Chapter 20: Chapter Twenty

Liam stared at the penthouse Gregory was in, the one he’d taken Ashley to. Finding it hadn’t been difficult once they’d called in help. Funny that they’d had so many contacts of their own, so many they’d gotten beneath their thumbs with blackmail or the threat of violence, but none of them had been able to help. Instead, it had been Kara and her contacts.

Her brother, the other alphas he shared his mate with, their friends. An entire network of people existed together not out of fear or blackmail or requirement, but something more. As thankful as Liam was, it still unnerved him.

Seated beside him on the rooftop across from the penthouse was Kieran, an alpha mated to the same omega as Kara’s brother, Kane. He had a sniper rifle already set up but had said little. He was the strong and silent type.

“Why are you here? What’s in this for you?” Liam asked when the silence and tension got to him.

Kieran was older, his hair silvered at the temples. He was well known for his technology company that set up network systems, but his ease with the rifle he’d brought said he knew his way around a fight.

The other alpha didn’t turn to face Liam, his focus through the scope of the weapon. “My mate wouldn’t be happy if anything happened to Kane. I would be less bothered by it, but when she’s unhappy, we’re all unhappy.”

Liam huffed softly. “Nice try, but I can spot a lie too well for that.”

Kieran said nothing for a long moment. He seemed the type to rarely speak without thinking. “It wasn’t a lie, but it wasn’t the entire truth. My mate was targeted by this same group. I think you’ll find there aren’t many omegas or alphas in this area who haven’t had a run in with these slavers. I would have come no matter what when I heard who the target was.”

“Dealing with him is second priority,” Liam warned, his voice dropping low, full of threat. “My mate’s safety is most important.”

Kieran nodded, but Liam wasn’t sure how honest that was. Dealing with people who had different motivations was always a tricky business. It was why he preferred to work with only his brother and his cousin. Conflicts of interest had buried more people than he cared to count.

Still, for Ashley, for her safety, he’d bite his tongue and accept the help, no matter how much he disliked it.

She mattered more than anything else, and he wasn’t ready to lose her just yet.

Erik kept Kane in sight, because despite him being Kara’s brother, he didn’t trust the other alpha.

Erik had kept an eye on the man, watched as his recklessness mirrored Kara’s. The two were so much alike, and so different from him.

Which was shown well when Kane wouldn’t stop talking. His tattoos made him look like he’d be the brooding, quiet type, but his mouth refused to quit running.

In a strange way, it felt like being beside Kara again.

“So then this fucker jumped out of the shadows, you know, around the corner. Fucking ugly asshole, the sort that requires a bag and duct tape for anyone to even think about—”

“Would you shut up?”

Kane didn’t seem to take offense, and even smirked, a look identical to all the times Kara had done it. Though Kara hadn’t done it while Erik was terrified for his mate, so maybe that was why Kane could get beneath his skin and she couldn’t.

“Wasn’t sure you were even listening, since you didn’t say shit about my amazing story with the flying squirrels.”

Erik gave him a withering look, but the man didn’t look the least bit chastised. “Why don’t you keep your mind on the job instead of talking nonstop?”

“Is that how you do it? All businesslike? Not my way, asshole, not my way.” He adjusted himself on the balcony, then stared out at the other building, as if he might see where Kieran and Liam had set up. “Besides, you look tense enough to not need the fuckers who have your mate to take you out. A heart attack’ll do it first.”

Erik pressed his lips together, pulling in a slow breath through his nose to hold together his rapidly disintegrating temper. “You don’t understand. Your mate isn’t in danger.”

“Not right now, no, but someone who was under the bastard in there had a knife to my mate’s throat not so many months ago. I know how it feels, and even if I don’t like you at all—and guess what, asshole, I don’t—I ain’t about to want you to feel what that’s like. So you’re gonna relax before you jump the gun and make a mistake, and you can listen to my awesome stories, and as soon as we get word, we’ll hop our pretty asses across that balcony divider and we’ll fuck some shit up and get your mate back. What do you say?”

