by Kathryn Moon
“I know where they are,” I said. I recognized the dinginess of the room they were in. And Indy would know…he’d know it was the last place I’d ever want to step foot inside.
“Tell us and we’ll send Wes. You’re not going,” Matthieu said.
“Matthieu!” Cyrus snarled.
I wiggled back out of Matthieu’s grasp and took his face in my hands, shaking my head. “Wes would never make it to Indy before Indy made good on the threat to Rake. He doesn't care what happens after that, he's having too much fun toying with me. I have to walk in first.”
“I won’t let you. Wes sure as hell won’t,” Matthieu growled.
“I’m calling him. Lola, tell us where they are,” Caleb said.
I glanced at everyone and my heart was lead in my chest. “I…No. Wes will try and go in first,” I said. I looked to Leo and he covered his torn expression with shaking hands. I met Cyrus’ eyes next. He was wild, at his wits end, but he held my gaze as he knelt down at my side.
“What happens to you if you go in, Lola?” Cyrus asked.
I pushed on Matthieu’s chest when he tried to lunge at his packmate, leaning into him and wrapping his arms around my waist to settle him.
“Indy’s not going to kill me. Not before the cavalry arrives, anyway. He won’t have any fun if I’m not terrified or helpless. I…I can keep myself together long enough to give Wes or the police or anyone time to get in and…” I chewed on my lip as I thought it over. “I don’t want Indy to get away and I…I don’t want him in jail.”
My eyes fell to my lap at the confession, waiting for disgust from any one of the men around me.
“I have something I need to tell all of you,” Matthieu said, voice as deep as a grave. “Something Wes and I have done.”
“I can’t believe you hired an assassin without telling us,” Caleb breathed. He stood at my back with his arms around me, crossed over my chest, and I wondered if he thought he could keep me from going through with my plan just by holding me.
Wes was standing across from me in the old gated parking lot I’d told him to meet us at, his arms crossed over his chest and his eyes narrowed in a glare. But our bond was filled with an affection and love so fierce, it nearly made me breathless. On either side of him stood two unfamiliar alphas, dressed in the same light tactical gear Wes was sporting.
“Hitma—Hitwoman,” Matthieu corrected.
“Lola,” Wes growled. “I want you to tell me right now where this asshole is.”
I blew out a brief sigh of relief. That meant he hadn’t realized where we were yet. It was only a matter of time, but it was time I could use to convince him I was right. I peeled myself out Caleb’s arms, fighting my own response to his soft groan of refusal as I dropped his hands.
“Wes, please listen. I know you can handle Indy, I do. But I’m telling you, and I really think you believe me when I say, that if you or your men are even heard going in, Rake will be seriously hurt if not worse before you get to him,” I said, moving to my alpha. His arms were tense under my fingers and he stared at me with absolute suspicion, perfectly aware I was trying to talk him out of something he was dead set on.
Unfortunately for him, I was dead set on my plan too.
“If I go in first—” Wes snarled at the words and I squeezed his arms, not that I could make a dent. “If I go in first there is nothing that can happen to me in the very little time it will take you and the police to reach Rake and I, that I can’t handle.”
“Lola—”
“Wes, I have lived through it before and I’ll do it again,” I snapped, and his jaw clacked shut. “And when you walk into that building it will end. Rake will be safe, I will be safe. We’ll go home and it will be over, okay? But it has to be me who goes in, otherwise we risk Rake. And if we risk Rake, I think we all know we’re risking our entire pack, okay?”
I ignored the tears under my eyes. Crying was just a habit of mine at this point, and I wasn’t about to let it get in my way.
Caleb stepped up to my side, turning me to face him. “Lola I don’t want you to—Not because—”
I rose to my tiptoes and Caleb ducked, the kiss soft and brief, our heads resting together. “I know,” I said, leaning back and looking at the others. “I’m not doing this because I think it’s either Rake or me. I’m doing it because we’re not complete without each other, and I’m the first step to getting Rake back with us safely.”
