by Aiden Bates
I stared up at Leftie with a sneer on my lips, raising my hands and dropping my gun. As a pair of headlights washed over us—Ernesto in the Mustang, no doubt—Leftie froze. While his gaze was trained on it, I shook my head, the universal signal for, Get lost, Ernesto. The plan’s changed. Get yourself gone.
As the Mustang turned and the headlights faded, I was sure he’d gotten the message. As for Leftie…
“All right. I’m coming,” I grunted, shifting to my feet. “Congrats, boys. You’ve won.”
They drove me to the edge of King’s Place, where the old, foreclosed-on houses began to overtake the neighborhood proper. Only the periodic whimpering from Rightie as he nursed his ruined ear, and the periodic, “Shut up, you pussy,” from Leftie as it continued to piss him off, broke the silence.
Inside one of those houses, they led me right to Nick. Gabe was slumped on the floor at Nick’s feet, unconscious and unmoving. Nick himself was zip-tied and placed in a metal folding chair. Feet bound. Wrists behind his back.
If we made it out of this, I decided then and there, we were going to have a good, long lesson about how to break out of zip-ties. If being the key word there.
“Hey,” I called out to Nick, marching in with my hands both tucked behind my head and my tail between my legs.
“Hey,” he called back to me, fear flickering through his gaze before he wicked it away with a scowl. “They hurt you?”
“Not bad. Not yet.” I matched his scowl as I took in his broken nose again, in person this time. His split lip. The blood on the front of his t-shirt. “It’s a shame that with you, I don’t have to ask.”
“I’m okay,” Nick assured me. “The baby too. Face is a little bit of an issue, but otherwise, I’m all right. That fucker, though—”
Nick jerked his head to the left, guiding my gaze to one Michael Shane. The man who’d been tasked with keeping my Omega safe. The man who’d obviously figured a corporate payout on top of whatever Ernesto was giving him was more important than protecting a defenseless Omega with a baby in his womb.
The man whose jaw I was going to rip out of his face as soon as the rest of these fuckers were dead.
“You’re a piece of shit,” I informed him curtly.
Michael didn’t even have the decency to look ashamed. Instead, he fucking laughed.
“Yeah, I am,” he admitted with a shrug. “But a significantly richer piece of shit, so.”
“Enough talk,” Leftie informed us, shoving Rightie into the chair next to Nick just to keep the big, blubbering idiot pacified. Leftie leveled his gun at me, expressionless and ever-so-cool about the fact that he was going to start shooting at any minute. “Michael—out.”
“Don’t have to ask me twice.” Michael made himself scarce without even a glance behind him as he went. Didn’t have a problem with betraying KPS, but apparently didn’t want the look in Nick’s eyes to haunt his conscience either. Assuming he even had one at this point.
I waited a beat for a speech from Leftie.
He didn’t move to make one.
Fuck. Bad sign. The kind of men who didn’t give speeches were the kind that had nothing to gain from them. There was no lesson to be learned from this for Nick and me. No need to try and teach us one.
They were going to shoot one of us, then the other.
We’d be dead before we even had time to think about what we’d done.
Ever the professional, though, Leftie had some appreciation for procedure. Nick was bound and untrained. I was the liability. If they shot Nick first, then I’d have nothing to lose. All their bargaining chips would be spent.
If they shot me first, there’d be no one to stop them when they turned their guns on him.
Either way…
There was no way out.
Leftie raised his gun to me, pointing it between my eyes. If I had last words, he didn’t ask for them. It was a lucky thing, in a way—I’d managed to avoid death for long enough, I hadn’t bothered preparing any.
But just as Leftie’s finger twitched against his trigger, something happened that even the most professional hitman couldn’t have planned for.
Nick lurched his chair to the side, snarling as he spat at the heap of man whimpering away in the chair next to him. The scrape of the chair against the floor and the sudden movement sent Leftie whirling around toward Nick, his gun pointed in a new direction now.
I couldn’t move fast enough to dive for the gun. Didn’t have the position to take a swing at the man holding it. Out of options. Out of moves.
Except for one.
