Chapter 16

Samson

As soon as Keller and Ingraham disappeared into the house with Clyve, I felt a surge of Ari that was so strong it blurred the edges of my vision. I twisted to lean my back against the edge of the house, but that only made the feeling flare stronger.

It was like Ari was right next to me, close enough that I could smell his scent and feel his warmth. More than that, I swore I could feel the faint, pulsing life that was forming within him as well. It was so overwhelming that it took me a few seconds to catch my breath.

Once I was breathing evenly again, a few explanations for why my and Ari's bond had almost incapacitated me popped into my head. Ari was in extreme danger, and we both knew it. That must have made the bond more sensitive. I knew Ari was in the house, too. It was possible that he was in the room right on the other side of the wall. He felt close because he was close.

That decided things for me. I needed to be inside the house, with my omega, and I needed it now. There were a dozen arguments for why it would be better if I held back and plotted how I should proceed, but the other side of that coin was that I wouldn't be able to think if I didn't have Ari with me.

It was, arguably, foolish. I never would have taken the risk in my years on the force in Medford. I was probably going to regret it hardcore later, if I survived. None of that mattered. I drew in a breath, carefully set the weapons I was carrying down, then wandered out around the corner of the house, putting on my best confused look.

I was spotted immediately, of course. Not only were the suited guards who had gotten out of the SUV stationed around the perimeter, Bruno and a few of his goons had joined them. They appeared to be having a short conversation on the drive, which had probably worked in my favor. They would have done a patrol around the house in no time, I would have been found with the asshole I'd tied up's guns, and that would have been the end of me. This way, I had plausible obtuseness on my side.

One of the suited guards spotted me first. "Stop right there!" he shouted, raising a slick but deadly pistol and pointing it at me.

"Jesus, fuck!" I yelped, throwing up my hands at once, and pretending complete shock.

Half a dozen other guns were raised and pointed at me, but not a single one of them shot, thank God.

"Stay right where you are," Bruno said, marching forward, his rifle pointed at my head. "Who are you and what are you doing here?"

"What the fuck?" I gasped, slow on the up-take on purpose. "What the hell is going on here? Why are there so many people wandering the forest tonight?" If I could convince them I wasn't the one who had tied up the other goon, that I'd seen someone else do it, then maybe that would buy me a few more, precious seconds.

"Who are you and what are you doing here?" Bruno demanded, marching across the dirt lawn to me.

If I was anyone else, he would have looked completely terrifying, what with his raised rifle and deadly expression. I'd seen much scarier alphas in my day, though. I was one.

"The name's Sam," I said, willing my brain to think fast and not get me killed. "I just moved into that old place a couple miles back that way." I kept my eyes on Bruno while gesturing vaguely in the direction of my house. Little truths made for a better lie, and from what we'd overheard earlier, Clyve's gang already knew about me.

"What are you doing over here?" Bruno snapped, still intense as fuck. "No trespassing."

That was the lamest thing he could have said, but I had to keep up my pretense of being shit-scared instead of rolling my eyes.

"I don't know what's going on," I said, speaking too fast and blabbering a little. "I just went out for a walk."

"In the dark?" one of the other goons said, stepping over to back Bruno up. He had his pistol pointed at me.

"It wasn't dark when I started," I said. "I just moved here and I don't know the area. I was trying to get a sense for the forest, and I heard noises over this way, ATVs and things. I thought I'd come meet the neighbors before supper. Are you guys from some corporation doing team-building exercises in the forest or something? What's with all the fake guns?"

"What an idiot," one of the others muttered.

Bruno huffed ironically. He also lowered his rifle by a fraction. That stopped me from breaking out in a sweat. It wasn't much, but if the guns weren't all pointed at me, I might have a split second to act before I was dead if things went south.

"I can leave if you don't want me here," I said, twisting slightly, like I would go.

"No!" Bruno shouted, raising his rifle again. So much for that advantage.

