by D. J. Heart
“Chad, the alpha I work with, isn’t waking up. He has a pulse.” Logan checks again, just to be sure. He can feel Chad’s pulse throb against his fingers, steady and strong.
The operator asks him where he is, and Logan tells her the address of the strip mall.
“The ambulance will be there in a few minutes.” The operator’s voice is businesslike and reassuring. Logan nods, mostly to himself, and the operator instructs him to put Chad in the recovery position. He obeys her command, letting her talk him through a series of tasks until suddenly four paramedics are rushing into the room. Logan steps back and lets them examine Chad and load him onto a stretcher. One of the paramedics turns to him.
“Sir, are you injured?”
Logan shakes his head. He can’t afford a visit to the hospital even if he were injured. The paramedic doesn’t go away.
“I’m fine,” Logan insists. The paramedic scrunches up his brow and leads Logan away from the two paramedics moving Chad out of the wreckage.
“Let me just check you for signs of head injury, okay?”
The paramedic doesn’t wait for an answer. He shines a light in Logan’s eyes, moving it from his right eye to his left and back again, and then asks him to follow his finger as he moves it back and forth in front of Logan’s face.
“Are you seeing double?”
Logan shakes his head. “I told you, I’m fine. I don’t need to go to the hospital!”
The paramedic nods, not at all happy, but he doesn’t put up a fight. Logan looks toward Chad, and is surprised to see that a swarm of cops have arrived. He hadn’t even noticed them, even though one of them is barking out orders like a drill sergeant.
“He okay to talk to us?” the officer in charge asks the paramedic, nodding toward Logan.
“I’m fine,” Logan says, annoyed that the cop is speaking over his head.
“He should get checked out at the hospital,” the paramedic says. Logan huffs.
“Can you tell me what happened here, son?” the cop asks. The paramedic leaves with a displeased look on his face. “Son? I need you to tell me what happened here.”
The cop’s voice is stern, and Logan grimaces when he realizes that the man is an alpha.
At least it isn’t Officer Wilson.
Logan starts telling the policeman about the package they received, trying to remember as much as possible.
“You’re lucky,” the policeman says. “If the two of you had been in the room when the bomb went off, you’d both be dead.”
Logan shudders. He’s been trying not to think about that. He nods his head in agreement.
“Do you think you could come down to the station and give a full statement?” the cop asks. His voice is kind, and Logan feels a little hysterical. He’s not used to an alpha in uniform being nice to him.
“Of course. I’ll just… has anyone called Chad’s mate? He’s going to want to meet him at the hospital.”
“Not that I know of. Would you like to give him a call? They’re taking Chad to Mercy General Hospital.”
Logan licks his lips. He’s never talked to Peter Tank, and he honestly really, really doesn’t want to. The man scares the shit out of him.
“I don’t have his number,” Logan says. Then he looks at the phone lying on the floor where Chad had been and realizes that he can use Chad’s phone to call. There was no password or pin code needed to open the phone that Logan remembers. “I can use Chad’s phone.”
The cop clasps his hands on his belt as he watches Logan grab the phone off the floor and root through Chad’s contacts. The name Peter Tank appears first in his list of favorites, and Logan presses down to make the call.
“What’s up?” Peter Tank asks. His voice is deep and warm, yet there’s an air of authority that’s apparent even over the phone.
“Hi, this is Logan Barnes. I work with Chad.” Logan doesn’t really know what to say next. He wants to assure Peter that Chad is fine, but he doesn’t really know that.
“Mr. Barnes. Why do you have Chad’s phone?” The warmth has left Peter’s voice, and Logan feels a chill run down his spine at the sheer dominance Peter exudes.
“Um… there was an explosion in our office. Someone sent a package and I think it was a bomb. Chad is on his way to the hospital. Mercy General. I just thought you’d want to know…” Logan trails off. The silence on the other end of the line is terrifying. When Peter speaks, he sounds utterly cold.
“Wait right there. My people are on their way.” Peter hangs up and the line goes dead. Logan’s heart is racing. He looks up at the officer in charge, who’s watching him.
“He told me to wait here.”
The cop shakes his head. “I’m going to need you to come down to the station with us. The forensics team will be here any minute.”
Logan frowns. There are maybe five or six cops crammed into the office, with the officer in charge and him the only people in Logan’s little room. None of them seem like they’re particularly worried that they’re contaminating the scene.
“I don’t think he’s going to be happy if I leave,” Logan says. He gets the feeling that Peter Tank is not a man who is accustomed to disobedience.
“He’ll understand,” the officer in charge says. He puts his hand between Logan’s shoulder blades and pushes him toward the door. His hand doesn’t leave Logan’s back until they’re outside and standing in front of a squad car. When he opens the back door, Logan climbs in without a word. The officer stands with his hand on the door, looking down at Logan with a strained smile.
