by Aiden Bates
Ryan came downstairs five minutes later. His eyes were red, and his face was streaked with tears. "You were right," he whispered, hanging his head.
Even though Nick's whole soul ached at the thought that his omega didn't want him enough to carry his baby, he hated to see Ryan so sad and hurting. He reached out and wrapped Ryan up in his arms. "I told you," he murmured. He kissed Ryan's forehead. He guided Ryan over to the couch. "Let's talk about this."
"What's to talk about?" Ryan curled up into himself, but let Nick pull him into an embrace. "I'm pregnant. There's going to be a baby."
"Well, why don't we start with why it bothers you so much." Nick tried to keep any bite or bitterness out of his voice. "I can see you're not happy, Ryan."
"And you are?"
"I am. I love you, and I love us together. If I'm your alpha, and you're my omega, then of course I'm going to love our baby and be happy about our baby." He put a hand on Ryan's belly. Ryan wasn't even a month along yet, it was far too early for the embryo to even notice environmental factors, but he liked to pretend that the baby could feel him anyway. "I want to know why you don't feel the same way."
Ryan heaved a huge sigh. "I mean, I guess for one thing we haven’t talked about kids. I haven't met your family. We haven't been together for a month yet; what happens when you decide you can't tolerate me anymore or your family decides that they don't want a Vietnamese son-in-law? I'm out in the cold, or worse."
"Hey." Nick squeezed his mate. "None of that. My folks don't care what someone else's background is. They care about their character."
Ryan looked up at him. "Okay, then. What happens when your parents find out that I was in the foster system? That I have no idea who my father even is? That was a big issue for you; I know you're over it now, but you learned that attitude from somewhere, man. There's no way they're going to be content to have their grandkid be raised by someone they see as damaged goods."
Nick petted Ryan's hair. He knew it was a gesture that Ryan tended to enjoy. "Okay. I can't promise that they don't have a bias in that way. But I don't care. And while they might disapprove, no one's going to be violent about it. Once they realize that you're here forever, which you will be, once you've recovered from the birth, they'll accept it. And they'll help out as much as they can.
"Our little one will be in good company. My brother Vinnie, his wife is having their third in August. You're probably due in August too maybe? So they'll be cousins and right about the same age. That's going to be amazing for him."
Ryan rubbed at his face. "Except they're going to hate me, because I'm a freak. And that's another thing. You're one of four, your brother's working on number three… How many kids are you expecting me to pop out here?" His shoulders were shaking. "We haven't talked about this. We haven't ironed this out, and now I'm feeling really backed into a corner."
Nick pursed his lips as he took all of that in. "Okay. Yeah, I like kids. I did kind of picture myself with a basketball team at some point, but you know what?" He kissed Ryan. "I love you. I love you, and I want you, and you're the one who has to carry them and give birth. So we will have exactly as many kids as you want and as your body can handle. Has to be both. You and your health come first, Ryan."
Ryan's eyes shone, and for the first time he gave a little smile. Nick wasn't sure that Ryan believed him, but that was okay. They'd get there eventually. "There's something else."
I knew it. "What is it, baby?" He kept petting Ryan's hair.
"I feel guilty." Ryan closed his eyes. "I feel guilty, because Dan wanted kids and I didn't give them to him. We agreed that I should finish college first."
"Oh." What, exactly, was Nick supposed to say to that? It wasn't something that he could fix or make whole for him. "Honey, listen. You and Dan, you both agreed that you should finish school first, right?"
"Yeah." Ryan's face was the picture of misery.
"And Dan, from what you've told me, was a pretty reasonable guy. He would have understood that we weren't trying; it was just something that happened. And he'd want you to let yourself enjoy it as much as you could." He focused on the smooth texture of his mate's black hair instead of on the words he was saying. He meant them all; he just couldn't shake the incongruity of consoling his mate over another man. "He wouldn't have wanted you to hurt yourself. Or your baby."
