by Aiden Bates
Ozzy decided that he didn't want to think about Nenci reading mommy blogs. Not now, not ever.
Tessaro brought more toys, along with a beautiful set of cocktail glasses and some fine gin and vermouth to go with them, "since there wasn't a housewarming or anything." Lt. Devlin, ever the practical soul, brought a gun safe for the house, which would absolutely be necessary as Marissa became more mobile. He also got a lock for Ozzy's service weapon, because "kids are grabby."
Robles came by with Ryan in tow. Ryan embraced Pete like an old friend, and looked so honored to be allowed to hold Marissa that it even brought tears to Ozzy's eyes. They disappeared to Marissa's room to gush over the new arrival in ways that only omegas could, leaving Robles and Ozzy alone.
"So. Fatherhood, huh?" Robles said with a grunt and a nod. He spread out, as though asserting his masculinity and then he leaned toward Ozzy. "Does it suck?"
"I'm still pretty new at it, buddy." Ozzy chuckled. "Ask me in five years. But… I mean, she's up every couple of hours, like clockwork. And there are aspects that smell really bad, so far. But then she looks at me and touches my face, and she cuddles up on my chest and makes this little face, and it's both incredibly imperious and impossibly cute at the same time, that my heart just melts. No, it doesn't suck. It's the most perfect thing in the world. I love my baby girl almost as much as love her daddy, and life couldn't be better with her."
Robles smiled then, a small, shy smile. "I'm so glad to hear that." He glanced over at the stairwell. "It's good that they're such good friends. Gives Ryan someone to call if he gets nervous, you know? Someone who's been through it before."
"Right? Well, Ryan's been so helpful with Pete. It's good for them to have each other." Ozzy chuckled.
Lt. Amos came by with flowers, and with a wooden place setting that he'd turned himself in his own workshop for Marissa. It seemed much more practical than the silver spoons that Pete's relatives had given. Lt. Ryley also came by with an afghan that she'd crocheted herself, in the short time that she'd known Ozzy. "Everyone needs a hobby," she said, blushing. "This one is mine."
Of course, Marissa was too small to use a blanket when she slept, but she was old enough to have one draped over her when she was being held.
MacDonald, Balsalmo's lawyer, sent a gift of books as well. Even Balsalmo sent something. It was ramen, which threw Pete for a loop, but Ozzy was able to calm his mind. "He's buying from his prison commissary account. The number of things they can buy in there is pretty limited. I guess he's not irredeemable after all; he wanted to send something to celebrate, and he sent what he could."
Pete's eyes shone with unshed tears when he heard that. "I'm not sure how to feel. I mean the guy was ready to kill me, but I guess it truly wasn't personal after all." He sniffed. "We're not feeding that to her, but we can explain it to her when she's older. It can go in her keepsake box."
"That's right." Ozzy wrapped an arm around his mate.
The weirdest gift was an absolutely massive teddy bear that arrived on the Friday of Ozzy's week of leave, along with a huge bouquet of flowers, for Marissa and Pete. The card simply read from Joe.
There was no doubting who "Joe" might be. Ozzy called in to the office, and they sent a team out to check out the offerings. There was a bomb-sniffing dog that drooled a lot and wanted treats, but found no explosives. A tech team found no hidden cameras or recording devices. Another dog came out to look for drugs and found nothing. The gift was just what it appeared to be: a giant teddy bear, nothing more.
After some discussion with Pete and with Lt. Amos, they decided that it would be acceptable for Marissa to keep the gift. The gifts had been given not to Ozzy but to Pete and Marissa, and Pete was not yet technically Ozzy's omega. There was no legal issue at this point, and it made sense to avoid offending a criminal of Sierzant's reach until absolutely necessary.
After all, it was entirely possible that Sierzant had given the gift out of sheer exuberance. These things happened sometimes.
"That's some Al Capone level stuff right there," Ozzy grumbled as he wrestled the bear up into Marissa's bedroom. It would live in a corner until the little girl was old enough to play with it.
