by Nora Phoenix
He’d fought hard, his nails bloody and broken. A horrible thought entered Enar’s mind. He wouldn’t be… Oh god. He met Maz’s eyes, and the sad look he caught there confirmed Maz’s thoughts had followed the same path.
“Let’s finish the exam,” Enar said, his voice a tad rough.
They found no other obvious injuries except all the bruises and the broken fingers. Enar was relieved when they found no indication of internal bleeding. But when they carefully examined his lower body, Enar’s stomach dropped.
“Shit,” he whispered.
He didn’t need to say anything else. “I’ll grab a rape kit,” Maz said.
They had them in stock, though they’d never had to use them before. That was probably because they were so far out in the boonies, because back when he’d still been working in the city, Enar had needed one at least once a week. It was something you never, ever got used to, no matter what people said.
Nine out of ten times, the rape kit was never used, Enar knew. What good did it do to accuse an alpha—because the attackers were almost always alphas—of rape? If you were an omega, the chances of winning that case were close to zero. And still Enar did them, if only to give his patients the sense that they’d been taken seriously, that someone had seen and recorded what had been done to them.
He did the same for Duer, and he and Maz took pictures, catalogued bruises around his balls, and collected multiple pubic hairs that were much lighter than his, as well as traces of dried semen. They gently turned him on his stomach, revealing more bruises on his back, including some deep ones that formed almost perfect fingerprints where someone had held him down with force. Two people, Enar concluded based on the positioning. One man had held him down while the other had violated him. His stomach rolled as he checked him inside for tearing, grateful when the damage was relatively mild.
When they turned him back on his back, he stirred for the first time, smacking his lips and making soft grunts. “He’s coming to,” Maz said.
“Step back,” Enar said, knowing from experience how fierce the panic could be when a patient woke up after a trauma like that.
They both took their hands off him and waited. He blinked once, twice, and then his eyes flew open, panic filling them immediately. His head shot sideways and his eyes found Enar, his face distraught with stress.
“You’re safe,” Enar said softly, knowing that was the most important thing for him to hear. “You’re okay and you’re safe.”
“Where am I?”
His voice sounded like sandpaper and Enar gestured at Maz to get some water. “You made it to the PTP Ranch,” Enar said. “You’re in the clinic.”
“They broke my fingers,” he whispered, which was maybe a strange thing to say, but Enar understood his brain was trying to come to terms with everything.
Maz handed Enar the water, then opened a straw and put that in. Enar slowly stepped closer, making sure Duer didn’t react fearfully, then held out the water to him so he could drink. Duer drank greedily, letting out a sigh when he’d emptied the cup.
“Yes, you have multiple breaks on two fingers on both hands,” Enar confirmed.
“And other than that? They worked me over pretty good.”
He was analytical, Enar thought. Self-distancing was an effective strategy in traumatic situations, and he always allowed patients to cope in whatever way worked for them.
“You have a bump on the back of your head, which may have been what caused your loss of consciousness. Other than that, you have a wide variety of bruises, but as far as we can tell, no other broken bones. But we don’t have an X-ray machine here, so I can’t know for sure.”
Duer blinked slowly, as if processing the information. “I was raped,” he then said, his voice calm and emotionless.
“Yes,” Enar said, his voice soft and warm. “I’m so sorry this happened to you. Physically, the damage is minimal, and we did a rape kit and collected evidence in case you want to prosecute.”
For the first time, Duer showed emotion, but it was in the form of a bitter laugh that gave Enar chills. “Are you kidding me? After what they did to me? I was lucky to walk out of there alive. I wasn’t supposed to, not after what they discovered about what I did. But they were all in a panic, so I took advantage and escaped.”
Enar frowned. He’d assumed Duer had been the victim of a sexual assault, though the broken fingers were a little puzzling in that aspect and his injuries more extensive than he usually saw, but what Duer described now sounded like he’d been held for a longer period of time. And what did he mean by after what I did?