"No." Ryan whispered. "He would have been happy for me." He looked up again. "For us."
"So." Nick forced himself to smile, and then found that he meant it. "Since he'd want us to be happy, and this is a happy occasion, let's find someplace to go celebrate where we can revel in our new little addition. I know it's going to take a little while to sink in, Ryan, but this is a happy moment. It's bringing us closer together, and that can only be a good thing."
Ryan kissed him. "You're right. It's going to take a little while to get my equilibrium. But we are choosing family here."
They had dinner at that same Italian place, eating dinner there because Nick felt like showing off. Afterward, Nick stayed over at Ryan's and they looked up baby stuff online.
The next morning, they'd barely gotten to work before Katherine texted to let them know that Carney was going to discharge Leanne before noon that day. They got into the unmarked car again, and Ryan had recovered his good humor enough to once again mock the notion that it might somehow pass for anything other than what it was.
Leanne still looked terrible. The opioid haze had cleared from her eyes, but it had been replaced by pain lines. She sat in a wheelchair, ready to go. A Boston cop that Nick didn't know sat in the room with her, as did two hospital security guards. "We had a visit from a guy last night claiming to be her husband," the cop told him, jerking his thumb at Leanne. "The guy on guard duty—not your brother—bought it for a hot second. He's being disciplined for it, don't worry."
"Katherine fought him off." Leanne lifted her head as much as she could, under the circumstances. There was no mistaking the pride in her voice, though.
"Can of hairspray in my purse." Katherine's mouth twisted into a satisfied line. "Got him right in the eyes. He ran when I grabbed my lighter. Called me a crazy bitch."
"Most guys will, when you offer to burn their eyes with an improvised flamethrower." Ryan winked at her. "Given what he was here for, I wouldn't put too much thought into it."
"I'm not overly concerned about his good opinion." She folded her arms across her chest. "You ready to go, Ma?"
Leanne took a deep breath and hacked out a painful-sounding cough. "Ready as I'll ever be," she wheezed. "My daughter's coming with me," she told Nick and Ryan. "She got family leave from work."
"That's very good of you." Nick smiled at Katherine. He still didn't have a lot of sympathy for Leanne. Everything that she'd done had been centered around self-interest, even the decision to hand over the baseball bat. Katherine, though, was innocent. She'd been helpful since the beginning.
They wheeled her out to the car. Katherine pushed the wheelchair and Ryan, Nick, and Unknown Cop formed a kind of shield around the women. It was the tensest twenty minutes Nick had ever spent. His hand was on his gun the entire time, and the thing was that it was only partially about the women under his protection. What if O'Neal showed up and tried to hurt Ryan? Would Nick be able to stop him in time? Would he be able to stop himself from hurting a suspect?
Was this what life would be like forever, or just until the baby was born?
They finally loaded Katherine and Leanne into the car. Ryan guarded them while the uniformed cop spoke to Nick. "We've already put in the request for a protection detail to the state police," he said. "Once we found out what was going on, that is. We didn't think having the media around would be helpful to your case, so as far as any official records go she's just a DV survivor in need of extra protection."
"Thanks, man. I appreciate the help." Nick shook his hand.
"We put in a word to Stoughton PD, too, so they're aware of the situation too and can keep an eye on the place. Good luck, gu
ys. I think you're going to need it." The cop waved to Ryan, knocked on the top of the car, and took off.
The ride down to Stoughton took them about forty minutes, with traffic. Nick found that his stomach had tied itself up in knots before they got to the house, but once they arrived he could see that the house was untouched. "I got a security system as soon as I bought the place," Leanne told him when she saw his shoulders slump in relief. "It's not a very subtle one, either. I wanted it to be loud. Come on inside, boys. I'll need your help to get what I need."
Nick led the way into the house, with Ryan bringing up rear guard. Nick cleared every room in the house before he'd let anyone get comfortable, but it didn't take long to make sure that the place was empty. "We're good," he told them. "No surprises."