Pete shrugged. "Organized crime is organized crime, right? I mean, a guy like Sierzant probably tries to model himself on Capone. Didn't Capone even start out as a pimp?"
Ozzy stopped, and turned to stare at his omega. "Yeah. That's actually really helpful. But why do you know that?"
Pete flashed him a quick grin. "Oh come on. Didn't you see my coffee table book about organized crime?" He winked. "It's on the shelf over there. I still get royalties, you know."
"Seriously?"
"They sell it at Alcatraz, in the gift shop. That plus a version of what I did to Capone's mug shot on a tee shirt. I could get a copy for Joe, if you wanted."
Marissa waved her little fist. Ozzy agreed with her. "Let's not go giving gifts to crooks, okay?"
He went back to work on Monday. There was a marked patrol car from the state trooper's office sitting across from his house. The patrolman in the car lifted his cup of Dunkin at him in a kind of salute. Ozzy waved back as he pulled out, and kept his appearance friendly, but he couldn't help but wonder if the cop watching his house was a friend or a foe. After all, Sierzant's fingers reached far.
Devlin was waiting for him when he got in. What was it about Devlin anyway, with the early-morning lurking? He led Ozzy into a conference room, where Lt. Amos waited with another familiar-looking state trooper. "Ozzy. Good morning. You're well acquainted with Lt. Amos. I want you to meet Lt. Roger Nervetti. He heads up our Organized Crime division. Lt. Nervetti, this is Detective Morris. He's heading up the investigation into Harbaugh's death."
Nervetti shook Ozzy's hand. "Detective Morris, it's good to finally meet you. I think our investigations might be running along the same lines here. I hadn't planned to reach out."
Ozzy raised an eyebrow. He was exhausted. He'd been up for a long time; Marissa had been unusually fussy last night, as though she'd known he was going back to work, and all he wanted to do was to crawl under his desk for a nap the way he knew Langer sometimes did. "Seriously?"
"It's not personal. We cover organized crime all over the state. Sierzant's a pig, don't get me wrong. He's just not quite as aggressive as, say, the Russians over in Brighton and Brookline. Or the Vietnamese gangs up in Lowell. Those guys will mess you up without breaking a sweat. Sierzant is on our radar, but we have a pretty limited budget. We were more than happy to let another department have at it; it wasn't as if we had all that much to add." He sighed. "That was before he started going after a cop's family."
"I see." Ozzy could see, actually. He understood the need to direct resources where they would do the most good. He didn't know much about gangs in Lowell or in Brighton. He knew about cold cases. It still infuriated him that Organized Crime could have helped at any point and had just hung back.
"I've put a uniformed cop outside your house. He'll be there until the case is closed. And I've pulled two detectives back from working on drug running gangs in Springfield to help out with this. I figure they've got the most expertise in operations similar to what Sierzant's doing."
Amos cleared his throat. "The detectives are a little on the young side, but that's good. I checked them out while you were on leave. And I've been checking out the cops who've been put on duty outside your house, too. No unusual transactions or suspicious activity. Pete and Marissa will be perfectly safe."
Ozzy relaxed, just a little. "Okay," he said, with a grin of relief. "Okay. You can imagine how wound up I've been since we got that enormous freaking bear."
"I'm kind of wound up about the bear, frankly." Nervetti wrinkled his nose. "I mean, come on. That's straight out of Capone's playbook."
"I said the same thing." Ozzy drummed his fingers on the table. "It was Pete who seemed to think that Sierzant was modeling himself on Capone. And it makes sense, you know? I'm a little weirded out by the fact that my omeg
a apparently did a coffee table book about organized crime, but he definitely knew what he was talking about."
"He's that Pete Nolan? Oh, hell, we've got that book in our department! He's got some great shots in there." Nervetti grinned. "Awesome. Well, listen. I'll share information with you if you share it with me, okay?"