“Duer, what happened to you?” he asked.
Duer’s voice was filled with fury when he answered. “I was taken by Bennett Wyndham’s men.”
They’d wanted to talk to Duer right away, but Enar had blocked that. Palani loved how protective he could be about his patients, and the man had a point that Duer needed to recover from his trauma first. So after Maz and Enar had washed him—at Duer’s request, Enar had explained—and had taped up his fingers and given him some clean clothes from Palani to wear, they’d installed him in a guest room in Jawon’s House so Enar and Maz could check up on him easily. They’d alternated between the two of them, waking Duer up every two hours to make sure he had no brain injuries.
The whole thing had reinforced Palani’s desire to add a psychologist to the pack, but so far, his search efforts for one had been fruitless. Granted, he’d not been able to dedicate a whole lot of time to this, and things had seemed a little less urgent after Kean had shifted and seemed to be doing better, but he had tried to ask around without much luck so far. He made a mental note to talk to Maz about it. Enar hadn’t been able to come up with any good leads, but maybe Maz had contacts somewhere.
The next day, Enar had been satisfied Duer was doing well under the circumstances, though he was still on strict bed rest per doctor’s orders—this was said with a glare at Lidon and Palani, who had nodded they understood, holding back smiles. Enar in full doctor mode was damn hot. So after breakfast, Lidon and Palani had been given permission to talk to Duer, provided he wanted to see them in the first place. Luckily, it turned out he was as eager to speak to them as vice versa.
They pulled two chairs near his bed. His face was black and blue, one eye swollen shut. No wonder Enar wanted him on bed rest, Palani thought. His injures were more extensive than Palani had expected, even after seeing him being brought in yesterday—Enar had been skimpy on the details, as always taking doctor-patient confidentiality seriously.
“Duer, what the hell happened?” Lidon asked, and Palani heard the shock in his voice as well.
“I need to warn you about the AWC,” Duer said, a sense of urgency in his tone. “I’ve discovered they’re planning an attack on your ranch, your pack.”
Palani and Lidon looked at each other. Was he talking about a new attack? How could they have recovered from their previous losses so soon? They had a growing base, but that was surprisingly fast. Disturbingly fast, more accurately.
“Can you start at the beginning?” Palani asked. “A lot has happened here since we last saw you, so we just wanna make sure we’re on the same page.”
Duer looked somewhat surprised, but said, “Of course, of course. Forgive me if I’m a little chaotic. My head is killing me, but I didn’t want to take the painkillers Enar offered because he said they might cloud my cognitive abilities. I needed to talk to you first.”
“It’s okay, take your time,” Palani said.
“God, where do I start?” Duer closed his good eye as well, gently rubbing his temples. “After we last spoke, I had to let go of my investigation into your case, meager as it was,” he told Lidon. “It was clear my bosses did not want me anywhere near that, and since I needed the job, I laid low for a while. But it didn’t sit right with me, what was done to you.”
He swallowed, looking like he was in pain, and Palani held out a cup of water to him. Duer gratefully accepted, taking some sips throug
h the straw until he gestured he was done.
“Then the elections changed everything. The atmosphere went from bad to horrible. People were scared, the higher ups I mean. I caught some snippets of conversation about them being involved in covering things up, and I figured they’d get what was coming to them, right? Then another high-ranking cop got suspended because the Ministry of Justice had leaned hard on Internal Affairs to collect credible evidence, and I was assigned as his representative.”
Palani leaned forward, knowing where this was going. “You were assigned to Karl Ryland?”
Duer slowly nodded. “My guess is they sent me because no one dared to be associated with him. Rumors were the prime minister was out for him and wanted him gone.”
Palani shared a look with Lidon. That was news to them, but it wasn’t surprising. York had maybe tried to butter them up, knowing he’d need favors from them. Or information and knowledge. It hadn’t worked, but it wasn’t a bad strategy.