Erik forced himself to really look at Kane for a moment, to see beneath his bad-boy exterior, beneath the multitude of tattoos and general shitty attitude, to see a man more capable than he’d have given him credit for.

Erik shook his arms out, realizing his hand had been curled around a blade. Maybe Kane wasn’t so wrong.

“Sounds good,” Erik admitted, and focused on the most important parts.

Fuck some shit up and get my mate back.

The sun had gone down, and Ashley hadn’t seen Gregory again. She’d explored the penthouse, but only the bathroom and master bedroom were unlocked. No guard followed her, though one stood inside the front door and she was sure more were outside. The slider that went to the balcony was unlocked, but when she’d approached it, the guard had warned her off.

Inside the kitchen, she’d gotten a glass of water, amazed when no one followed her. Then again, Gregory didn’t see her as a threat, and clearly neither did her guards.

The knives sat in a butcher-block holder on the counter, but taking one would be obvious. Instead, she snuck a steak knife from a drawer. Easier to hide, harder to miss. She tucked it into the waist of her pants, ignoring the way the serrated edge caught and aggravated her skin.

Just having the weapon made her feel more in control, more able to handle whatever was thrown at her.

Would the alphas come?

She sighed as he admitted, yeah, they probably would. Or they’d send someone. They needed to take care of Gregory for their business anyway.

But just because she knew they’d show eventually didn’t mean she had to wait for it. She’d spent her life running, hiding, avoiding conflict. Enough of that.

The door opened and Gregory entered. He wore the same suit as before, his face as unreadable as ever. What made him the way he is?

She thought about Torrin, about how he shared that unflappable exterior. The difference?

Torrin had something real beneath it. Gregory, try as he might, didn’t seem to have anything real inside him. Nothing beyond the need for power, the desire to own.

Ashley’s words came back to her, and she flinched at how she’d hurled them at Torrin. If she got out of this, she’d have to apologize. She’d been harsh.

No, she couldn’t trust him, and yes, what she’d said was true, but that didn’t make it right to say. For all the things Ashley was, she’d never been cruel.

“My darling,” Gregory said as he slid off his coat. He moved with the casual motions of a man coming home after a long day at work to his loving mate.

“I’m not your darling,” she said.

“You are. And tonight, I think we find ourselves in a good fortune.”

Ashley bit her tongue as she considered her circumstances. Not fortunate for me.

Gregory continued coming into the room, undoing the buttons at his wrist so he could roll up the sleeves of his white dress shirt. He lacked the appeal Liam had when he did the same thing. “I had time to think about your defiance. While I know I’ll win, I realized that I am fighting against something I have never fought against before. Before, you ran from me, but you had nothing to run towards. Now, however, you seem to have created some little fantasy for yourself, something to hold on to and think you could return to.”

The words made Ashley swallow. Nothing good could come of such a line of thought. “What do you mean?”

“Animals who are taken from the wild never make such good pets as those who were raised in captivity. Do you know why? Because the ones who were wild remember it, strive to return to it, despite how much better their lives have become. You are no different. The only way to rectify this is to ensure you have nowhere to run to.”

Her blood chilled, as if it had thickened and sludged through her veins and threatened to turn to ice. She couldn’t even ask what he meant—didn’t need to ask.

“I had been making plans to deal with those alphas. I don’t care for them sullying my things, and they dared to try to go behind my back, so I thought, if I dealt with them, if you saw you have nowhere to go, then you would accept your fate.”

“You can’t,” Ashley whispered, Gregory inspiring the old fear she’d had. No, not even that, it was beyond that fear. It was new, a living, breathing terror inside her at the thought that he’d go after them. All her claims about not caring, about believing Gregory to no longer be a threat, dissolved. She’d no longer feared what he could do to her, but she’d failed to think about what he could still do to others.

She should have seen it before, but she’d been so sure that once he had her, he wouldn’t care about them anymore.

Foolish girl.