One of the suited guards shouted, "No!" too and strode forward. "We can't let him leave and sound the alarm."

"Do we shoot him, then?" one of the goons asked.

"Is that thing real? Jesus! Don't shoot me! Please, don't shoot me," I gasped, purposely sounding like I was going to fall apart.

Bruno shifted restlessly, keeping his gun trained on me, but wavering. That was another point in my favor. "We'll take him inside," he said, nodding, then glancing over his shoulder at the others. "We'll let Ingraham decide. Remmington will be here any minute, and there isn't time to fuck around."

That was interesting. Clyve had been the boss since Ari and I had stumbled across this crew, but now that Ingraham was here, he was definitely the boss.

I didn't really care. One of the goons came forward to grab my arm and yank me forward to the porch stairs. Nothing mattered but getting inside the house and within sight of Ari again.

I could tell at once Ari and I had stumbled into the middle of something monumental from the wide-eyed looks of alarm I got from Clyve, Ingraham, and Keller as soon as I was more or less tossed into the front hall.

"Look what we found, boss," Bruno said, shoving me into the living room.

A bolt of panic that came straight from Ari hit me. It felt like he was behind me now, though, which had me confused. I'd thought he was on the other side of the wall, which would have been the living room. The bond was fucking disorienting.

"Who—what's the meaning of this?" Ingraham growled, turning to face me fully and staring down his patrician nose at me. "We don't have time for this."

"One bullet will solve the problem, sir," Bruno said, raising his rifle.

My knees nearly buckled, but it wasn't my fear I was feeling.

I twisted and turned, searching for Ari. He was close enough to know what was going on, even if he wasn't in the room. Fortunately, my frantic searching helped the illusion that I was disoriented and in over my head.

A second later, Ari dashed into the room from the hall behind me, shouting, "No! No, don't kill him!"

The breath gusted out of me, I was so relieved to be physically close to Ari again. My alpha roared in protest at everything happening around us. That part of me wanted to rip everyone in the room to shreds with my bare hands and make them pay for upsetting Ari.

A second after that, I blinked as I noticed the state Ari was in. He was clean and his hair was still wet, but he was dressed like a tramp. The silk robe he wore had come undone, and as he flew into the room, trying to get near me, it slipped open, revealing a see-through shirt and tiny thong that barely held his genitals in.

"Baby, get back!" Clyve shouted.

Simultaneously, Bruno, his goons, and the single, suited guard who had followed us into the house raised and pointed their guns at Ari. I was reasonably certain the only thing that kept them from firing outright was the fact that we were inside with three important men—well, two important men and Clyve—standing right in the line of fire.

I tried to meet Ari's eyes to tell him to calm down while still looking like I didn't have the first clue what was going on either. Ari was on a mission, though.

"Don't shoot him!" he sobbed, throwing himself between me and Ingraham and Keller.

No, he was throwing himself at Clyve. So much so that he slammed right into him, clinging to his neck and lowering his head to Clyve's shoulder.

My immediate instinct was to boil with fury and to growl. Another alpha was touching my mate, and I would end him.

But the terror and revulsion I felt radiating from Ari like I was standing next to a furnace kept me in check. I knew he was faking, playing up some sort of clueless act, just like I was.

"I hate guns," Ari wailed against Clyve's chest. "I don't want to see someone get shot. I don't like blood. It'll give me nightmares for days. Please don't!"

"Jeez, baby," Clyve said, gingerly patting Ari's side. He glanced to Ingraham and Keller, like he was embarrassed because of Ari's reaction.

Ingraham sneered at Ari, and Clyve, too, then faced me again. "Who are you? What are you doing here?"

"He's that guy who owns the house through the forest," Bruno answered for me. "He said he was out taking a walk and heard us all over here, so he came to introduce himself."

"I'm so sorry," I said, reacting the way some of the victims I'd dealt with in cases back in Medford did. I tried to pretend half the people in the room didn't have guns and that they weren't pointed at me. "I'm really sorry. I don't know what's going on here, but I don't want anything to do with it. I just want to get back to my house and forget any of this happened."

