter of plastic and breaking glass. “Is it true or not?”
The old man sighed again, looking rather unimpressed with the direction their conversation was taking. He ran a hand through coiffed salt and peppered hair, a gesture Gio recognized as a sign of the man’s annoyance. “Sometimes in business it is necessary to take calculated risks. I would have hoped you had learned that by now.” Gio waited, demanding an answer with his silence. Finally, his father shrugged a shoulder. “Yes, I knew that you would be in the cages.”
A burning sense of rage and betrayal clamped down tight on Gio’s lungs with the coolly given admission, leaving him gasping in disbelief. He’d been shot twice when the raid on Petrovski’s station went down. One bullet shattering his femur and the second passing through his abdomen. No internal organs had been damaged, but the surgeries that followed were painful and intrusive.
Two months later, and he was still in pain, every day. And only hours before, Petrovski himself had shared this bit of information with him. His father had left him there, like a sacrificial lamb to be slaughtered. “I almost died! How could you do that to me?”
His father snorted. “Let’s not kid ourselves, boy. If you were worth a damn you wouldn’t have been in that situation to begin with, but you persist on acting like a child. I had no intentions of altering my plans to overthrow Petrovski simply because my child is a fuck up.”
“I am your son!” Gio screamed, positively vibrating with anger and hurt as he stared down on the man across from him in shock. “Your son!” He slammed his fist into the desk again, and this time the older man sat up.
“That’s right, my son. Who has been nothing but a constant source of humiliation since he was born. I’d hoped you would grow out of it and become a man worthy of carrying on our family’s legacy. But you never did. You have remained a worthless, willful, arrogant boy with no sense of loyalty or respect for tradition!”
Gio threw his free arm up in frustration as he spun on his heel, limping a broad circle when he could no longer stand to be still. “Loyalty?” He shot his father a venom filled look. “What the hell do you know about loyalty? The Bulgras name means nothing anymore! Nothing! Your empire is in ruins, father! The ‘great Ramon Bulgras’ is a fucking joke in this city, and it’s no wonder! Your rival has more fucking honor in his goddamn pinky finger than you do in your entire, rotting corpse. And I’ll tell you something else. That Russian may be a bastard, but he would never have sold out his own blood, not like you did. You want to talk to me about loyalty?”
The older alpha bristled as he came to his feet, pointing a finger at him in warning. “Shut your mouth, you disrespectful little prick! You do not talk to me like I am one of your punk friends! You will show me respect!” He roared savagely. Panting and red in the face, the elderly alpha stalked out from behind the desk, advancing on his son so swiftly that for a moment Gio thought he meant to strike him. He stood tall, refusing to submit as he squared off with the approaching male despite his own impairment. Gio had stopped being frightened of his father’s temper some time ago.
The old man stopped before him, breathing heavily as the finger he’d pointed previously now jabbed his son sharply in the chest. “I am sick and tired of cleaning up your messes, Gio. Sick to death of making excuses for my whelp of a son!” Before the boy had a chance to respond, something in the older man’s expression changed. His father’s features went blank, his brow pinching with discomfort as he turned bloodshot eyes on Gio, confusion and pain evident in his expression.
The younger alpha frowned as Ramon’s wrinkled mouth fell open and the man clutched at his chest, free hand grabbing clumsily for his son’s arm. Instead of offering support, Gio took a step back. His father coughed and sputtered, wheezing as he made another grab for his son before he fell to his knees on the rug.
As he watched his father twitch and groan on the carpet, it became clear what was happening. The old man was having a heart attack. As Gio continued to watch him writhe and struggle to breath, righteous indignation reared its head. A bitter sneer curled the younger man’s lip as he stared down on his father, a once powerful alpha that had been reduced to a weak, pitiful pile of bones in the span of less than a minute.
“You know, it’s a shame about Petrovski.” Gio murmured quietly. “If you hadn’t already ordered the hit, I’d be tempted to give him the business just to spite your pathetic ass.” The old man’s face contorted, angry and purple as he continued to gasp for air. “You know…I think I’ll let it rot…Just like you, you son of a bitch. Rot. In. Hell.” Withou
t another word, Gio turned on his heel and hobbled out of the room, closing the door silently behind him.