Gregory looked at her, his lips curling slightly as though he liked her reaction. “Luckily for me, that won’t be necessary.”

Her moment of relief was short-lived when the door opened and Torrin walked in, his limp more pronounced than usual, so he leaned heavily on the cane.

Ashley came forward, but a sharp look from Gregory made her stop.

Torrin was unarmed but appeared unhurt.

Gregory rolled up his other sleeve as he continued to talk, as one of the guards who came in with Torrin grabbed a chair from the table and pulled it to the center of the room. “Torrin showed up today, no weapons, no backup. What luck, right?”

Ashley tore her gaze from Gregory to look at Torrin, trying to tell him with a look alone that it had been a stupid choice.

He had to have a plan. Torrin always had a plan. Where she’d been angry over that before, where it had frustrated her, she could only pray that he’d been the same sneaky, deceptive alpha she had come to know him as.

Where are Erik and Liam?

The guard shoved at Torrin’s shoulder, making him sit in the chair hard, his leg giving out. He nearly toppled from it, his cane being knocked from his hand and falling to the floor.

Even still, he sat tall, proud.

Gregory nodded at another seat, and the guard pulled it over so he could sit in front of Torrin. He wasn’t close enough for Torrin to be able to reach him, but near enough to read his features easily. “Now, I find myself wondering why you would risk this? You, who have been so careful to remain out of my reach, who could have run if you so wanted—why would you come to me knowing the risk? Without so much as your bodyguards?”

Torrin kept his gaze on Gregory, not Ashley, and she missed his dark eyes. She missed the way they softened just for her, the crinkle near the corner when he did that almost smile he would give to her alone.

“I want to make a deal.”

“You have nothing I want anymore.”

“I do. You know people wanted me to kill you, but you don’t know who exactly was involved, how deep it goes.”

“What do I care, though? Once I make an example of you, no one will dare make such a mistake again.”

“You know better than that. Plots to kill people like you don’t happen on a whim. If it happened once, it will happen again, unless you can root out all the people involved.”

Gregory sat back. “And what is it you want in return? If it’s Ashley, I can assure you, that isn’t on the table.”

Torrin shook his head. “I consider losing her the price of doing business. You’ll call off whatever your plans against myself and my cousins, and you’ll let me move into the business once we deal with those who went after you. You’ll have open positions at that point.”

Ashley went lightheaded. She set a hand on the couch and lowered herself onto it, her knees weak and her stomach sick.

Torrin was turning on her. He’d realized he couldn’t defeat Gregory and was giving in. He’d rather have the power Gregory offered than her.

He’d run the numbers in his head and realized what everyone seemed to realize—Ashley wasn’t worth the cost.

Gregory sat back and set one ankle on the opposite knee. “My problem is, I don’t trust you.” He nodded toward Torrin.

The guard who had brought over the chair walked up, and the punch he delivered to Torrin made a sickening crunch. Blood poured from Torrin’s nose, smearing over his face and making him lose that regal quality he normally had.

Not that he showed any other reaction. He wiped at the blood, despite it still leaking, but made no complaint. “Trust in my record. You’ve had enough time to see what I’ve done, what I’m willing to do to get what I want.”

“I thought that meant Ashley.”

Torrin’s jaw popped slightly, the first sign of a reaction. “So did I. Things change, however, and I had to decide what I wanted more, what mattered more to me. Her or power. I made the obvious choice.”

Gregory nodded again, and this time the guard caught the chair with his foot and kicked, pulling it from beneath Torrin.

It was almost worse than the punch, to watch Torrin, a man so proud, fall into a heap on the ground. He might have caught himself if not for his hip.

“That sounds good, but what can you really offer me? Sure, I might get a few names, but in the long run?”

“I heard you’re having trouble with procuring omegas in the area, that you’re planning on pulling out. I own this area. Every street, every bar, every low-life here, I know and have my claws in. I can make sure this area becomes profitable again, keep law enforcement out of our way.”

