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Two other men came out from behind some trees to stand beside the first, equally pompous expressions on their faces as they looked me over. Their gut reactions to me being a beta weren’t surprising. While there was always decent treatment of alphas, even with the restricted courting laws, the stigma with being a beta still remained. No knots to satisfy an omega and no heats to entice an alpha… where did we stand in the world? Luckily, I hadn’t run into people like that often or maybe it’s better to say, lucky for them to not run into me.
“What makes you think we haven’t? We had her long enough to try her for ourselves. You can have our sloppy seconds,beta, we found her lacking.”
The world stopped spinning as my breath left my lungs.
They didn’t… Did they?
I’ll kill them.I’d serve their dicks to Hazel on a fucking silver platter as an apology for not getting here sooner.
“Stay there, beta. Tell the De Lucas to watch their backs.” The so-called leader spat in my face before letting loose with a loud, abrasive laugh. The other two joined in as I wiped the spit off my face and pulled my handgun from the shoulder holster under my jacket.
Without hesitation, I aimed, shooting all three in rapid succession. Blood and brain matter exploded, splattering myself and the trees around us. I might prefer distance when it came to my jobs, but this was personal. Nothing but grim satisfaction filled me as I walked over and looked down at their leader, his mouth open and eyes wide with shock.
“You thought you could give me fake mercy,” I told him softly, reaching down for my knife. “You picked the wrong De Luca. Now, to give my wife a gift.”
Putting the knife to work, I went about getting something that only I could give my omega.
* * *
Maximo
Loki ledthe way through the burning building, running down hallways until we burst out of a side door.
“Eliza!”
“Around the left side,” she yelled back before she began to cough. Loki and Bane paled at the sound.
I was right on their heels as we rounded the side of the building, and relief hit me like a ton of bricks when Hazel came into view. The relief was short-lived once I took in the sheen of sweat on her skin and her fast breathing.
“Fuck,” Emiliano cursed as he came to stop beside me. Zaven and Sutton weren’t far behind him.
“Hazel,” Zaven breathed, rushing forward to drop to his knees beside her. His hands shook when he reached out to touch her, but he stopped short. Her eyes fluttered open, and a wide grin filled her face before her mouth formed my beta’s name. Zaven gathered her close, a broken sob falling from his lips as he buried his face in Hazel’s long hair. I could hear him apologizing over and over again.
Loki and his beta were looking Eliza over while my wife’s friend kept her eyes locked on us.
“Can you tell us what happened?” I asked Eliza, giving Zaven his moment. He needed it more than any of us right now.
Eliza nodded a few times, letting Loki wrap an arm around her and pull her into his side. “They jumped us outside of the restaurant and drugged us with something to knock us out. I woke up alone, then some alphas came in, trying to show me the errors of my ways. Then they fed me those awful pills, and I had to pretend they affected me. I’m fairly sure they’d have overdosed me if not. Hazel got thrown into the room with me a little while later after she pissed off her exes. But then her dad showed up—”
“A real fucking piece of work,” Hazel slurred, blinking over and over as she turned to face the rest of us. I squeezed my eyes shut, desperately trying to keep my alpha urges in check, because every ounce of protective instinct was pulling at the reins, wanting to find someone to kill for giving her that drug again. “He’s the one that shoved the pills in my mouth. He covered my face until I swallowed some of it.”
Sutton growled beside me, and I opened my eyes to see Zaven holding her, gently rocking her.
Emiliano grinned at her, the smile too wide and full of cruelty. “And where is this man so we can deal with him for you?”
“I put him in a chokehold until he passed out. I might have locked him in the cell so he couldn’t escape the fires.” The bikers beside her slowly turned to look at the omega. I was shocked that she’d done any of that, but given the glimmer of fury and pain in her eyes, I knew there was a lot more than met the eye when it came to Hazel’s friends.
“Where did the fire come from?” Sutton asked.
“Hazel asked me to burn the Rapture.” She shrugged nonchalantly. “So I did. I made sure it was hot enough to take out the whole fucking building.”
“You’re the best.” Hazel grinned at her before shivering in Zaven’s arms. “A heat won’t hit from this,” she tried to reassure us. “But it’s going to take some time to work through my system.”
“Let’s get you home,” I said gruffly, stepping forward and waiting for Zaven to release her. Right now, I wanted nothing more than to scoop her up in my arms.
“I’ll get the SUV,” Sutton said after pressing a kiss to Hazel’s forehead. He ran off while Loki and Bane talked to Eliza in the background, saying they were going to take her back to the house because the girls were waiting there.
I had no idea what was and wasn’t going on between them and Hazel’s friend, but the respect they showed her made me feel comfortable leaving her in their capable hands. Somehow, during all of the insanity of my life, Hazel’s friends had become like family to me. I’d be using my role as head of the Family to make sure they were okay, all three of them.
