38. Elena

Cillian helpsme get dressed and blow dry my hair before we walk back into the nest.

"I've got your back. We all do. We're a pack," he tells me.

We are a pack.

After my heat, I realize the complete sincerity of those words. I remember bits and pieces. Surprisingly, my bonding with Finn is the clearest memory.

I take a deep breath and open the door.

When I look into the room, three sets of eyes are looking back at me, and I'm so relieved that Finn didn't leave. I don't think I'd recover if he bonded me and then decided to give me the silent treatment.

"Can we talk?" Finn asks. I can feel his worry flow down through the bond, or maybe it's my own? I'm sure with time, this feeling will be easier to gauge.

"Go ahead. I'll have Maeve make breakfast," Cillian encourages.

Finn unlocks the nest, and we head down the hall to his room.

My heart is racing. I'm guessing he can sense my stress through the bond, he places his hand on my lower back for assurance.

"Take a seat, you're probably exhausted," he suggests, and I swallow.

I lick my lips. I'm in desperate need of copious amounts of water and chapstick. Finn paces in front of me. He keeps opening his mouth to speak and then shakes his head. It's then I realize our emotions are the same. We're both afraid of the other's regret. Yet, neither of us are feeling regret, only panic over the other's emotions.

"You don't regret it?" I blurt out, needing to make sure everything I'm feeling is right.

"No," he says, shaking his head. "I feel guilty and out of control, but I don't regret it."

"I remember it, do you?" he nods and kneels down before me, holding my hands.

This man who has fought this connection between us is literally on his knees before me, ready to lay it all out there.

"I know I'm not a good man. I know I can be a fucking asshole. Everything I did before is inexcusable."

"You let me run away." I don't know why that's the first thing that comes to my mind and not the kidnapping. I guess the part of me that likes a possessive Alpha doesn't mind that as much. My exhaustion, mixed with the end of my heat, has me feeling some type of way over him not wanting me. "You were very clear about not wanting anything to do with me. What changed?"

"You did. You staying here, being loyal to the family during my fight. The way you took care of me, even when you should hate me. How happy you make my brother, and how you seem to help mend this relationship between us and Lorcán. You even stood up to my mother, for fuck's sake. I'd be blind to not want you, Elena."

"Are you saying I fixed you?" I tease with a smile, and he shakes his head.

He rests his face on my thigh, the same way I did when I came in here, begging for him to be a part of my heat. Now, he's asking me for forgiveness and understanding.

"Definitely not. Part of me was always fighting this draw I had toward you. Maybe it's because we're scent matches, but it's grown into more for me. I'm far from fucking perfect. I still have a lot of baggage."

"What baggage?" I ask.

I've seen it in his eyes and in the cryptic words he uses sometimes. When he sent me away, there was pain swimming in his gaze.

I feel his guilt trickle through the bond as he looks up at me. He runs a thumb over the scars on his face that trail down his collarbone.

"There was a girl."

It's embarrassing, the sound of annoyance that rips out of my throat.

"Sorry, keep going."

The side of his lip tilts, and he strokes his thumb over his lip again.

"This was years ago, in my early twenties. Back then, I was taking every fight someone challenged me to, really making a name for myself in the underground fighting world. But I was cocky, a complete fucking show off. I felt untouchable."

I stroke his hair, trying to decipher all these feelings flooding me.

"I spent most of my time in Ireland then because there was a girl, Declan's cousin, Fiona."

"What happened?"

"It was the best summer I ever had, drinking, partying, and fighting. I didn't have a care in the fucking world. She's one of the first people I ever cared about outside of my family, and she died because I was an arrogant prick."

The sadness that flows through him is palpable, and I stroke his hair, waiting for him to continue.

"Everyone knew I was Seamus O'Brien's son, and fewer people were willing to wager against me or fight me. So, I thought I'd go to London, try my luck there. Fiona wanted to come with me. She'd never left the island before. My name meant nothing there. I was a nobody. I quickly found the fighting scene but was too stupid or egotistical to get familiar with the gang politics there. I beat their best man, losing the boss a lot of money. Fiona and I were walking home when two men came out of nowhere with knives."

"I was so busy trying to protect myself from my attacker that by the time I subdued him, she was dying. I watched her bleed out. That's how I got these scars. Ever since that day, I never wanted to let anyone close again. I knew I didn't deserve to have something like that again. The idea of caring about someone like that and losing them makes me sick to my stomach."

My eyes fill with tears as I look at the broken man who's kneeling before me.

"You still feel that way?"

"Yes. I know I don't deserve you. It's why I wanted you to leave. I thought maybe if you left, it wouldn't hurt so bad. But it does."

"I hurt you?"

He shakes his head and rests it in my lap for a few moments, just holding my hips.

