Chapter 20

Samson

Iknew the sharp, confident sound of a fellow cop when I heard one.

More than that, I'd recognized the standard-issue armor and weaponry of the black-clad figures that had spilled out of the forest along with the confused and frustrated goons who had been called back by their masters. I'd known immediately that the back-up that I'd assumed I wouldn't have had arrived. I didn't need the helicopters circling overhead to know that.

"Nobody move!"

Unlike when the suit in the forest had demanded Ari and I freeze and put our hands up, I immediately untangled myself from Remmington, rocked back to my knees, and put my hands on my head in a show that I would capitulate with whatever I was ordered to do.

That's when I noticed the blood trickling down my forearm.

"He's hurt!" Ari shouted, imitating me by dropping to his knees at my side, but leaning into me and using the sleeve of his coat to try to staunch the blood instead of putting his hands on his head, like he should.

"Hands up!" the cop ordered as two more flooded in, guns pointed. "Put your hands up now!"

"Do as they say, Ari," I said, eyes glued to the alpha in front of us. "My name is Samson Murray, former lieutenant with the Medford City Police Department. I live three miles to the southwest of here. This is Ari Crestmont, my omega."

I felt no qualms at all in telling them I was one of them, or in identifying Ari as mine. He sure as hell was my omega, more than ever after all the shit we'd been through in the last few hours.

"Stay where you are until we can verify that information," the cop said.

"Not going anywhere," I answered, sending what I hoped was a message through the bond for Ari to keep calm as well.

That's when I started to notice more about what was going on around us.

The entire area was swarming with men, and probably a few women, judging by the female alpha we'd encountered earlier, in the black, special-ops gear of the police force. They were all on high alert, and from the sound of things, the battle wasn't entirely done yet. The helicopters still chopped away overhead, and occasional gunshots continued to ring out deeper into the woods. Men were shouting, but the tone had changed from frantic battle cries to short, curt orders.

In our immediate area, Keller and Ingraham had been picked up and dragged off to one side by officers. Both of them were still in the stage where they cared more about shouting and screaming than dealing with the shit they were now mired deep in.

"Do you know who I am?" Ingraham demanded of one of the officers, who had him in real handcuffs now instead of the quick and dirty hold tugging his suit jacket down had managed.

"Yes, Mr. Ingraham, we do," the officer standing beside him with a rifle said.

That shut Ingraham up. I watched the color drain from his face as he caught the implication.

Keller wasn't as quick to realize he was beaten.

"I demand to be released at once!" he yelled. "I'll have all of your badges for this. Every one of you will spend the rest of your life rotting in a prison cell, or worse. I'll see to it that you starve and your families starve."

"Sit right where you are, Mayor Keller," the female alpha from earlier ordered him as she strode out from around the end of the half-loaded shipping container. "You're being detained until such a time as we can determine your part in this whole thing."

"My part in this whole thing?" Keller demanded.

Ingraham kicked his thigh, hissing at Keller to be quiet.

Remmington was the only one who was still struggling.

"You touch me and your lives will be over," he said with all the dark confidence of a man who was used to ordering others to be executed. "You have no idea what you've stumbled into."

"Actually, we do," the female alpha said, striding over to our end of the truck bed. She paused next to Remmington, staring down at him with loathing. "We've been following your cartel for years now, Remmington. Your organization has been under surveillance for the past three months as you've set up this deal."

Remmington snorted with laughter, like the female alpha was a child playing soldiers who didn't realize she was battling with the big boys.

"You think anything you throw at me will stick?" he asked her, scoffing. "Honey, I've got friends in such high places it would give you a nosebleed."

"What, like Mayor Keller over there?" the female officer asked, jerking her thumb back to where Keller was sitting cross-legged, hunched in on himself.

"I've got shit on people way bigger than Keller," Remmington said, completely calm. "Just you wait. I'll be sunning myself at my cabana in the Gulf before the week is out, and there won't be a damn thing you can do about it."

"I wouldn't be so sure of that," the female officer said, then turned away from Remmington before he could snap back at her. She reached to her shoulder and pressed the sides of whatever police radio she wore. "Target is secured," she said. "As soon as the area is swept up a bit, you can send the armored van up to cart the trash away."

A curt, fuzzy reply answered.