I dove in front of Nick just as the gun fired, placing my body between his.
Even in the face of death, it was worth it. It always would’ve been.
Anything and everything to keep Nick out of harm’s way.
29
Nick
I watched him stagger backward like he’d just taken a baseball bat to a gut.
Harper King. Six foot four. Thirty-seven years old. Born July 18th. Eyes: green. Little flecks of gold in them like sunshine. Hair: light brown streaked with strawberry blond.
They’d shot him. Or, more accurately, they’d shot at me—and Harper had thrown himself in the way.
He’d saved me. Sacrificed himself so that I could live.
How are you going to prove it? Take a bullet for me?
Any day of the week, he’d said. Wouldn’t even have to think about it.
And now, I’d never get to celebrate a birthday with Harper. Never get to see those streaks of pale copper in his hair turn to silver and gray.
He should’ve collapsed. He’d been shot, for fuck’s sake. Harper’s tall, muscled body should have slumped to the floor, like something out of my worst nightmares. My greatest fears. I should have had to watch him bleed out. Heard his last words. Choked out mine—the last thing I’d ever say to him. The thing I’d been swallowing down, letting coil around my heart and holding close to my chest ever since the first time we’d tumbled together in my bed.
I love you, I should’ve told him, fighting back tears.
Maybe, he would’ve even said it back. Said it back to me before the man with the gun finished Harper off for good—then turned his gun on me and put a bullet through my head too.
But against all odds, he didn’t. Gunshot to the gut, and Harper didn’t even go down.
“Nick—run!” he rasped at me, launching his weight forward again.
He threw his full weight on his shooter, sending both of them toppling over even as another gunshot rang out.
Run. Not a bad plan—that was, if I could’ve gone through with it. But my feet were bound. My hands were tied. And even if I could have broken through the bindings of the zip-ties—I couldn’t leave him. He’d already taken a bullet for me. Maybe more than one. Harper King was exactly the kind of idiot who’d sacrifice himself for a man like me. Even as he grappled with the man who’d shot him, the two of them rolling around on the floor, trading punches as Harper’s blood stained the man’s crisp white shirt, his only thought was to get me to safety.
“Run!” Harper grunted again, his breathing heavy, his every word more labored than the last. “RUN!”
I clenched my jaw, fighting through the pain that was throbbing through my face so I could rise up out of the chair the hitmen had put me in.
Harper wanted me to run, but I couldn’t. Not with my feet bound like this.
Not with Harper’s life hanging in the balance before my very eyes.
Besides…
I’d never been able to do anything useful with my double-jointedness before. If I left now, I probably wouldn’t get another chance ever again.
Popping my shoulder out of my socket, I raised my arms up and rolled them around to my front. At my side, the other gunman groaned, trying to struggle to his feet as well—but I wasn’t going to let him throw his hat into the ring. Not now. Not when so much was on the line.
I grabbed the chair behind me, feeling more like a WWF superstar tha
n a desperate, pregnant Omega with nothing left to lose as I swung its weight out around me, catching my gunman to the side of the head. I saw the whites of his eyes flash at me as his pupils rolled upward and back, the aftershock of the hit reverberating through every bone in my body as he slumped to the floor.
I almost grinned. Not bad for a pregnant Omega with nothing left to lose. Maybe I had a professional wrestling career in me yet.
But there was no time for me to pat myself on the back. The sound of his partner taking five pounds of metal to the face had alerted the other gunman to what was happening around him. Harper had him down, straddling the man’s waist as he smashed that cold, calculating face into the floor. That didn’t stop the other gunman from looking up at me and shifting his pistol upward, until I was staring down the barrel and once again fearing for my life.
With a roar, Harper wrenched the pistol away, another shot firing as he rolled the gunman on top of him and slammed the gun against the floor.
Another gunshot. But this time, it didn’t come from the bastard who’d put a bullet in Harper.
This time, it came from the door.
