The moment we hit my floor, an uneasy feeling settled in the pit of my stomach.
Something's wrong.
There were no obvious signs of trouble; the filthy hallway was empty and the door to my apartment was shit with no signs of forced entry. But as I walked the length of the floor, the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end and the adrenaline kicked in.
It was almost like déjà vu. The rich, sumptuous drapes and plush carpets had been exchanged for scuffed tiles and the smell of bleach... but the nagging feeling in my gut telling me something was very, very wrong was eerily familiar.
I remembered the army at my back as I crept down the hallway. The smell of smoke wafting through the windows and the sound of gunshots outside.
The tall, black wolf cowering by the windows of the library, head down and eyes frightened.
"Kill him, Juliet. Seb said no survivors..."
What if one of Michael's men had recognised Theo? It was a longshot — Theo had never been in the media the way some of the other families had been — but there was still a chance...
Fear coiled in my stomach as I quickly fished my keys out of my jeans. I sensed Michael coming up behind me but I ignored him, unlocking the door at a frantic pace before I could stop me or attempt to slow me down.
Finally, the door sprung open and I froze in shock.
All three of Michael's men, including Thomas, were lined up against the wall by the television. Thomas had his arms folded over his chest, an irritated look on his face while the other two were flushed with embarrassment. The television was tuned to what was apparently Theo's favourite show, and my mother's voice tore through the ensuing silence with, "You? You k-killed my love?"
My eyes flicked to Theo and all I could do was gape at him.
He was standing in the centre of the kitchenette, both hands clutching the gun and pointing it directly at Thomas. His shoulders trembled a little and I could smell his fear, swirling about him like an aura. It was probably what I'd sensed out in the hallway.
He continued to stare unblinkingly at Thomas as the door swung open, but some of the tension in his shoulders eased like he knew it was me.
"Oh hell, Theo." I started toward him but he held out a hand toward me, warning me off. His eyes never left Thomas.
"They broke in here this morning," Theo said tightly. There was a wild look in his eyes, like a cornered animal trying to protect himself the only way he knew how. "They said they worked for some guy called Michael Rosario but I've never even heard that fucking name, Juliet!" His voice started to rise. "They told me to trust them but I'm not stupid. You told me, 'Trust no one', so I didn't trust them, I just waited until they were distracted and then I —"
He broke off suddenly, his eyes widening as they darted to the gun — like he'd only just realised he was holding it. His face went white. "I thought you were dead," he croaked. "I thought they'd come for me. I thought —"
Panic pulsed through me. Oh shit, I have to shut him up.
But before I could so much as open my mouth, I heard, "Thomas?" Michael's voice was rough with controlled anger. "You let this happen?"
I glanced at Thomas, who was shaking his head.
"The kid was scared out of his mind," he said as he unfolded his arms, waving something small and black in our direction. "Pointing the gun at us kept him quiet."
The magazine.
I moved then, knowing it was safe, and ripped the gun out of Theo's grip. There was a clicking noise as he pulled the trigger out of fright, but nothing happened.
Theo let out a squeak and I curled my hand around his wrist.
It was a testament to how out of it he was that he didn't even try to pull away from me. His were glassy with fear and shock as he looked at me.
"Everyone out," I said in a low voice.
In my periphery, I could see Michael's expression twist into a scowl. "Juliet," he said warningly.
A flicker of anger stirred in my gut. "I need to talk to him and they —" I jerked a thumb toward the crowd filling up my living room and gritted my teeth. "—are terrifying the hell out of him. Just get out for a minute, will you?"
I knew the second his eyes began to glow with fury that I'd fucked up. I never would have questioned Sebastien's orders in front of an audience, especially not in front of another Alpha. Theo's pulse thrummed faster beneath my fingertips and I could feel his fear at my back, seeping into my skin.
Keep him safe...
Though it cost me, I swallowed hard before forcing out a stiff, "Please."
Michael stared at me for a long moment before his gaze flicked to Theo behind me, and his expression went blank. "You have ten minutes," he said tonelessly. "Then pack your shit and get out of here. We're on a tight schedule, understand?"
He glanced in the direction of the door, where Veronica and her soldiers were waiting. The tension in his shoulders climbed a few notches.
I nodded in understanding.
He jerked his head stiffly at Thomas, a muscle ticking in his jaw. I knew better to think that just because he'd acquiesced, he wasn't going to kill me later — but for the moment, I'd gotten what I wanted, and I could think about the rest later. Slowly, the men filed out of my apartment and Michael followed, the door clicking shut behind him. When I was sure they were gone, I tightened my grip on Theo's wrist and tugged him into the bathroom with me, closing the door behind us.
After I'd slapped the toilet lid down, I turned to Theo, pushing on his shoulders until he was sitting on the toilet for me. He stared up at me with a shell-shocked look on his face.