“But when I dug a little deeper into his case, guess whose name popped up?” Duer asked.
“Mine,” Lidon said. “Because he was the one who got me suspended.”
“Bingo. So I got curious and started comparing notes from your file and his, and that rabbit hole never ended, let me tell you. This time, my bosses didn’t even want to know what I was doing, and so I kept digging and following the bread crumbs…and it led me to the AWC.”
Palani nodded. “Ryland is an active member.”
“Oh, he’s more than that. He’s the de facto right-hand man of Bennett Wyndham aka Big Bennie. That’s why you guys could never make a charge against him stick, because Ryland was protecting him.”
“I figured as much when we discovered they knew each other from the AWC,” Lidon said.
“Did you also know Ryland was the one who gave Wyndham the info for the first attack?”
Palani blew out a slow breath. “No, but it doesn’t surprise me.”
“They’re planning another attack,” Duer said.
“They did attack the ranch a week ago,” Palani told him. “Twenty heavily armed men.”
Duer gasped. “Oh god, I’m too late. I didn’t think they’d be ready this soon.” Then he frowned, wincing in pain. “They must’ve changed the plans, because the plan I caught wind of was much bigger. How…how bad was it? They wanted to burn this place down to the ground, which obviously didn’t happen…”
Burn the place down? Palani frowned. That didn’t sound like what had happened at all. Had Duer maybe misunderstood things?
“We’re okay,” Lidon reassured him. “The attack was serious, and we lost two men, but we held them off.”
Duer’s shoulders dropped low, and a tear formed in his good eye. Palani found it telling that after what he’d been through, this was what made him emotional. “I thought I’d still be on time. I’m sorry. If only I’d gotten here sooner…”
Palani put a soft hand on his shoulder, grateful when Duer didn’t shy away from his touch. “This is not on you. We so appreciate you trying, but this is not on you. But what happened to you? You said they held you?”
Duer sighed. “I should’ve known better. You know what it’s like for a beta,” he said to Palani. “We’re so often overlooked because no one needs us the way they need alphas or omegas. So when you have success and you get that thrill of recognition…”
Oh yes, Palani knew all too well. “It’s addictive,” he said. “That praise, that feeling of being seen and being taken seriously.”
“I was talking to someone from the Ministry of Justice who encouraged me to keep digging. I thought that if I could get all the evidence of Ryland’s involvement with Wyndham, with the AWC, with the fraud against Lidon, that I could get them convicted, maybe get you reinstated and get the bad guys behind bars. And even after everything you guys told me, I was still so fucking naive.”
Palani’s heart went out to him. “Did you get too close?”
“Yeah, to Wyndham. Man, you wouldn’t believe the shit I found out about him. And I wasn’t the only one digging, but I got caught snooping around one of his properties. His men gave me a warning, which I took seriously, trust me. Big Bennett’s reputation is scary, so I did back off.”
“So why did they take you?” Lidon asked.
“Because apparently Wyndham went missing over a week ago, and they thought I had something to do with it. They grabbed me when I was on my way home from work, beat the shit out of me for two days, and… Well, you can guess the rest. But I couldn’t tell them anything, because I had backed off after that warning. I’m not that stupid. I think they were about ready to kill me, when a guy came in with some news. I couldn’t hear what, but they were in a complete panic and forgot about me, so I broke a window and got out.”
Pieces of the puzzle were falling into place. “Duer, Wyndham was among the twenty men who attacked us. We’re still holding him prisoner here,” Palani said.
Duer paled visibly. “What? He wasn’t part of the attack plan. I don’t understand.”
“What was the plan you learned of?” Lidon asked.
“I overheard a phone call Wyndham had with Ryland. Ryland was to lead the charge. Fifty men, armed to the teeth, with the goal to take no prisoners, level this ranch, and burn it to the ground.”
Palani forced himself to breathe. Good god, if fifty men had attacked, they wouldn’t have stood a chance.