"Sounds like a plan. Let me know if anything comes up." Ozzy shook hands with Nervetti and watched him leave the office. Then he turned to Devlin and Amos. "What do you think?"
Amos sighed. "Three of his most senior detectives tripped red flags. I haven't told him yet, but he wanted to assign all of them to this case. I vetoed them on general principles. I'm nervous, but I'm keeping a tight rein on everyone from that department right now." He shook his head. "For what it's worth, I think he's honest. I just think he's got a lot of trust in his men. Like most supervisors, you know? He feels like he knows them."
Devlin grimaced. "That doesn't make me feel good, man. I feel like I know my men."
"Tom, I check your guys every six months. You're clear." He chuckled, maybe a little bitterly. "Apparently I should be more focused on other departments. I didn't say anything because these detectives aren't in Sierzant's territory." He sighed. "Temptation, or pressure, can come from just about anything. I busted a cop once who definitely came up dirty, but he never took a dime. It turned out that a crime boss arranged for the guy's wife to get a kidney, got her bumped up on the transplant list." His mouth twisted. "The courts were lenient with him. No jail time, but he lost his job. The wife is still around, though, so he says it was worth everything. They're living down in Florida now. The guy does analysis for talk shows."
Ozzy squirmed. "I know I shouldn't judge. I know. He still… I mean, it's hard enough to get people to trust us, you know?"
"Oh, don't I know it." Amos slouched in his seat. "That's why I'm here. But anyway, that's the story. Do with it what you will."
Chapter Eleven
Ruth, the nanny, moved in two weeks after Ozzy went back to work. Pete wasn't starting back up with work so soon, not entirely, but he wanted to be around during that early transitional phase and make sure that everything was going smoothly. Marissa would be Ruth's primary responsibility during normal working hours once Pete went back to work, although if he wasn't out and working he'd certainly be around as a backup.
Ruth was a rare soul among the nannies he'd interviewed in that she understood the need for flexibility. On the one hand, she was going to have a lot more free time than many of her contemporaries. On the other, she was going to have a lot of time on nights and weekends when Pete got called to a scene and needed her to step in. The possibility of travel was there, of course, but she'd be towing a child around while she took in the sights.
Ruth was an artist. Part of the appeal of the job was that she would have the time and the freedom to practice her art. Pete could respect that; not everyone was as lucky as he was. And she would have even more time to work on her own projects given that Ozzy was likely to be home most weekends.
She didn't take long to move in. She only needed her supplies and her personal effects. "I don't often keep my finished projects around a house where I've got kids I'm taking care of," she explained with a wry grin. "Learned that one the hard way. All of my inventory is stored off-site."
"Smart woman." Pete grinned at her and gave her the tour.
He didn't have a hard time getting used to having another person around the house. At least, he didn't have any more difficulty than he'd expected to have. He'd been alone for years, and that had been okay, but he was an omega. Omegas liked contact, they liked connection, and Pete was no different. It couldn't be a coincidence that he was healing from childbirth faster than he'd healed from that big old bruise he'd picked up during that bank robbery.
The hard thing to get used to was giving up his time with Marissa. She was so tiny, and so affectionate. Maybe affectionate wasn't the word at three weeks old, but she was getting there. She had decided preferences, that much was certain. She liked long cuddles, fresh air, and Chopin's nocturnes. Things that she disliked, such as bright light, loud and jarring noises, and bad smells, got squalls and waves of her little fist.
He loved spending time with her, even though she didn't do much at this stage beyond eat, sleep, cry, and crap. He absolutely hated the fact that someone else was going to be there for the big milestones. He had plenty of money, thanks to his grandfather and his father. He could afford to just stop working if he wanted to.
He'd already signed a contract with Ruth, though. And while his heart burned with jealousy every time he saw his daughter in Ruth's arms, he had to admit that he was going a little stir crazy. All of his time on bed rest—an insubstantial amount, compared to what many people endured, but too long for his restless spirit—had worn on him and he longed to get back into the field.