The gunman slumped down on top of Harper as something wet and awful exploded from the back of the gunman’s head. The gunman gurgled, twitched over Harper for a moment, then went still as Ernesto Alvarez hauled Michael Shane back into the room, throwing the dirty rat who’d betrayed us all to the floor. A sick grunt left Michael’s bleeding lips, and all the air in his lungs along with it as Ernesto put his boot to Michael’s gut.
“Sorry I’m late,” Ernesto panted, doubling over and putting his hands on his knees. In his hand was the gun he’d taken out Harper’s assailant with, still hot from the round he’d just put in the assailant’s skull.
Harper groaned, heaving the gunman’s body off of him and staggering to his feet.
“Fuckin’…took you long enough.” Harper glanced at me, a joyous relief wracking through his entire body. His eyes lit up across his blood-splattered face as he saw that I was still alive. Unmarred by any of the shots that had been fired. Safe. Whole. More or less, unharmed. “Nick…”
That relief was replaced by a furrow in his brow and a soft little oh from his lips as he looked down and saw the bullet wound blooming across his white t-shirt, soaking his leather jacket with more blood. This time, his own.
I hopped and stumbled over to him, catching his chest with my shoulder as his knees gave out. My wrists strained against the zip-ties as I cradled his head in my lap and put pressure on the wound.
“Call an ambulance! He’s been hit!” I roared at Ernesto. The hot, dark liquid welling up beneath my palms was too much. Coming out too fast. And worst of all, showing no signs of stopping. I only pressed down harder, hunching over him as I tried to keep him conscious. “Harper—Harper! Look at me. Talk to me. Stay with me, Harper. Please!”
“H-hey,” Harper rasped, blinking as he stared up into my eyes. A little smile tugged at one corner of his mouth, flashing me that infamous Harper King smirk. “H-how you doin’, sweetheart?”
“Worried about you, you knuckleheaded idiot,” I said down to him fondly, blinking tears away from my eyes. They broke my lash line with ease, coming out searing hot and saline. As they dripped down onto Harper’s cheeks, his smirk faded into a frown.
“Sorry, darlin’. Didn’t mean…”
I blinked, incredulous. “Are you really apologizing for taking a bullet for me, Harper King?”
His laugh came out in a rush, breathy and heaving. “Nah. Just, told you I wouldn’t make you…make you cry again, didn’t I? Broke my promise.”
I laughed too, the tears mixing with a love that exploded through my chest like a fucking pipe bomb. “You ridiculous man. Just…stay quiet, hon. Stay with me. Okay?”
“Bad idea, wasn’t it? Not…not staying with you, I mean. But this whole mess…” Harper coughed, his face contorting in pain for a moment before he was able to relax it again.
“Shh. Harper, hon. You don’t need—”
“Opened a whole shipping container full of worms here,” Harper growled, doubling over slightly in my lap. He reached up, fingers trembling as he patted at the blood beneath my hands. They only stilled when he raised them up to my jawline, cupping my cheek in his hand. “Only gonna be…gonna be more from here on out. More danger for you. Sorry ‘bout that, too.”
“We’ll deal with them as they come, honey.” I shook my head in disbelief at the impossible, stubborn, gorgeous one-track-minded man beneath me. Even as he bled out right before me, Harper’s only thought was the next hurdle. The next battle. His own idiot guilt for putting me in the line of fire. “Just…just don’t die, okay? We’ve still got a lot to talk about, you and me. Can’t keep protecting me from assholes with guns if you die.”
Harper laughed again, a little more weakly this time. His face was ashen and pale, his eyelids heavy. Even his touch at my cheek was losing strength. His hand dropped back to his side, dead weight—but the golden flakes in his eyes were still glimmering. Lit up with passion like Christmas lights. Fireworks on the fourth of July.
“Not gonna die,” he assured me. “Just gonna…gonna rest my eyes for a little while.”
“Harper—no!”
My heart raced as I wracked my brain for guidance. Passing out was bad, I knew. Probably heard it on a TV show or something, a lifetime ago. Keeping Harper conscious was my main priority now—but his eyes were closing, and his breaths were growing more shallow with every passing second.