Gregory tapped his finger against his jaw as if thinking. He nodded once more, and the guard placed a foot on Torrin’s bad hip. “We’ve had problems moving livestock here, I’ll admit. It used to be a good area, close enough to good paying clients but far enough to keep us quiet. Your offer is tempting. We do away with those who went after me and revamp this area. Hell, I could even offer you up a lovely omega slave to make up for taking Ashley.”

Torrin’s face was pinched in pain as the guard ground the foot down on his hip. He pushed at the leg, but in his position, there was nothing he could do to stop it.

Ashley held her breath, wanting nothing more than to stop this but having no idea how to do so.

Gregory rose from the seat. “I’ve wondered, how did you hurt your hip? I’ve seen you walk around, that limp, that cane, acting as if you’re above everyone else. You pretend like it doesn’t make you less, but that’s why you’re as vicious as you are, isn’t it?”

The guard let up, and when Torrin spoke, his voice lacked that confidence it normally had. Pain saturated it. “I took a baseball bat to it during a fire because someone stood in my way. It was him or me, and I chose me.”

Gregory knelt, getting close to Torrin’s face. “You have backbone. Probably comes from being damaged. The thing is, you can’t offer me anything that’s greater than what your death can give me. With you gone, Ashley won’t fight so hard, especially if I promise to leave your cousins alone. I find a good amount of leverage goes a long way.”

Ashley threw herself forward at that, at the certainty in Gregory’s voice. “You can’t,” she cried out.

Gregory stood and caught her before she reached Torrin. “I explained this to you,” he said, his voice calm, even deceptively sweet, as if explaining something he didn’t like but which had to be done. “With him gone, you’ll be happier. It might hurt now, but it will help in the long run.”

“I’ll do anything,” she said, looking directly at Gregory. “I’ll stay with you. I won’t ever run again. I won’t fight you. I’ll do whatever you say. Just let him go.”

Gregory caught her chin so she looked him in the eye. “You’ve fought long and hard for your freedom. You’d give it up so easily? For males who betrayed you? For this one who’s ready to sell you to me for a bit of power?”

Ashley knew the answer without having to think about it. Yes. Without a doubt, she’d give up everything for Torrin, for Liam and Erik. She’d sacrifice the freedom she’d fought so hard for because she loved them.

If their safety meant her freedom, she’d make the trade without question. What they might have done, their betrayal—none of that changed how she felt.

She couldn’t let them suffer for her, and she couldn’t imagine enduring years with Gregory unless she knew they were out there somewhere.

“Yes. Whatever you want,” she said.

Torrin laughed, a bitter sound that Ashley had never heard before. It was dark, as if those manners he used, that shell he wore to hide who he really was, had been ripped away. “You’re right about leverage.” He pulled at the buttons of his shirt until wires came into view.

Gregory cursed softly, surprise across his features. Ashley had never seen Gregory surprised. “If you think to blackmail me, you’re a fool. I own everyone who could hurt me with that.”

“Not everyone,” Torrin said. “And when this becomes public, do you really think the people you do own will stick around? If you start sinking, once your usefulness dwindles, do you really think anyone will stick around? You will rot in prison if you’re lucky. There’s FBI agents listening in, and you’ve said more than enough to bury yourself.”

“You’re as guilty as I am. Even if they let you off for helping them, you’ll have to give everything up. You won’t be able to go back to your old life, not with the police staring over your shoulder. Plus, whenever it does get out, do you really think your old friends will be fine with you snitching? That they won’t come after you?”

Torrin bared his teeth, red covering the whites. “Maybe. Maybe not. I do know for sure that either way, you’ll be out of the picture.”

Gregory darted his gaze around the room, looking like an animal caught in a corner, unable to escape. “What keeps me from just killing you?”

“Nothing. Except this.”

As soon as he spoke, glass shattered.

Ashley let out a scream as the deafening sound in the room shocked her. Bodies moved, falling, screams, gunfire.

The guards in the room fell, the action so fast they didn’t have time to draw their weapons. The one who had struck Torrin went down first, and she tore her gaze from the first splash of red. The main door flew open, but a shot in that direction kept the additional guards at bay.