“Matthieu,” Wes said, looking over my head, his face twitching as I learned that I could prod him with my own irritation. Going over my fucking head to Matthieu as if they could outvote me just because their bondmarks were on my skin? I would have something to say about that when there was less on our plate.
“I’ve already refused…but I don’t think it’s my decision,” Matthieu said, with a grudging slowness to the words. His eyes met mine and held them fiercely, gaze warning me that his support was given reluctantly. As if I hadn't noticed. “And I think Lola is right that the pack is at risk if this goes sideways.”
“She’s not wrong, Pike,” one of Wes’ alpha employees said. “If she can go in and stall, hold attention, we can go in after her quiet, with or without police.”
“Fuck!” Wes barked.
I reached for him in the bond and he pulled hard. I stumbled forward at the demand of his call and tucked my face into his throat as he wrapped me up in his arms.
“Stupid fucking plan,” he muttered, and he growled as I dug my fingers through the short hair at the back of his head. “You go in, you fucking talk. You do not bargain and try and get Rake out, you just waste that fucker’s goddamn time until we get in. If a gun is pulled, you hide, I don’t care what fucking direction it’s pointing in, you hear me?”
It was there in my chest, Wes’ worry that I was trying to trade Rake’s safety for mine. I really wasn’t, but I knew it might turn in that direction.
“I promise,” I said.
“Lola.”
Wes set me on my feet so I could turn and face Leo, and I immediately wanted to smooth away the lines carving into his forehead.
“Don’t let him back in your head, gorgeous. No matter what happens, don’t go back to that place,” Leo said.
I swallowed around the knife in my throat and nodded, tipping my chin up for Leo to kiss me. He sucked on my bottom lip, lingering, and I could almost feel him running it over in his head. He could lose Rake, or me, or both of us.
Neither, I thought. It had to be neither. The pack would fracture if either Rake and I were lost. And it hit me then that I was important. To these men, I was precious, as much as their own omega. So I was going to have to live up to the promise and see Rake and I safely out of that hell hole.
Twenty-Six
Lola
It was one thing to tell the others that I was going in alone. It was an entirely different, horrific story to stand in the doorway of the Devil’s Noose and try and force myself to step over the threshold and back into my nightmares. I was grateful that the others were waiting far enough out of sight that they couldn’t see me shaking like a leaf, although Matthieu and Wes were there in our bonds. My spine was iron straight because of them. I was still standing because of them.
The door was cracked open, little whispers of alphas' scents muddled over the frame. The thought of touching anything made me shudder so I settled instead on toeing the old crooked door open.
Memories hit first. The hallway where Buzz had pressed me to the wall, wallpapered posters drooping like dead flowers. The sticky bar where they made me sit and watch them catcalling other beta girls in the bar, talking about drug runs and convenience store robberies. An old bitter voice rose like smoke in my head, but before the words could land—I was stupid, I landed myself in the pile of shit because of it—Matthieu was there, blacking out the doubts and the ugliness. That part of my life was over. I was pack.
I had to find Rake and stall until Wes and the cavalry arrived.
I paused in the bar, listening
and waiting, half expecting the room to come alive again with smoke and booze and pheromones. Instead, everything was stale. Even the quiet was oppressive.
Until the ceiling above me creaked with a footstep on the second story, and suddenly I would’ve been glad for hours of silence leaving me alone on memory lane.
Except Rake was upstairs with those footsteps, and that was the best motivation I could think of. There was a set of double doors, one propped open, that led to the lobby of the old motel the Hangmen had used for their clubhouse. The space was thick and dark, but in the shadows I could pick out the pieces of my time here that I remembered. The beat up old couch and chairs just ahead, where Hangmen had lounged and waited for desperate girls like me to kneel for them. The reception desk on the left, where they had stashed weapons and drugs for club members to grab at will. The stairs on the right, leading up to the bedrooms.
Every step up creaked beneath me. Indy’s scent grew stronger the farther I traveled, and it was my bondmates and the thought of Rake that held me up on the slow ascent to the second story.