***
December gasped, jolted awake in a mass of flailing limbs and panic. She’d fallen halfway out of the chair before she caught herself, knocking her tablet to the floor of the panic room and pulling a muscle in her shoulder as she stopped the downward progression of her body. Panting and shaking as a cold sweat broke out on her skin, she pinched her eyes closed and cursed as she pulled herself back up into her seat. Collapsing on the cushions, she pressed the heels of her hands to her temples and groaned miserably. “You’ve got to be kidding me!”
Chapter 33
December was staring at the office door, trying to gather the courage to knock. She hadn’t interrupted him while he was working for weeks and knowing there were so many other alphas in the room made her wary of calling attention to herself. The fact that one of Nikolai’s men was being blackmailed into killing him didn’t make her feel any more confident about exposing herself to them. But therein lay the problem. Bulgras had a man on the inside, and she had no idea when he would strike.
It was only an hour until he’d promised to come for lunch. She considered waiting, assuming the men would be downstairs on break when he opened the door like they usually were.
“But you don’t know when it’s going to happen.” She reminded herself aloud, biting one thumbnail as the other hand formed a fist at her side. She lifted her arm, knocking tentatively at the metal portal. The sound echoed, dull and thick like the ringing of some ancient bell. December backed away, edging closer to the closet as she wrapped her hand around the fob still hanging from her neck.
She counted down while mouthing “Mississippi”, trying to allow the full five minutes he’d previously instructed her to wait before opening the door if she needed him. At three and a half minutes, she was pacing back and forth across the carpet, eyes trained on the keypad. Five minutes came and went, and there was still no sign of her mate.
December cursed, rushing back to the closet to check the monitors. An entirely rational sense of fear had her worried something had already befallen her mate while she stood waiting for him. A sigh of relief deflated the tiny female as she took in the sight of him behind the desk, still engaged in discussion. He was on his feet now, but hadn’t moved any further. In fact, there was very little to indicate he’d even heard her knocking at all. Annoyed and anxious, she returned to the bedroom.
She grew more uneasy with each second that ticked by, now wringing her hands as she resumed pacing in front of the office door. When she felt the soothing stroke of his bond echoing in her chest, she growled and threw her hands up. “I don’t need your comfort, dammit!” She shouted in frustration, knowing full well he couldn’t hear her. “I need you to come here, before someone shanks you or something!”
When she couldn’t take the waiting any longer, she returned to the door, whimpering anxiously as she turned the fob over in her hand and stared down at the code scrawled across the back. “You need to do this, you coward,” she muttered bitterly. “You’re going to feel a hell of a lot worse if they kill him and you’re stuck with another pack of alphas using you like a sex toy.” Realizing it was the closest she was going to get to a pep talk, she forced herself to enter the code.
December winced with each beep of a successfully entered number, holding her breath when she hit the final button that signaled the completion of the code. She edged closer to the door as it whirred to life, mechanisms turning over before the thick metal barrier rolled back along its track and vanished into the wall.
Her throat constricted as the heavy musk of the room permeated her senses almost immediately, panic fluttering to life as every testosterone filled male in the room stopped what they were doing and turned their attention to the small female now standing in the open doorway. December’s eyes widened, her mouth falling open in surprise. “I… I... Uh...” She’d known it would be hard, but she hadn’t expected the crippling sense of terror that froze her in place when she was confronted with the sight of so many gathered alphas.
The very moment a male nose lifted instinctively to sniff, a threatening growl erupted from somewhere behind the wall of bodies that blocked her view. Every chin went down, all eyes abandoning the omega’s form in a sign of submission and respect to the dominant male in the room. The two alphas nearest to her stepped aside, clearing a path for her mate as he came around the side of the desk and approached her with open arms.
“December, I’m sorry to keep you waiting,” he crooned, the aggression he’d displayed only seconds before dissipating rapidly at the sight of her wide, fearful eyes. “Something has happened I am afraid, and it is rather pressing.” His hands closed gently over her shoulders, the continued forward motion of his body forcing her to retreat as he advanced. “I will be in as soon as I can,” he assured with a purr as he backed her out of the room.