“I can’t tell you why, but it seems Wyndham went rogue then, because he led an attack with twenty men, definitely not the most experienced, and while they used heavy force outside, once inside, they switched to hand-to-hand combat. Their objective was to take my son,” Lidon said.
“Your son? What would they want with a baby?”
“Remember we told you about Professor Melloni, the man who did the groundbreaking research on the Melloni gene? We suspect he’s been kidnapped and held by Wyndham to force him to do research on turning back the effects of the gene. We think they wanted my son to do more research.”
Duer physically jerked away in shock as Lidon spoke. “Oh my god,” he said, then again, “Oh my god.”
“What?” Palani asked, alarmed by his strong reaction.
“I know where they’re holding him. It was the same place where they held me.”
13
Bray wasn't sure if what they were about to do was the bravest thing he'd ever done or the most stupid. You could argue both ways, he discovered on the ride over, and his mind couldn't decide which one was true. Maybe bravery and stupidity really weren't that far apart.
The bravery part was the fact that they were on their way to try and free Melloni with only six guys. The stupid part was that they were doing it based on the intel of a guy who had no experience whatsoever in security, law enforcement, the military, or anything even remotely close. A guy that wasn't even able to join them, which Bray completely understood considering the extent of his injuries, but it didn't help. All they had to rely on was a crude drawing of what he thought the interior of the building looked like—having been dragged through it only once.
"Palani was pretty pissed off that he couldn't come," Lidon said, and Bray was surprised he'd share that with him. It was the two of them in the back seat of the car, with two of Bray's men in the front. Another car with two more men was right behind them.
"It was the right call," he said. "We can't risk both the alpha and his second-in-command at the same time, not for something like this."
Lidon nodded, a faint smile playing on his lips. "Of course it was the right call, and Palani knows it too. Doesn't mean he's not pissed."
Bray shrugged. "He'll get over it."
Lidon raised an eyebrow. "You do realize who we're talking about, right? I'm pretty sure you have first-hand experience with how stubborn the Hightowers can be."
Bray thought of Kean and let out a sigh. "Good point. I stand corrected."
He debated saying more, then figured they had a forty-minute drive ahead of them, so he might as wel
l make conversation. After all, Lidon had started it himself. "How do you do it, building a relationship with all three of your men?" As soon as he had asked, he realized it could come across as totally inappropriate, so he quickly added, "If I may ask, alpha."
Lidon studied him for a few seconds. "When you first arrived on the ranch, I wasn't sure if I liked you."
Bray bit back a sigh. What did that have to do with anything, first of all, and second, why would he tell him that? It wasn't like Bray wasn't aware by now how people saw him.
"It didn't take me long to respect you, but I'll admit that it took me a bit longer to warm up to you," the alpha continued, apparently not deterred by Bray's sour look. "And when you attacked Sven, I wanted to boot you out, but my alpha instinct said to trust you."
"Is there a point to this?" Bray asked, reaching the point where he was fed up with hearing how much Lidon resented him.
Lidon merely grinned. "You want to know what convinced me you were a good man, that I had misjudged you?"
Bray frowned. This was not going where he expected. “What?”
"Because Kean fell in love with you. Those two brothers, they could've been twins, him and Palani. The fact that Kean loved you was all the assurance I needed that I had read you wrong, and then when I looked a little deeper, I saw what he saw."
"I don't understand," Bray said, trying to follow where Lidon was going with this.
"Enar says you have performance anxiety." Lidon laughed at Bray's indignant expression. “Not like that. I’m quite sure you're more than adequate in that department, not that that's something I want to discuss with you."
"Alpha, I lost you ten minutes ago," Bray said, a little exasperated. "I have no idea where you're going with this. What do you mean you talked to Enar about me?"
"That's what people do who are in a relationship, Bray. They talk to each other about things. Things that worry them, or in this case, people who worry them."
"You were worried about me?"