Gregory hauled Ashley against him, using her in front of him, ducking behind her. He had a gun that went from pointing at Ashley to the chaos, back and forth in a shaking hand.

From the shattered slider, two more came in. One was a man she didn’t recognize, with tattoos over his arms and up his throat. Beside him was Erik, the sling gone, a blade in his hand. When two guards rushed in from the hallway, the new man and Erik met them with ease before they could reach Torrin.

The speed at which Erik moved was astounding, but seeing it when pitted against other men, against those who would happily kill Erik, Torrin and her, she didn’t find the fear she had before.

Erik was lethal, but for the first time, she understood why. He plunged the blade into one of the guards as the other man, the one with the tattoos, used the pistol in his hand to end another. When a third rushed the room, a bullet took him out, but she hadn’t seen anyone shoot it.

Torrin rose once Erik came closer and offered a hand to help him to his feet. “You’re outnumbered and out of options. My cousin is across the way with a sniper who has you in his crosshairs. In a van on the street are the two FBI agents handling the slavery cases, and Kara, who have recorded everything you’ve said. You have two choices right now. You can help the FBI take down the slavery ring.”

“Or?”

“Or we can kill you for real and take down the ring when we’re brought into the fold as payment for your death.”

Gregory gripped Ashley tighter, the action making it harder to breathe. “You won’t kill me,” he said, shaking his head. “You need me. The FBI only agreed to overlook your past if you gave them to me alive, right? You kill me, that’s all done for.” He pulled her backward, with the others in the room giving them space, not wanting to provoke him. While his gun trembled, indicating he obviously wasn’t comfortable with it, even a novice could kill someone.

Ashley looked at the alphas, her alphas. Torrin stood, blood down his face, the evidence of what he’d suffered to get what they needed stained into his shirt. His willingness to endure not only pain but humiliation for her said more than he ever could. Erik was beside him, that beast she’d feared before shining brightly through his eyes, yet she didn’t fear it anymore. How could she, when she’d seen what it was up against? She’d watched as that side of him had protected her and those she cared about. Even though she couldn’t see him, she knew Liam was across the roofline, knew he’d watched over her like the others.

Gregory wasn’t just threatening her. She’d accepted his treatment before because it was only her freedom he threatened, and she’d never had much to lose.

Now, though, she had everything to lose. He was threatening to take them away from her.

As they passed through the front door, Ashley made her move. She braced her foot on the other side of the doorway and kicked, knocking them both against the frame. Gregory’s grip loosened and she took advantage. She grasped the steak knife from her waist and brought it up, digging it into the side of his throat.

She didn’t plunge it in, but a stream of blood escaped, trailing down his neck and soaking into the collar of his shirt.

“They might not kill you,” she said, “but I will.”

“You don’t have it in you.” Even as he said it, his tone lacked his normal certainty.

Ashley dug the point in deeper. “Look into my eyes, Gregory. You’ve chased me for years, destroyed everything I had, took everything that mattered to me away. You’ve given me every reason to kill you, so you get this one chance. Put down the gun or I will stick this knife so far into your neck that no doctor will be able to save you. And before you think I’m bluffing, you know damned well I’m a terrible liar.”

They locked gazes for a heartbeat, during which Ashley didn’t back down, didn’t give him an inch. It wasn’t a bluff. No matter how it might have terrified her, she was so far past caring, and she’d do exactly as she said if he pressed her.

She understood Erik better at that moment, when the thought of killing Gregory not only didn’t bother her, but she relished it. The abstract idea of killing someone seemed so far removed, but when she held a knife, when she looked into the face of someone who was willing to take everything from her, the abstract didn’t matter.

Consequences be damned. He’d ruined her life and hurt and threatened her mates. She wanted to do what she’d said she would.

Gregory must have read that, because the gun clattered to the floor.

Ashley stumbled backward, the adrenaline from the moment collapsing inside her until she trembled.

She was free.

What now?