“Officer Jones will take you to the station. A detective will meet you there to take your statement.”
The officer shuts the door and Logan stares up at him through the window, watching him leave. The interior of the car is warm, even though the engine has been turned off, and Logan is glad. He didn’t have time to grab his jacket before the officer escorted him out.
Closing his eyes, Logan feels overwhelmed. He’s had angry alphas attack him before—one of them beating him so bad he was in the hospital for weeks—but he’s never been the target of outright terrorism.
The fucked-up thing, Logan thinks, is that it worked. He is terrified. The very idea of fixing up the damage and going back to work fills him with dread. If his attackers were willing to bomb him once, what’s to stop them from doing it again?
Logan harbors very little hope that his attackers will be caught. The alphas in charge will undoubtedly condemn the attack, but Logan doesn’t believe for a second that they’ll go out of their way to bring the perpetrators to justice.
A young beta in uniform gets into the front seat and turns on the engine. He glances at Logan in the rearview mirror before turning around with a concerned uptick of his brow.
“Are you doing okay back there?”
Logan nods. He’s not, but there’s nothing the cop can do about his emotional upheaval.
“I’m fine. How long do you think this is going to take?”
“It’s hard to say. Do you have anyone you need to call?”
Logan shakes his head. He has no one, and all at once he feels like there’s a void in his life.
Usually, Logan doesn’t mind being single. Prefers it, even. It’s just… sometimes it would be nice to know that someone other than his parents and sister would miss him if he were to disappear.
The beta nods in sympathy, turning back around and putting the car in drive. Logan closes his eyes and waits until they’ve reached the station.
Chapter 5
Merchant is having a beer with one of his less savory contacts when Peter calls. He excuses himself, clasping the bruising hulk of an alpha he’s sitting with on the shoulder good-naturedly, and goes outside where it’s a little quieter.
“Don’t tell me you’ve been feeling up more betas,” he teases when Peter picks up.
He leans against the wall outside the bar, crossing his ankles as he scans the street. There aren’t many people out this early, and the ones who are pay
no attention to Merchant.
“Chad’s office was bombed. Chad is going to be fine, but I want the names of whoever did this. Dawn is already on it, but I want you working with her.”
Chad stands up straight, responding to the sheer command in Peter’s voice. He’s rarely heard Peter so angry before.
“I’ll get right on it,” he says, already running through his contacts in his mind, trying to decide who might know about an attack on an omega rights activist. Unless of course this is someone trying to get at Peter and making it look like an anti-omega rights thing.
“Good.” Peter hangs up the phone.
Merchant breathes out, heart racing with adrenaline, and calls Dawn. She jumps right in, not even offering a hello.
“Peter called you?”
“He did. What have you got?”
Merchant knows that Dawn will be doing most of the investigation on this, and he’s comfortable with that. Once she has the answers, he’ll go and deal with the problem. Or he would, usually. Something tells him that Peter will want to deal with whoever attacked his mate himself.
Knowing Peter, it’s going to be a bloodbath.
“I looked at the surveillance footage from the pawnshop two stores over from Chad’s office, and the package was delivered by DocumentsNow Courier Service. I hacked into their records, but the delivery was paid for in cash and the name on the receipt is fake. I have the GPS location of the pick-up point, however, and my people are there now looking for any surveillance cameras that might have caught our bomber. If we get a picture, I’ll send it your way and run it through the FBI facial analysis database.”
“You have access to that?” Merchant laughs. Of course Dawn has hacked the FBI. He doesn’t wait for an answer before asking, “Have your people talked to the courier himself?”
“Not yet. We’re still tracking him down.” Dawn sounds distracted, and Merchant has no doubt that she’s sitting in front of her giant monitors, doing a million things at once. “We haven’t talked to Barnes, either. Peter told him to stay put and wait for us, but he went with the police back to the station. If you could pick him up and bring him here for a debrief I would appreciate it.”
“Barnes?” Merchant racks his brain and comes up empty. He has no idea who that is.
“He’s the beta Chad works with,” Dawn says, her tone clearly indicating that Merchant should already know this. “Full name Logan Barnes. The detective in charge of the case has already taken his statement, but for some reason they’re holding onto him. I don’t like it, and Chad is worried that whoever bombed them might come after him and try to finish the job.”
“I’ll bring him to you,” Merchant promises. Dawn is good at hacking her way into places, but Merchant is the one with contacts with police higher-ups that can make things happen. He hangs up the phone and steps back into the bar, letting his contact know he has to leave.
He calls the deputy chief of police from his car, explaining that he needs Logan Barnes released into his custody. The deputy chief is a friend of Merchant from his days in the Army, and the man owes Merchant more than a few favors.
“Can it wait a few hours?” Brian, the deputy chief, asks.
“No, I need him now,” Merchant insists, speeding through the city streets with a firm hand on the wheel. “Do you have any idea who went after him?”