There was a lamp flickering on the landing, just enough light to reveal the mold staining the walls near the ceiling and the dark boot prints that led to my left. I didn’t remember the room, but I could guess. Indy had a sick sense of humor or poetry or whatever he called it in his own head. He would use the room where he’d made the video of me. He would enjoy the cruelty of that even if I hadn’t known all the details now.
I followed the footsteps to the end of the hall, a door opening and releasing a shocking flood of sunlight from the bedroom.
“Right on time, Showgirl.”
Indy leaned in the doorway, crooked grin taunting me as he watched my approach. He looked rougher, thinner, meaner after the year of hiding. He licked his lips as I walked up, and his Adam’s apple bobbed with his swallow.
Mixed in with that bitter pine scent of his, Rake’s anxious burnt chocolate was slipping out of the doorway. I would have shoved Indy then, just to get to my packmate, but he stepped back, leaving the door hanging wide open. His arms opened at his side in some madman’s magnanimity as if he were welcoming me to the room. He reminded me then of a ringleader at some twisted circus. I was only his next act and I wanted to be the lion, ready to finally turn on its trainer.
My eyes shot to the right, where Rake was exactly as I’d seen him on the video chat, bound and bruised and surrounded by disguised alphas. I lunged in his direction and cried out as a tight fist wrapped around my elbow, swinging me away from Rake. Indy jumped between us, tugging me to his chest, strangling me with his scent.
Rake struggled in the chair as I tried to pull out of Indy’s arms, and I settled more for his sake than mine.
“I knew you’d come,” Indy said, grinning down at me.
“You took my omega,” I snarled back.
An alpha scoffed behind Indy, and he barked a laugh directly into my face. I winced and leaned away from his bitter breath.
“First you try and be an omega, begging and whining and popping your ass for us alphas. And now you want to claim an omega like you think you’re a fucking alpha? Showgirl, you are fucked in the head. You know you’re just a beta, don’t you, babe? You know you’re completely worthless. Don’t you?” Indy hissed and leaned into my face, teeth snapping on his words. He jerked and shook me, making my head rattle on my neck. “Fucking say it, Showgirl.”
I held my lips shut and raised my eyes up to glare at him. Just keep him talking, Lola, I thought in Wes’ voice, my alpha's steel solid love giving me the strength to stare back at Indy's crazed face.
“A worthless beta? You went to an awful lot of trouble just to drag me back here,” I said.
Indy grinned again and shrugged. “What can I say? I’m sentimental. You’re my favorite little scrap on the side.”
His hands snapped up and grabbed me by my hair on either side of my head, pulling and yanking me side to side. “Come on, Showgirl. Tell me you fuckin’ missed me.”
Rake was shouting, alphas holding him down as he bucked in his seat, and I stayed silent, head and heart pounding as Indy tried to get a rise out of me.
“What the fuck is this?” Indy hissed, stopping and pulling the hair on the left side of my neck up to expose my bondmark from Matthieu.
The minutes were ticking in my head, but I had no idea how long it would be before Wes would make it up here.
“Tell me what this fucking is, bitch!” Indy screamed, spittle hitting my cheek and getting a flinch out of me. He pushed at my shoulder and I stumbled back. He pushed again, grinning, over and over until my back ran into the hard ridge of a window ledge and my head bounced against cold glass.
“You know what it is,” I said, and at least I enjoyed the snarling frustration on Indy’s face.
“Jesus Christ, you really are desperate aren’t you, Lola? How many alphas did you have to spread your legs for before you found one willing to put up with your weak ass?” Indy hissed, leaning into my face.
I stared back at him in silence and breathed through the storm in my head, in the bond.
“I’ll fucking show you what an alpha does with a beta like you,” Indy snarled.
His mouth crashed into mine, teeth scratching and biting, tongue trying to force its way in. I knew what he wanted, and I’d given it to him plenty of times before. To whine, to cry, to fight.
So I took the ruthless excuse for a kiss and held still and silent, resisting the urge to gag at his taste, hiding my hands behind my back so I didn’t claw them over his skin.