"Excellent. Now, I'm not going to be doing stairs too good for a few weeks, so I'm going to need for one of you boys to go up to my closet with Katherine. In the closet, underneath the box for my winter coat, is a false floor. You'll find what you're looking for inside that hiding space."
Ryan and Nick exchanged glances. "I'll go," Ryan said, and followed the daughter.
Nick was left alone with Leanne. She watched him intently. "You think I was wrong, don't you?" She sat back on the couch and closed her eyes. "You think I was a coward."
Nick bit his lip. "It's not for me to judge your circumstances back then, Leanne," he said after a moment. "I wasn't there, and I haven't lived them. I know that there's a woman, who moved away from town, who has been living with this for forty years. She knew that someone killed her brother in cold blood and left him in the street like trash. She knew that she herself was the only person who cared enough to report Maureen missing, and that no one at all cared to follow up on her report." He shook his head. "But I don't know what you were going through."
Leanne was quiet for a moment. "I've spent fifty-eight years," she said, "building up my strength. I didn't know, back then, what it was to stand up. The only girl I knew who stood up and fought back was Maureen, and even before they killed her I saw exactly how far it got her." She bowed her head. "I knew that it was wrong, to let them get away with it. I didn't know that I could do something about it until now. And they still might kill me for it. But by God, if they do, I'm taking them with me."
Nick considered. He hadn't looked at it from that perspective. It was still wrong, of course. It was still covering up for a murder. Maureen was still dead, and no one had cared to do anything about it when she'd gone missing. None of that had changed.
But Leanne had changed. "Leanne," he said, after a long moment, "You raised an incredible daughter. You raised a daughter that could look a monster in the eye, name the monster, and fight him off to defend a vulnerable person. You raised a hero. I think you definitely did something about it, maybe without knowing it."
Ryan returned from the upstairs a moment later. He carried a long, cylindrical case, like someone might use to carry a fishing rod. "Got it," he said, his face drawn.
"Get that to your lab, gentlemen. And nail those brothers to the wall." Leanne's one good hand shook as she waved goodbye.
Chapter Eleven
They turned the baseball bat in to the crime lab, and then spent hours writing up reports about the provenance of the weapon. They had to talk about where it had been, why it was only now coming to light, and why it was relevant. Oliver, the crime scene technician they were working with, was impressed by the state of the evidence, but still didn't want to promise them anything. "The DNA is old, guys," he said, pointing to some cracks in the end of the bat. "And you see this? The guy who hit her made these cracks, on her body."
"Oh my God." Ryan covered his mouth with one hand. He'd seen a lot of things in his day, but he hadn't seen anyone actually crack a bat on a human body before.
Oliver sighed and put the bat down. "It's good for us, right? Because a lot of the evidence got right down into the weapon itself, and it soaked up in there real good. But it's also just horrific." He looked up at them and set his jaw. "I'm going to do my best to give you an airtight case."
"Thanks, Oliver." Nick put a hand onto Ryan's shoulder.
"Hey, if you see Detective Nenci, could you let him know that I've got that spatter analysis he asked for?" Oliver's eyes glowed a little bit at the mention of the gruff old detective.
"I'll be sure to send him down," Nick told him and ushered Ryan out of the crime lab.
"What was that all about?" Ryan whispered to Nick.
"Oh. I guess you wouldn't know. Oliver has the absolute biggest crush on Nenci." Nick led Ryan toward Cold Case.
"Nenci? But why? The guy hates omegas." Ryan made a face. "Oliver's a good looking guy, he's dedicated and smart, he could do a thousand times better."
Nick shrugged. "Who knows what people see in each other? I mean, you picked me and we did nothing but butt heads for two weeks."
"Valid." Ryan slipped his hand into Nick's for a second. "But you're you, and Nenci lives under a bridge and eats goats after work."