“Why are you looking into this?” Brian asks, sounding wary and resigned.
Merchant perks up. Brian isn’t answering the question, which means that he does have a suspect in mind. It also means that whoever it is has political pull. The thrill of the hunt courses through Merchant’s veins now that he has his first clue.
“My boss wants to know,” Merchant says, not explaining further. It is widely known that Peter Tank is mated to another alpha, but only those who know him personally would know Chad’s name. That Brian doesn’t know the connection yet is sloppy, but not surprising.
“Give me fifteen minutes and you can pick him up.” Brian hangs up, knowing that Merchant has him by the balls.
What Merchant means when he says that Brian owes him, is that he owns Brian. Merchant has helped him cover up some truly disturbing behavior, and they both know that Brian can’t afford to get on Merchant’s bad side, especially not with his recent promotion.
Still, Merchant uses his leverage sparingly. It’s best to stay on good terms—while still getting everything he wants.
Pulling into the precinct parking lot, zipping his coat up to ward off the chill, Merchant heads inside to collect his wayward beta.
***
Logan is very confused. After the detective had finished questioning him, glaring at him as he gave his answers and generally acting like Logan had brought this on himself, he was left in the interrogation room with no word on when he would be allowed to leave.
The room is small and dreary, windowless, its table and chairs bolted to the floor. Logan hates it. He wants to be in his apartment, in his own bed, huddled under a nest of blankets and pillows.
When an hour passes and the door remains locked, Logan starts to get scared. He’d thought that the police would just do a piss-poor job of investigating the attack on his office and leave it at that. Stuck in the joyless little room, however, the concrete floor sporting some very suspicious stains, he’s starting to worry that something more sinister might happen.
It wouldn’t be unheard of for an omega rights activist to mysteriously vanish from police custody.
When the door opens, and an unfamiliar beta in uniform enters the room, Logan doesn’t know if he’s relieved or terrified.
Surely, if they were going to do something, it would be an alpha doing the deed. Wouldn’t it?
“Come with me please,” the beta says. His tone is friendly, even though his face is impassive, and Logan lets himself relax a little.
“I can go home?” he asks. The officer makes a noise that might be a yes, but it might also not. Logan decides to take it as a yes. They’re walking toward the exit, at least. That’s a good sign.
“The alpha who was taken to the hospital, do you know if he’s going to be all right?” he asks when they pass the front desk and into the building lobby.
“I heard them say he was going to be fine, but I didn’t get any details,” the beta says, opening the door leading outside. Logan feels something in his belly unclench. He knows that he wasn’t even remotely responsible for converting Chad to the omega rights cause, but he would still feel guilty if Chad had been badly injured.
“Mr. Merchant? This is Logan Barnes. I was told to escort him to you and render him into your custody.”
Logan jumps, head swinging sharply to his left to see who the beta cop is talking to. When he lays eyes on the man, his heart skips a beat and he thinks he might pass out.
This is a man who looks like he could make you disappear. He’s an alpha, a few inches taller than Logan, and he looks like something out of a video game. Rugged doesn’t even begin to describe him.
The alpha has got jet-black hair, a nose that’s been broken at least once, and a wide jaw. His stubble is just long enough that it’s starting to look like a beard, though his throat has been shaved clean. Logan stares, transfixed and horrified as the alpha’s wide mouth curves up in an amused smirk. Moving his eyes down without even thinking about it, frozen to the spot, Logan takes in the alpha’s thick neck, wide shoulders, and impossibly muscled arms.
“Mr. Barnes, please come with me,” the alpha says. He takes a step forward, his muscular thigh straining the fabric of his tight jeans. He’s still smirking, like he knows something Logan doesn’t.
Logan bolts. There’s no thought behind it, just a gut feeling that whoever that alpha is, he’s bad news and Logan needs to get the hell away from him.
He’s barely made it ten feet when the alpha comes up behind him, like lightning, and grabs him around his waist. Logan is hoisted up into the air and pressed against a powerful chest. Kicking his legs and screaming to be let go, Logan makes
as much of a spectacle of his kidnapping as he can.
They can’t disappear him from right outside the police station if someone sees and remembers that he was taken. They need deniability.
“Stop kicking! Fuck, what’s wrong with you?” the alpha says, effortlessly carrying him toward a bulky SUV. When Logan keeps screaming to be let go, the alpha clamps a meaty palm over his mouth and silences him.
Logan is terrified. He knows that once the alpha has him in the SUV and takes him away, he stands no chance of escape. He needs someone to see what’s happening and intervene.
“In you go,” the alpha says, moving Logan so that he’s holding him with just one arm, opening the door to the SUV wide open and pushing Logan inside. There’s a clicking sound as the door locks, and when Logan tries to unlock it nothing happens. The alpha gets in the driver’s seat and starts the engine.