"I thought they were gonna kill me," he breathed.
"So you pulled a gun on them," I said. I almost tacked on a 'congratulations' but I was too keyed up to revert to flippancy. I reached out and patted him hesitantly on the shoulder. I didn't really know how to comfort him. Pulling a gun on someone was a very... well, a very me think to do. But then I rolled with it. I didn't shut down and freak out.
"I thought they were gonna kill me." He sprang up abruptly from the toilet and pushed his hands through his hair, tearing at the roots violently as he processed whatever the hell was going on in his head. "Oh hell, they could have been Im—"
I slapped a hand over his mouth, moving so swiftly he flinched in fright. I shoved him up against the wall, pressing in close so I could whisper in his ear.
"Snap out of it!" I hissed.
The hysterical glint in his eyes faded with a flare of anger, and I could practically hear the switch flip the moment he began to glare bloody murder at me.
"They don't know who you are," I whispered as loudly as I dared. "They don't know you're my brother and we needed to keep it that way."
He winced as I uttered the word 'brother' and I tried not to let it bother me. In some ways, we'd taken a hundred steps forward but in others...
I sighed and forced myself to focus, shoving those thoughts down into the pit of never-going-there-nope. "While I was... out, I found us a pack," I explained quickly, trying not to dwell on how that sounded. He already assumed I'd tried to fuck my way into a pack after the fight den. "The man who came in here with me is Michael Rosario. He's one of the four Alphas with territory in London and he offered us protection. Do you get what that means?"
Slowly, Theo nodded.
The anger in his eyes dimmed and I pulled away, my hand dropping from his mouth. He huffed, his thick brows pulling together in a frown, but he looked calmer, at least. More like himself. His trademark scowl was beginning to creep across his face as the shock wore off.
"We can trust him?" he murmured.
I shot him an obvious look and his lips twisted unhappily.
"Right. Trust no one."
He scraped a hand over his face and I realised he was exhausted — more exhausted than me, even, and I'd barely slept in this past week. I hated that Michael had been spying on us — every time the thought popped into my head, I wanted to choke the life out of something — but the worst of it was that Theo hadn't even known his men had been there.
He'd thought he was on his own. Completely.
"Hey," I said awkwardly. "Were you okay?"
He eyed me moodily. "You mean before they broke in?"
"Yeah."
He stared at me for a long moment, colour creeping into his face, before he nodded.
I frowned. The feeling that he was hiding something crept up on me but instead of pressing him for information, for once, I let it drop.
Glancing at the door, a tense feeling stole over me. I'd gotten Theo the pack he needed for protection but now it felt like we were swaying together on the tip of a knife edge so much higher than the last one, and the wind could blow us either way. There were so many ways this could go wrong: he could blurt out something about the Impurists, he could call me his sister...
And even though I could count on one hand the amount of people who knew who had fathered me — Theo included— that didn't mean someone could start putting two and two together. It wasn't like my mother had been discreet about her lovers...
"You can't afford to freak out like that again," I warned him.
He rolled his eyes sulkily. "I just panicked. Whatever."
"At least you pulled a gun on them this time," I pointed out.
"A gun without bullets."
"You didn't know that." I nudged him with my foot, an awkward feeling stealing through me. I could almost hear Sebastien in my head, could conjure up the words he would have said to me in the same situation: "Next time, know your weapon. Panicking gets you killed. Always be prepared." But when I opened my mouth, what came out was, "I'm... proud of you."
His eyes narrowed in suspicion, like he thought I was mocking him. I just shrugged and tossed the gun back to him. He stared at the cool metal, his fingers curling around the trigger for a moment before he tucked it into the back pocket of his jeans.
I was heading for the door when he murmured, "You knew him before, didn't you?"
I froze with my hand on the door handle, my heart tripping over itself in my chest. "Who?"
"You know who I mean." Theo scoffed. "I saw him watching you, you know. At the den. He looked at you like he knew you."
"I..." I let out of a slow breath, my lungs tightening as I tried to find the words to explain. 'Before' stretched into the distance, a lifetime away; memories I'd long suppressed disappearing like vapour into the horizon while the few glimpses and snippets I'd managed to save played on a loop in the back of my head. Michael in the playground, a starving little boy with pain and fear in his eyes. "You want to come with us?"
Standing in the lashing rain, drenched to the skin, watching as Sebastien forced him to the ground. "More. Ten more. Keep going. Don't stop." The way his arms had shook with each heave, his teeth gritted against the pain and fatigue.
My legs dangling over the bridge, my hair flying in wisps about my face as he sprinted up and down the tracks beneath me. Running through the hunger, the exhaustion. Running with fire in his eyes and anger in his heart.
The sound of his cries echoing through the halls of the warehouse, his sleep plagued by terrible nightmares. The whisper of the blanket sliding from my shoulders and the mattress dipping beneath his weight as he crawled in next to me, a ball of shivering fur, his wet nose digging into my side.