He practiced by taking as many pictures of Marissa as he could. She was a great subject, in that she didn't have enough control over herself to pose or to turn away. She just kind of moved, and it was up to him and his camera to keep up.
He started to get his body back. He hadn't fully healed yet, of course. Something that no one had warned him about—that no one warned most expectant parents about, whether female or omega—was that there was bleeding after birth, and it went on for a while. It had become less terrible by the third week, but it was still going on as his body worked to heal the wound it had made to expel Marissa from inside of him. Still, he could see that he was visibly starting to look like himself again, not a bowling ball with arms and legs.
He made a point of going for a walk with Marissa and Ruth every day, preferably in the morning before he could psyche himself out of it again. It was June by now, and he wanted to make sure that he was active as soon as he could be. Ruth was on board, although Pete wasn't sure if she was doing it for the exercise or to get a better sense for the neighborhood.
She was pretty freaked out by the presence of the patrol car on the other side of the street. Pete felt pretty much the same way, but he couldn't do much more than roll his eyes. "Apparently Ozzy is working on something that's gotten him to be a little more paranoid than he was before. I don't know. It's weird. If it makes them feel better to have a guy sit in a car for a shift, I think it's a waste of tax dollars, but I'm not going to tell them no, you know?"
Ruth shuddered. "If whatever it is makes him feel that jittery, maybe he should transfer the case to someone else. I wouldn't want to risk my mate and my baby."
"I think he's the best one for the case, you know?" He stretched a little. It was a fine line to tread, between doing too much and not doing enough. He didn't want to hurt himself, but he didn't want to get complacent either. "What do you say we push just a little bit farther today?"
They did push a little farther than their usual boundaries, moving just past where they would normally have been and circling back. Everything was in full bloom now, and the days were starting to get a little bit warmer. "You know, at least half of my mother's friends gave me coats in newborn sizes." He shook his head. Marissa had kicked off the light blanket he'd thrown over her to keep the sun off of her delicate skin again. "Can you believe it?"
"They come from a generation that was always told to keep the baby wrapped up and warm, and not to trust their own judgment." She shrugged. "Thinking has changed, but if they don't have kids or grandkids they can't be expected to know about it."
"I can't imagine that any of them actually raised their own kids." He sighed. "I'm sorry. I'm having trouble with all of this. It's not you."
"No, it isn't." Ruth laughed. "I'm good at my job and we get along just fine. It's you. You've never asked anyone for help a day in your life, have you?"
"I—well, I must have. Once, I'm sure." Pete blushed. "Am I really that bad?"
"Oh yeah. But it's not necessarily bad, it's just different. I see the way that you are with Ozzy, and how he basically has to intervene when you're too tired or are overdoing it. You yourself to
ld me that you're used to doing things for yourself. And that's okay. I need you to not undermine me with Marissa, and I won't undermine either of you, but I think that we can reach consensus. We'll get there, Pete. Our arrangement isn't traditional, and we'll keep that up as long as it works for Marissa. You're a good dad. You'll do what she needs when she needs it."
Pete couldn't argue with that. Everything was for his daughter, everything in the world.
Ozzy was showing himself to be an amazing father already. As the weeks went by, he took on an equal share of diaper changes and feedings, just as though he'd been doing it all his life. Marissa preferred Pete, but that was only natural. She'd been hearing his voice since her ears developed. Ozzy was her dad, but he wasn't the same warm, safe space as Pete was.
That made no difference to the fact that Ozzy and Marissa had a very special relationship. Ozzy liked to cuddle his daughter right up close. If he lay down on his back, she would wriggle and scooch herself up until she lay just under his chin, with her hand on his cheek. It was an adorable image, one that Pete photographed more than once. He hung prints from the wall in his office and on the wall in the front entry, and gave Ozzy a copy for his desk at work.