Indy pulled away with a growl, fist pounding against the window, and even as it rattled I didn’t flinch. His eyes narrowed as he stared down at me.
“You want it, Lola? You miss my knot? I was thinking about making you watch as I let the guys have their turn on this omega fucker you’re shacked up with, but now I think I might go ahead and start with you. Make him watch. What do you think? Really give him a peek at how you and I used to shake the beds, huh?”
One of the alphas in question growled in objection. My hands snapped out before they could speak, and I hit Indy squarely in the chest. Either it surprised him, or he’d lost muscle too in the past year. All at once, the words poured out of me, lashing back at Indy like whip strikes.
“What do you want me to say, Indy? That I hate you? That you disgust me?” I stepped forward and struck against him again, but this time he didn’t move.
“Indy?” one of the alphas asked, as if he knew my patience was at an end. That the lion had stolen back her leash and was ready to lunge.
Indy just grinned and shook his head. “We’re good. This is how I like her. Want her screaming under me.”
”Fuck you,” I spat. “Your attempt to be some kind of thriller movie villain is pathetic to me. You’re not my bad guy. I have that role well and truly covered on my own. You’re just the tool I borrowed a year ago to try and tear myself down. That’s over now, and I’m still standing. So I guess that makes you completely worthless.”
My hands were shaking, my insides were made of wild animals, and my mouth was numb with the words, but that didn’t stop me from spitting directly into Indy’s red and fuming face.
I wasn’t surprised by the fist that flew in my direction or the way it hit me like a lightning strike in the cheek, briefly blacking out the vision in one eye. I was surprised that I managed to grab onto Indy as I cried out, digging my fingers into his shoulders and pulling him to me.
Oh god, oh fuck, what do I do?!
Knee.
My knee jammed up into Indy’s groin and he bellowed in my ear as I stumbled away. He was bent forward, snarling at me, and my heart was running like a rabbit’s, urging me to turn tail and hide.
Fist, chin.
Screaming, I jumped forward, swinging my fist up into the underside of Indy’s chin.
The alphas around Rake started to move forward, but I was on Indy, tackling him to the floor. One grabbed for my arm, but I got my elbow to his face and then
I was free again. My fists were so tight the bite of my nails in the heel of my palm was clear and sharp. Every hit to Indy burned in my hands, echoed in my knuckles, but I didn’t stop.
“You should’ve fucking died with Buzz!” I screamed. “You’re a pointless piece of shit! You hateful—” Hit, crunch.
“Repulsive!” Hit.
“Abusive!” Hit.
“Bastard!” Hit. Wet and red.
Footsteps pounded around me and Indy clawed at my arms, hitting me hard in my ribs and making my unending shriek stutter as I lost my breath. Indy’s grimace was toothy and bloodied. He yanked on my hair and reached for my throat, and I dove down, biting viciously between his thumb and forefinger.
I had no goal. There was nothing in me but the anger and the fact that I could keep hitting him. Keep hurting him. Keep him from hurting Rake and my pack.
“Lola! Lola!”
Arms reached for me and I fought them off, landing another clumsy strike on Indy’s ear. I was lifted away and I went kicking, striking Indy in the groin again, flailing against my attacker.
“Sweetheart, I got you. I’m here. I got you.”
Citrus. And salt. Familiar, gentle arms. I sagged as Wes dragged me away, unable to move my own feet as I caught my breath. There were scratches on Wes’ arm. Scratches from me. I moaned and Wes moved in front of me, one arm banded around my waist while his free hand reached to tip my chin up. His head ducked until our eyes met, and the red mist of rage simmered slowly out of my vision.
Over Wes’ shoulder, police were moving into the room, grabbing up Indy’s alphas and untangling a shouting Rake from his binds and muzzle. And suddenly, I realized why he was shouting. Indy was rising from the floor, a gun in his hand pointed directly at Wes’ back.
“No!” I twisted, pushing hard at Wes’ chest.
Wes didn’t resist me, and we stumbled to the side just as glass shattered behind me, hitting the backs of my legs and showering the floor. Had Indy shot the gun? Was Wes hurt?