And then the pain that wracked my knuckles as I slammed them into his face. Laughter bursting from my mouth as the room erupted in whistles and jeers. "She's just a girl, Michael! Are you going to let her kick your ass?"
"Maybe," I said stiffly. "Maybe I did. A long time ago."
Not anymore.
Theo let out a frustrated huff but I didn't elaborate any further.
"Come on. We need to start packing."
Anything we'd managed to accumulate over the last few weeks — which turned out to be a lot, surprisingly — was packaged in boxes that Thomas, Rhys and a few others carried downstairs. Veronica supervised everything from the hall with a bored look on her face, though occasionally I'd catch her watching me with interest.
Mia whispered that it was the 'legend thing' when she noticed me frowning in Veronica's direction, but I didn't swallow that for a second. She had a legion of well-trained soldiers at her command and while I could admit I was good, I was still a half-breed with maybe seventy-percent — tops — of the strength her goons possessed on a good day.
Still, I managed to keep my temper in check until I finished packing up my bedroom and walked into the living area at the same time Michael was issuing orders.
"Find the landlord. If he gives you any trouble about ending the lease, you know what you need to do," he was telling Thomas.
"No," I blurted out. I dropped the box I was carrying, dumping it on the floor. "You can't terminate the lease."
Michael's head whipped in my direction and I would have been an idiot not to recognised the lethal look in his eyes. But all it did was piss me off. Even after what he'd said earlier — "You take your orders from me" — I hadn't submitted to him, not really. He wasn't my Alpha in the true sense of the word.
And as I glanced around at the dump I'd been living in for the past few weeks, I couldn't shake the echo of panic in my blood that told me not to trust him. Not to let him strip me of the last of my options.
This place was mine. Sooner or later, Theo and I would have to move on. We'd raise enough money to take off and find a safer city with more welcoming residents, maybe — but until then, this place was ours. A roof under which I could live by my own rules, my own orders.
Some place I was in control.
And now he was ripping that away from us without even asking me?
I forced myself to calm down, aware that Veronica was still standing in hearing distance. Careful, careful, careful...
He watched my approach warily. In my periphery, I didn't miss how Thomas and the others inched closer protectively. If I hadn't been so close to losing it, I might have smiled; they had every reason to be wary when the last time I'd seen Thomas, I had a knife pressed to Michael's throat.
"I want to keep it," I said tightly, my voice low. I tried to communicate how serious I was with my eyes because there was no fucking way I was tacking on the word, 'Please' again — I did not beg. He stared at me for so long, an inscrutable look on his face, that I could feel an argument bubbling up inside me, Veronica be damned.
His scowl deepened. "We'll discuss this later."
It wasn't a concession by any means, but it meant Veronica would be around and I could let my rage loose. Satisfied, I turned back around and grabbed the box I'd dropped.
"That's the last of it," Mia announced as she came out of my bedroom. She had one of my jackets slung over one shoulder and I knew from the guilty way her eyes darted over me that she had tried it on. I stared at her in bemusement as she strode by me, smiling at some of the others as she went.
They all returned her smile affectionately.
It reminded me a little of how some of the boys had fallen over themselves trying to make Tina comfortable back in the day, showering her with presents before she decided she wanted to fuck Sebastien exclusively. I'd always hated her but the rest of the pack had treated her like a princess until it was time to leave, and she realised Sebastien had no use for her anymore.
"I don't know why you're letting Carrot Head go and not me. All she does is moon after you anyway. She can barely fight with her constant staring."
I scowled and followed the others to the door, hanging back as everyone filed through the doorway. I was sliding my key into the lock when I heard Theo growl suddenly in surprise.
My head shot up in time to catch Michael grabbing the gun from Theo's back pocket. Theo spun to face him, wary and a little angry, but Michael just shoved into his hand and said, "Don't put a gun in your back pocket. It's practically an invitation for someone to take it."
The words were all Sebastien, drilled into our heads like the rest of his 'rules'.
Theo retrieved the gun sullenly, sliding it into the front pocket of his hoodie as he turned back around.
Sometimes it was easy to forget that even though Michael and I had grown up together, he'd gone through the exact same training as me. Heard the same things yelled at him in the middle of drills. The same warnings.
It's practically an invitation...
I stared after them as a memory tumbled through my head: Sprinting through the playground, the cold barrel of the gun as Michael pressed it against my head. The way he'd backed me up against the jungle gym, his mouth claiming mine hungrily — before my hand curled around the gun he'd shoved in the back pocket of his jeans.
No, I thought, my body frozen in shock. There was no way he'd done it on purpose, that he'd given me a weapon on purpose. He'd just forgotten in the heat of the chase, slipped it in there without thinking.
There was no way...
Was there?
Thankies for reading! <3