“Stay with me, honey,” I begged him as a sob tore through my chest. “Harper King, don’t you dare pass out on me. Don’t leave me, Harper—don’t you dare fucking leave me—”
There was a metallic wail outside and a shout at the door as the paramedics rushed in. They had to pry me away from Harper’s unconscious body to get him onto the stretcher. I blinked furiously, my vision blurred with my tears as they hauled him away.
“Nick—here, cariño.” Ernesto dropped to his knees next to me, the glint of a pocket knife in his hands. He wormed it between my wrists, wrenching it upwards to free me from the zip-ties there. Did the same to the ones at my ankles before he helped me to my feet. “The ambulance will take Harper to Arlington General. Gabe, too.” He glanced over his shoulder at his fallen employee. Michael was laid out next to Gabe, similarly unconscious—but Ernesto must have cuffed him while he waited for the paramedics to arrive. He’d done the other gunman too. Quick work. Neat, flawless and organized. “Come with me. The second ambulance will be here any minute. We should follow behind.”
“Before the police get here?” I guessed, sniffling.
Ernesto put his arm around me with a nod. “I think we’ve already had enough trouble from the Fort Greene PD for one night.”
30
Harper
“It’s impossible.”
I let out a long, heavy breath. When I tried to draw air into my lungs again, I felt a tightness that just didn’t want to give. Felt like that time Kaleb and Dad had sent me out for a “special undercover assignment” at The Piggy Bank as a joke—corset, heels and all. Like my lung capacity had been restricted by something. Reduced by half.
Aside from that, I couldn’t feel much of anything at all. Which meant that either I was sleeping with the angels—and the angels had a drag fetish—or, more likely, I was on a hell of a lot of pain meds. My eyelids were too heavy to open at first as I came to, but I could hear the slow, steady beeping of a heart rate monitor. Distant, hazy chatter beyond it.
“It’s impossible,” a voice said again. Familiar voice. A voice that flooded my chest with a rush of warmth.
I scrunched up my face, rolling my head back and forth as much as I could to try and jostle myself awake enough to figure out what exactly was so damn unlikely.
“Yeah, well, that’s our Harper for you. Never a set of odds he wouldn’t go up against. Luckiest bastard I’ve ever met.” The second voice was deeper and gruffer—but just as familiar as the first. It rum
bled with a dark chuckle for a moment. “Aside from the gunshot wounds, I suppose.”
Ah. Not it’s impossible, then. He’s impossible. Something finally clicked together in my head and suddenly, I could put names to the voices. Kaleb and Nick. My brother and my…
I furrowed my brow a little deeper. I supposed I still didn’t know exactly what Nick and I were. That was a conversation we’d promised to have after all of this was over—but if what had happened out on the edge of King’s Place was any indicator, our investigation into Josh’s murder had only really just begun.
Finally, I managed to pry my eyes open just a crack. My vision was blurry, but after a shake, it came together all right. The air smelled vinegary and sour, like iodine. Bleachy and sterile like chlorine. Hospital smells. Definitely—which would explain the tubes coming out of the crook of my elbow, hooked up to an IV drip. Kaleb was posted up near the door in his police blues—probably so none of the orderlies would make him take off the gun that was holstered on his belt. And Nick…
My breath caught in my chest—for non-medical reasons this time. He had a swollen nose swaddled in a cotton bandage, deep purple bruises peeking out in the bags beneath his eyes. Split lip with two stitches in it. A rumpled t-shirt and a pair of sweatpants on that suggested he’d been sleeping in the armchair next to the bed. And still, despite all that, he was still the most gorgeous thing I’d ever laid eyes on. He could’ve been pacing the floor of my hospital room in a goddamn potato sack and the sight of him still would’ve left my heart skipping a beat.
“He was giving the investigation his all, Kaleb,” Nick was saying. “His all, and then some. And still, we barely know who to hold responsible. We’ve got a few solid leads, but still more questions than we do answers right now.”
“No one ever said this was going to be easy,” Kaleb grunted. Neither of them seemed to have noticed that I was awake yet. “S’why I came. Shouldn’t have let you and Harper take these people on all on your lonesome. Was a misstep on my part from day one.”