As he moved her through the doorway and back into the relative safety of their bedroom, the fading alpha threat held less sway over the petrified female. With a shaky breath, she rallied. “No, no. It can’t wait,” she insisted as she glanced warily around the wall of his body to make certain no one had followed. “I have to talk to you right now.”
“December,” he sighed. “I really must see to--”
“I need you to close the door,” she interrupted nervously. “Now.” His posture stiffened, and though it was obvious he didn’t approve of being challenged in front of his men, he didn’t chastise her. Instead, he pivoted on his heel to address the room behind him.
“I’ll be back shortly. Continue as you were.”
The beeping of the keypad signaled his compliance with her request, and moments later the door whirred shut. Though she was still uneasy, the barrier between her and the other men allowed her enough clarity to focus on why she’d opened it in the first place.
“I had another dream,” she confessed, already pacing by the time the frustrated male turned to face her again. She glanced his way, wringing her hands self-consciously. She’d never actually admitted to anyone that she had visions before, and even though now certainly wasn’t the time for subtlety, she couldn’t help but feel nervous. “That’s how it works, I have dreams. Usually it’s just bits or pieces. Beginning, middle, end. Just pieces of information I always have to try to put together.” She explained with a shrug, keenly aware of how his eyes tracked her path across the room.
“Why don’t you sit down, sweet one, you seem distressed.”
She frowned and waved her hand at him dismissively. Undeterred, the male eased towards her, forcing her to pause when his hands settled across the tops of her shoulders. As the pads of his thumbs began to rub small circles in the hollows above her clavicles, she stared up at him expectantly.
“Bulgras is blackmailing someone to kill you. Someone that already has access. Have you told his son about the transfer station yet?”
His expression darkened minutely, a weak vibration of something that felt strangely like suspicion vibrating through their bond. Nonetheless, he continued to massage her shoulders. “You had one of these dreams the morning you were taken from me, didn’t you?”
She nodded fervently, annoyed by his question. He was wasting time. “Yeah, and guess what? You died in it because you were at the transfer station. Happy?” She threw up her hands in exasperation. She spun away from him, huffing as she moved to sit down on the edge of the bed. Again, he followed her, lowering himself cautiously to her side.
“I saw his kid. Gio? He was mad and went to confront Bulgras about leaving him in the transfer station. When he got there, his dad was on the phone telling someone named…” She paused, closing her eyes as she tried to remember the finer details of her dream. “Marcus? Yeah. Telling someone named Marcus that ‘he has one hour left to complete the task or his family will pay, we gave him a week already, he should have been able to do it, no more excuses, Petrovski needs to be dead, blah blah blah’.”
For a few moments the male was quiet, studying her in sober silence. When he spoke, there was apprehension in his tone. “Little wolf, can you tell me what injuries Gio had? Do you remember?”
“What does that matter?” She hissed incredulously. “Are you even listening to me?”
The male’s eyes darkened, a familiar muscle tick in his jaw warning her to watch her tone. “I assure you, I am listening. Please, humor me.”
She sank her hands in her hair, tugging as she pinched her eyes closed again and tried to remember. “Uh, he took two bullets. One shattered his femur? The other went through his, through his abdomen. He’s using crutches!” She declared triumphantly. She was aware there was no logical way for her to know that bit of information, which she hoped would make him take her more seriously. When she opened her eyes to look up at the hovering male, he had paled considerably. Judging by his expression, she’d guessed correctly.
“Gio had spoken to you shortly before. That’s why he was upset, see? He knew his father had pretty much left him to die when he was at the transfer station. So, he confronted him.”
“And?”
“Well,” she hesitated, wondering if she should tell him the rest. “Well, Bulgras had a heart attack. And his kid left him there on the floor, dying. But Nikolai, he said if you were still alive, he would have given the business to you just to spite Bulgras! I mean, I don’t know if he was serious, but considering the alternative might be you ending up dead… I don’t know what you’re planning to do, but if you just tell his son, maybe he’ll have the heart attack and his son will just surrender everything to you and we won’t have to worry about the hit.”
She concluded in a desperate rush, shifting up on to her knees on the mattress as she moved to face the male and took his hands in her own. “Please? Can you just wait to do whatever it is you’ve all been working on? I need you here, with me.”