"It's too late for that," Keller said with a snort. "You're fucked now."

For a public figure, saying anything was a dumb move. I might not have noted him at all if he hadn't decided to get involved.

Again, I reacted the way they probably expected me to. I gaped at Keller, letting my mouth drop open. I didn't have to say a word for the others to figure out I'd recognized him.

"We don't have time for this," Ingraham hissed. "Just kill him and get it over with."

"No!" Ari wailed, pulling away from Clyve. His fear deepened, and whatever act he was playing with Clyve turned real as he leapt toward me. "Please don't shoot!"

Bruno shifted anxiously. None of the others knew what to do.

"I don't want to be around when you take out the trash," Keller said, looking like he would leave the room.

"Take him out back, then," Ingraham said.

"No! Please, no!" Ari shouted, dropping to his knees and clinging to Ingraham's side.

I adjusted my stance, ready to go down fighting. I would die protecting Ari, if I had to.

A second later, the sound of heavy footsteps running upstairs in the hallway threw a wrench in the scene. Bruno's goons took a step back, looking over their shoulders, and a moment after that, a lanky beta with a shaved head stepped into the room.

"Whoa," he said, balking. He shook his head then stared right at Ingraham and said, "Remmington is here."

"What, now?" Keller asked, looking terrified.

A buzz seemed to fill the room. Even Ingraham looked thrown. He pushed Ari aside like he was an annoying dog and stepped closer to the beta.

"What do you mean, Remmington is here?" Ingraham asked. "I haven't received a call."

"You said he was just approaching the mountain," Clyve said.

"He just pulled up with two tractor-trailers," the beta said. "All the surveillance cameras picked it up. He's already got equipment ready to load the shipping containers onto the trucks."

"He can't just take the containers away," Clyve said, eyes wide. "That wasn't part of the deal."

"If this is your fault," Ingraham started, glaring at his son. He didn't finish the sentence, though. "We don't have time for this," he went on, marching right past me and Bruno for the hallway. "I want everyone out there to deal with Remmington. Now!"

"What about this guy?" Bruno asked.

"Don't kill him! Please!" Ari shouted. He was still on his knees but close enough to me that he could strain in my direction.

"Secure him in the basement," Ingraham said as he threw open the front door. He turned back and pointed at Ari. "That one, too. He's a fucking liability. We'll deal with them once Remmington is taken care of."

"Wait, Father, you don't mean—" Clyve jumped after his father, sending Ari a brief look.

"There are dozens more where that one came from," Ingraham said as he and Keller left the house, Clyve behind them.

Clyve didn't argue. Not that I really wanted him to, but his indifference didn't make me any more sympathetic to anything that might happen to him.

"You heard him," Bruno snapped at his two goons. "Take them down to the basement and secure them."

I couldn't have asked for a better scenario if I'd tried. Even Ari seemed to comprehend that things had just broken in our favor, even though he continued to weep and sag and generally give the goons a hard time as one of them hoisted him to his feet and yanked him into the hall.

I tried to keep my alpha in check at the rough treatment the goons gave Ari. The second one pulled me along with just as much force. I played along, stumbling down the hall, then fake tripping on one of the stairs as we were taken into the basement.

My guess about the basement being finished was proven right and then some. The area was mostly open, and even though it all looked and smelled like new build, the whole area was carpeted and the walls were paneled. The place was set up like an office, or like a surveillance center. There was a desk with a bank of computer monitors and a pair of laptops, open and running.

Across from the desk, a TV was on, tuned to some porn station. The music accompanying the scene of an alpha pounding a dripping, heat-addled omega on the screen made the hair stand up on the back of my head, it was so cheesy. I'd heard similar music a few times too many in my missing persons efforts before. It reminded me of Josiah and the bad things that had happened to victims I hadn't been able to get to fast enough in the past.

I wasn't going to let Ari be one of those victims.