I let out a breath of relief. I knew how this went. The case was far from over, even though the objective had been achieved. Remmington was right when he said whatever they threw at him would have trouble sticking. Even if he landed in prison, which he probably would before morning, guys as high up as Remmington generally had escape routes already mapped out, figuratively speaking.

"Please," Ari pleaded from my side as the female officer walked past us, like she was going to check on Keller and Ingraham. "Please, my alpha is bleeding. Somebody help him."

The officer stepped back and looked at us. She then glanced around and shouted, "Anyone got a first aid kit?"

Within a minute, another of the black-clad cops jogged over to us and knelt in front of me. He popped open a small kit, then proceeded to treat my arm and thigh with disinfectant and bandage them while I kept my hands on my head.

"How did you get involved in this?" the female officer said, walking back over to us after checking on Keller and Ingraham. "You say you're an ex-cop from Medford? That's a long way away."

"Retired is a better word," I said, wincing at the sting of the disinfectant. Ari winced, too. That nearly made me laugh. I was a little giddy, since the height of the danger had passed and I could see the light at the end of the tunnel for me and Ari. "If you've got guys verifying my identity, I'm sure you'll get the whole story."

"Probably," the officer said, squatting so she could speak to us closer to our level, her rifle resting on her thighs. "Why don't you give me the highlights, including how an ex-cop and a socialite omega ended up involved in the biggest drug deal Barrington has seen in a decade?"

She knew who Ari was. That had me almost as nervous as I'd been before the cavalry had arrived. There was a fair chance she thought Ari was involved, since Clyve and Ingraham were balls-deep in the whole mess.

"I just moved in about three miles that way," I repeated my earlier statement, jerking my head in the direction of the woods. "Ari and I met through what you might call a dating app. We'd just finished a little sleepover, but someone stole his car."

The officer smirked and nodded, like she knew what I was really saying. "So this whole ‘your omega' thing. It's part of the…sleepover?"

"No!" Ari insisted. "We…we bonded. Maybe accidentally, but we did. I love him."

The officer and I both turned to look at him.

"You don't have to believe me," Ari said, frowning slightly at the officer. "It was sudden, and it just happened yesterday. I'm pregnant, too."

The officer turned back to me with a sly smile. "That must be some dating app. I'll have to try it myself someday."

I had just managed to huff a laugh, between grimacing as the other guy wound a bandage around my arm, when a different officer jogged over to us.

"His story checks out, ma'am," that officer reported to ours, who I was certain was in charge of the entire case. "Lieutenant Samson Murray. Worked in Missing Persons for the MCPD. Retired six months ago after receiving numerous citations for bravery and excellence in the line of duty." He paused and glanced to me, then added, "He's kind of a local legend over there."

The officer nodded that I could lower my arms, which I did immediately. She then offered me a hand and helped me to stand. I immediately turned and picked Ari up, setting him on his feet, once I was on mine, despite the pain in my thigh.

"Lieutenant Shirley," the officer said, shaking my hand. "That's a surname, not my first name, so no jokes."

I could tell she was serious, and I could only imagine what kind of bullshit she'd had to deal with as a female in that line of work, even if she was an alpha.

"Pleased to meet you," I said. "And like I said, Ari and I stumbled across all this by accident. We would have just walked away, but we were stuck before we could back out. And then there's the inconvenient fact that Clyve Ingraham is Ari's fiancé. Clyve recognized him right?—"

My explanation was cut off by a wounded bellow coming from Mr. Ingraham. We all turned, and Ari let out a shout of alarm as well as we watched two of the cops carry Clyve's bullet-riddled body around the end of the shipping container.

Even with his hands cuffed, Ingraham managed to roll closer to his son's body, weeping as he did and sobbing. "Clyve! My baby boy!"

I winced, partially because of the emotions that flooded me from Ari. I could tell he was shocked and dismayed by Clyve's death, but also numb and a little bit relieved.

I reached for Ari, pulling him close. I didn't know if comfort was what he needed right then. The one thing I knew was that nothing was going to stop me from taking my omega away from anything and everything from the Ingraham family or his own that might try to keep him tied to this world he'd come so close to getting mired in.