"He's not a troll, Ryan. He's just… kind of unpleasant." Nick opened the door to Cold Case and bustled him through to one of the conference rooms. "Anyway," he continued, once the door was closed behind them, "what Oliver doesn't realize is that Nenci is just as into him."
"Oh my God, this department is like a telenovela." Ryan shook his head. "Of course Nenci's just as into him. Who wouldn't be into Oliver? Oliver's awesome. Anyway, the bat is a fantastic piece of evidence, but it's not perfect and it's not foolproof."
Nick crossed his arms over his chest. "Oh, for crying out loud. What's not foolproof about it?"
Ryan folded his fingertips together. "Work with me here, babe. I love that we have the bat, but I'm trying to think about this the way that a defense attorney would think about it. We have the bat, and we have Will using a baseball bat in another recent crime. That crime was an assault against the witness who gave us this bat."
"Which just makes it more perfect." Nick sat down on the edge of the table. "I mean, it just bolsters our case!"
"Not necessarily." Ryan chewed on his knuckle for a moment. "Think about a jury for a minute. Think about every trial that you've seen go bad. They're going to look at the long history of domestic violence between these two. They're going to look at the fact that Leanne was supposedly sitting on this for however long, but only decided to bring it up again when she got roughed up? They might return the verdict we want. Or the defense attorney might convince them that she killed Maureen herself, and that she's trying to frame her abusive ex."
Nick scowled. "It's scary that you can think like that."
"I had a case go sideways in a hurry once. I'm speaking from experience here." Ryan drummed his fingertips on the table for a moment. "There's no way there's someone else's blood that's going to be on that bat." He ignored the lurch in his stomach at the image. "That proves that the bat is the murder weapon for her. We know that the other bat and the pipe are the murder weapon for him. We have Leanne's word that the brothers are the culprits, but nothing that physically ties the brothers to anything else."
"And Leanne's story might sound good, but you're right. A defense attorney worth his paycheck is going to poke holes up one side of that and down the other." Nick buried his face in his hands. "Not the least because of the vindictive ex thing. I mean, I pointed it out too, right? Everything she did was for self-preservation. Even turning that thing over—she only did when she herself was threatened." He held up his hand. "I get it, I get that she was scared and intimidated and had lived that way all her life. The jury ain't going to care."
"No." Ryan leaned back in his chair. "If there was just some way that we could tie the pipe back to the brothers, that would be the airtight case. I mean, it's a plumber's pipe, but it's not like there aren't other plumbing shops in Southie."
Nick tapped his pen against his notepad. "What if we showed those markings to someone in the know? Like Leanne, or maybe to the daughter."
Ryan considered. "It's poss
ible. We could go to another old-school plumber in the area, too. We could see if they know anything. Better to let them rest. They've been through a lot, and I'd rather not have our whole case rest on them. I mean, I know they've got protection but what if he gets through it?"
"Yeah." Nick took his hand. "They've got a lot of locals and Staties out looking for him. Hopefully they'll catch up to him soon." He squeezed Ryan's hand, and Ryan smiled. "In the meantime, I wanted to talk to you about something."
Ryan took a deep breath and pushed thoughts of the case to the back of his mind for now. "What's that?" He smiled.
Nick ran his thumb over Ryan's knuckles. "I thought it might be good for us to meet up with my folks this weekend."
Ryan probably stopped breathing. He wasn't sure, but he was pretty sure that was what the look on his alpha's face meant.
"Nothing big," Nick said in a rush. He pounded on Ryan's back. "I mean it, nothing big. Just maybe grabbing dinner at a restaurant, or even lunch or something." The pounding shifted to soothing little circles rubbing into Ryan's back. "I just want them to meet you and see how amazing you are." He paused, and the soothing circles stopped. "And I mean, they're going to have to meet you anyway, and I want them to get to know you before the baby's born—say something, Ryan. Are you okay? Did you have a stroke?"