"We need to tie them up," one of the guards said to the other.

"How?" the second one asked. "With what?"

The two men looked around. As they did, I exchanged a glance with Ari. Ari's tears had dried up a little and been replaced by a look of strain and emotion. I could feel how glad he was to see me, though. I poured as much strength and confidence into our bond as I could, promising him that I would save him from this nightmare.

Whatever I did worked. Ari relaxed, and the emotions rushing back to me through the bond were trust, certainty, and that spark that came along with getting an idea.

"Sit!" one of the guards ordered, snapping me out of my communication with Ari.

They'd found two folding chairs and positioned them back-to-back. The second guard had come up with some clothesline from somewhere. It was all child's play, so I moved immediately to one of the chairs, gesturing subtly for Ari to do the same, and sat like I was too afraid to try anything else.

"You good with knots?" the second guard asked the first once Ari and I were seated back to back in the chairs.

"Yeah, I was in scouts," the first said.

It was almost laughable. The first goon went to work, tying Ari and me to the chairs and to each other with the clothesline. He might have been in scouts, but the bastard obviously wasn't kinky.

Ari and I were. Without words to make sure we knew what to do, we worked together to give the goon a false sense that he was tying us tight. There were ways to flex your muscles and bend your joints that would give an illusion of security, when really, the second we relaxed, the rope would go slack.

Aside from that, I already knew Ari had a hell of a lot of experience being tied up. That usually included a thorough knowledge of where the strengths and weaknesses in any ropes were and how to wriggle free of bad rigging.

"Right," the one guard said, stepping back to retrieve his gun and study his handiwork once he was finished. "They're not going anywhere."

"We'd better join the others, then," the second guard said.

The first frowned. "Or stay here and guard these two."

"What, and miss out on the biggest deal either of us is likely to see in our lifetimes?" the second said, sounding like he'd been given an invitation to the party of the century.

The first blew out a breath. "Ingraham just told us to secure them, not to keep watch."

"Right?" the second said.

"Besides," the first said, heading for the stairs. "This place gives me the creeps. I hate being in this house, knowing what's in the walls."

That comment tickled something at the back of my head, but I ignored it. I held still, not even daring to breathe, as the two goons clomped up the stairs and shut the basement door behind them.

"We have to get out of here," Ari hissed as soon as the door was closed, wiggling to loosen the ropes.

"Wait," I told him.

Ari went still and silent at once. I tilted my head a little, like it would help me to hear more. Whether it did or not, I soon heard what I was hoping for. Footsteps crossed to where I knew the door was. A moment later, the door shut. I stayed quiet for another minute or so, listening to see if I could determine whether anyone else was in the house.

"I think everyone is gone," Ari whispered at last, sagging back in his chair.

"Yeah, I think you're right," I said, starting to move and work on getting us free.

"I am so fucking happy to see you," Ari sobbed as he started to move and wiggle free as well.

"I know, sweetheart," I said, leaning back to knock the back of my head into his.

Ari was still for a minute, pressing his head against mine. But only for a moment.

"We have to get out of here," he said, freeing one of his hands like it was nothing, then using that to pick and pull at the ropes. "This is so much bigger than we thought it was. I heard a lot of things, and if we can just find evidence that Ingraham and Mayor Keller are involved with Remmington, who is the biggest crime lord on the East Coast, it turns out, then we can bring the whole thing down."

I smiled at my omega's ferocious heart. Ari really was something, and as soon as this was behind us, I was going to make an incredible life for both of us.

A moment later, my smile dropped. I was facing the computer monitors, and I saw what the beta—I now assumed he was Vick, who had noticed me and Ari earlier—had been talking about earlier. Two tractor-trailers had just backed into the area on the drive where Ari's car and the SUV were. Those two cars were blocking easy access, so Remmington wouldn't be able to just carry the shipping containers away. More importantly, all the key players in the drama seemed to be converging on that one spot. Whatever was about to happen, it was going to be big.