"There's your culprit," Remmington said, cutting through the awkward moment with a vicious snarl. "Clyve Ingraham. He's the one who masterminded this entire thing. His father and I came to stop him from heading down the wrong path into a life of crime."

"Bullshit," I muttered, sending Lieutenant Shirley a look to gauge whether she believed him.

It was clear she didn't, but she sighed and rubbed her forehead, like Remmington had just made the entire thing more complicated.

"It wasn't Clyve," Ari said quickly, excitement and hope pulsing through him. "I mean, Clyve was definitely involved, but we heard everything back at the house. The deal was between Remmington, Mr. Ingraham, and Mayor Keller."

"Lies," Remmington growled. "You didn't hear a goddamn thing. He's just trying to save his fiancé's ass, even though it's too late. I wouldn't be surprised if he was part of the whole thing." He nodded at Ari.

"That's not true," Ari said, his eyes wide and bright. "We heard everything. I bet it was even recorded. There are surveillance cameras all over this property. Some guy named Vick was monitoring everything. You just have to watch the tapes, comb through the laptops, and I'm sure all the evidence you could possibly need to convict?—"

Before Ari could finish, there was an explosion so loud and ferocious that it split the night and sent a massive fireball up into the air where the house had been. The ground shook, and everyone in the area, even Remmington, Ingraham, and Keller cowered and hit the ground. Moments later, debris from the exploded house rained down over the area.

I grabbed Ari and dragged him over to the shelter of the tractor-trailer. It wasn't the best shelter, but it was enough to keep the bits of wood and metal that scattered through the area from harming him. Anything I could do to keep my omega from harm was a good thing.

Once the dust settled, we straightened slowly and turned toward the massive bonfire that was the remains of the house. It licked up at the night, incinerating everything that might have been anywhere near the house. I just hoped no one had been in the house when it had blown, even if they were Remmington's or Ingraham's men.

"So much for evidence," Remmington said, chuckling breathlessly as he righted himself from where he'd ducked for cover. "You want to reconsider taking me in?" he asked Lieutenant Shirley. "It's your word versus mine at this point. Clyve Ingraham was to blame, and you can't prove otherwise."

"Yes, we can," Ari said, almost gleefully. He struggled out of his backpack, then handed it over to Shirley. "They had us tied up in the basement for a hot minute. All of the surveillance equipment and stuff was down there. I took two laptops, some flash drives, and a bunch of other random stuff from the desk down there before we escaped."

Remmington's smug look vanished. He went white, and every bit of his bravado was replaced by genuine worry. "You've got nothing," he said.

"Jesus. They've got the laptops," Keller said from our other side.

Shirley grinned as she looked into the backpack, then zipped it shut again and hoisted it over her shoulder. She pressed her radio again and said, "Hey, boss. Guess what I found,"

That comment—well, the explosion, really—seemed to mark the end. Minutes later, the entire area was packed with police vehicles and special forces as the entire scene wound down, arrests were made, and the multiple armored vans were loaded up with whichever of Remmington's and Ingraham's men who weren't dead or wounded would fit into them. A special van arrived to take away the dead, including Clyve. Ingraham, Keller, and Remmington were each taken away in individual, highly armored cars with complete contingents of guards.

Ambulances arrived as well. One for Ari and I in particular. I was more than happy to be led into the clean, white, antiseptic-smelling space and to watch as a paramedic tended to Ari's cuts and bruises. I was relieved the nightmare was over and that we were on the way to a hospital.

We were checkedover in a special wing of the nondescript hospital deep in the heart of Barrington, where the police ambulance took us. It was agreed that, as key witnesses in the biggest case the Barrington police force had been dealing with, that our lives could still be in danger. All through the night, as my knife wounds and Ari's injured feet were checked, we were watched over. We even got a little sleep.

All the same, I was a surprised when Lieutenant Shirley arrived in our room as the morning sun started to peek through the curtains.

"Everything you told us about who you are checks out," she told us, looking like she'd been up all night, mopping up the last of the dirt. "You've got some pretty impressive friends in Medford."

"I got by," I said with pretend ease, shrugging one shoulder. My other arm was slung around Ari as he curled against me, half asleep, dressed in a hospital gown that wasn't much more concealing than the cheap lingerie Clyve had dressed him in. At least he had a blanket around his shoulders now.

"You've got good friends, too," Shirley told Ari with a nod.

Ari lifted his head from my shoulder. "Who, me?"

"Yep. An omega named Hayden Browning called the police to report you were missing yesterday shortly before our operation was planned to start," she said.

Ari and I both sat up straighter.

"Hayden?" Ari blinked in shock.

"He said the two of you were supposed to meet up, but you never showed. He called the police right away. By pure luck, the officer who took the call knew about the deal last night and that we were going to move in to attempt to capture Remmington and bring his cartel down. A few calls were made, a couple questions asked, and because of that, the number of officers who were sent out with us last night was doubled." She smiled tiredly. "We needed those officers. Remmington had more men with him than we were anticipating."

"Are you saying that you would have lost without me?" Hayden himself asked from the doorway.

We all turned to see him standing sheepishly where he wasn't supposed to be. How the wily young omega had gotten past security and into a closed ward of the hospital was beyond me, but the burst of joy that came from Ari was enough for me to cut him some slack.

"Hayden!" Ari exclaimed, peeling away from me a bit, almost getting off the bed, then changing his mind and sticking close to my side. "I'm so fucking glad to see you. I didn't think I'd ever see you again."

"Excuse me, but this is a secure room," Shirley said, pivoting toward Hayden with a frown.

"It's okay," Ari said, getting off the bed and crossing to throw his arms around his friend. "He's the guy who made sure you had enough help last night to bring down a major drug cartel."

Shirley hummed like she wasn't amused, but she didn't chase Hayden away.

"I knew something was wrong when you didn't show up at the diner," Hayden said, holding Ari's arms and sweeping him with a look, like he was making sure his friend was really okay. "You never bail on me, so I knew something was wrong." He glanced past Ari's shoulder to me, then said, "I called your second—er, your friend, Jay right away. Jay tried to call you, and when you didn't answer, he called me back and told me to phone the police."

"That explains a few things," Shirley said, though the only way she elaborated was by asking me, "Is this Jay person a cop in Medford?"

"No," I answered. "But he's been a friend for a long time, and friends with other guys on the force."

She nodded. "That explains a heck of a lot." She huffed a laugh and shook her head. "I can't say with any certainty at all that our mission tonight would have been a success if we hadn't had outside help." She thought about it for a second, then grinned. "You sure you don't want to come out of retirement? The Barrington Special Investigation Forces could definitely use an officer like you. Especially one with such useful connections."

I laughed. "I'll think about it."

I would think about it, but I doubted I'd ever want to go back to being an active-duty cop. Maybe a desk job. Maybe years down the road, when Ari was at home with half a dozen kids and I needed a way to support them all in the style I knew Ari would want us all to become accustomed to.

"I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to ask you all to leave now." One of the doctors who had looked in on us a few times came by to shoo the others out.

I was glad to have Ari back in my arms, and for it to be just the two of us in the room. The room had two beds, but since neither of us were so grievously injured that we needed to stay overnight in the hospital, we snuggled up on one of the beds together.

"You know you're coming home with me once we're discharged," I told Ari, rubbing the top of his head with my cheek as he clung to me.

"Fuck, yeah, I'm coming home with you," he said. "I don't know if I ever want to set foot in my parents' house again."

"Why?" I asked. "They didn't have anything to do with tonight."

"They arranged for me to marry Clyve," Ari argued. "My parents probably know what kind of criminals Mr. Ingraham and Mayor Keller are. I wouldn't be surprised if my father was involved in something in the underworld, too. I'm done with them."

"I don't want to tell you you're overreacting," I said carefully, "because I know you might not be. And I will support you through whatever decision you decide to make. But I hope you can get to a good place with your mother, at least."

Ari made a sound like he would consider it, but I could sense he was far too exhausted to face the whole situation now. "I just want to be with you," he said, as if that was the only thing that mattered.

"And I want you with me," I said. "I don't ever plan to let you go. You're stuck with me now. Both of you." I rested my hand on his stomach.

I felt Ari smile with his whole being as he closed his eyes and sagged into me. I closed my arms around him, sheltering him with everything I was. I prayed we would never end up in a situation so harrowing again in our lives. I had found love, found my life's purpose. I would protect my omega with everything I had and make him the happiest man in the world for the rest of our long, long lives.