"Your scent? How beautiful you are? How you can stand up to me without blinking an eye? It all hurts me because I knew the moment I gave in that you'd have all the power to fucking ruin me. Part of me wants to lock you back in the nest, so I know where you are and that you're safe. Even though I know it's wrong."

He groans in my lap before standing up and looking down at me.

"Do you regret it?"

I'm about to open my mouth and answer when the sound of glass breaking and a gunshot pop strikes through the air.

Finn is quick, still only in boxer briefs, as he goes to his nightstand and grabs two handguns. He hands me one and presses a finger to his lips for me to be quiet. I clasp the heavy metal in my hands. It's been a while since I've actually had to hold a weapon, but I know how to use it all the same.

He peeks out of his door frame and looks down the hallway.

"Go to the nest, lock yourself in. Do not leave until one of us comes to get you," he tells me.

My heart is racing, my legs feel like jelly, and all I want to do is break down. I'm so fucking tired. I just want to sleep and work things out between us so I can fully feel bonded with him.

"Go, Elena," he urges me as he stands facing the opposite direction, holding his gun out.

The house is eerily quiet. I can't hear any of the guys speaking or moving, and my mind automatically goes to the worst-case scenario. What if they've been hurt? Or worse?

My barely working legs take me to the nest, and Finn turns as I shut the door, making sure it locks behind me.

My forehead hits the cool metal of the door, and I take a few steadying breaths. I have to stay calm not only for myself, but for Finn now too. If all I'm shouting down the bond is panic, it might distract him.

I breathe in through my nose and out my mouth, willing myself to calm down. I tuck the gun in the pocket of the hoodie I'm wearing and hope that one of them comes to get me quickly.

"It's been too long, sister," a voice says from behind me, and my heart automatically sinks.

When I turn around and walk down the hall, my brother is standing there, Lorcán on his knees next to him, while Anthony points a gun at his temple.

"Anthony, we can talk about this." I put my hands up in a sign of surrender. My brother looks worse for wear, a black eye and a huge bruise on his jaw. His hair is loose and messy and his suit is wrinkled, like he's been wearing it for days.

"There's no need to talk. You know, you were almost scot-free. I was fine, building a better, stronger empire in Reno. You know the Barbieri girl is an Omega, right? Her dear old dad has been hiding her designation from the families. She was better to use instead of you because I could actually fuck her instead of trading her like the worthless piece of pussy that she is."

Lorcán looks like he wants to kill my brother. But his eyes don't leave mine.

"The Irish deal was our father's plan. I went with it at first, thinking Seamus would work with me, would help me get to the next level. That's when I found out this traitor was working for him the whole fucking time."

Anthony pushes the gun against his temple a few times to punctuate his words.

"They don't respect me. Father didn't fucking respect me; he only cared about you," Anthony snarls, taking the gun off of Lorcán's temple and holding it toward me.

"It was always about you. How perfect and smart, and how much you looked like Mom. He never even noticed me. I did everything he asked of me, everything! And what do I get? I get to be the fucking laughingstock of Las Vegas."

Lorcán takes a breath of relief when Anthony turns the gun back on him. My hands slowly lower to my sides, but Anthony says nothing as he looks down at Lorcán.

"I brought you in. I trusted you. You chose her." Anthony presses the gun against Lorcán's head harder, and my breathing hitches. "I hope you know it's all you and your traitorous family's fault; you sealed her fate, Lorcán," Anthony sneers his name.

My brother's cruel eyes meet mine as I take a breath and wrap my hands around the gun inside the pocket. He looks crazed as he looks back at me, though it feels like he's looking through me.

"You're lucky I have some fucking use for you, Elena, or you'd be just as dead as this motherfucker—just as dead as our father. Your new pack in Reno will keep you in line."

My heart skips a beat—he didn't—they said it was a heart attack. Did he kill our father?

Lorcán is only focused on me, and he glances at my brother's leg and then back at me; it's as clear of a sign as I'll get. I swallow thickly as he rears back his head, hitting my brother in the leg and throwing him off kilter.

I don't think.

I just pull the gun from my pocket and aim at my brother. It happens so fast that I don't even know where I hit him as I pull the trigger, and the gun kicks back in my hand. The sound is deafening, and I watch as my brother falls to the floor.

My vision is hazy, the dehydration and exhaustion kicking in as I fall to my knees, placing the gun on the ground. I can see Lorcán do something to my brother, probably grabbing his gun and checking him for more weapons before he crouches down in front of me. He looks directly into my eyes, searching.

"Are you hurt?" he asks, his voice filled with fear and anxiety.

I shake my head, and he lets out a sigh of relief as he cups my face.

"I'm going to tie him up. I need to check on the others. Will you be okay?"

I nod my head, and he squeezes my face, looking me over again to make sure I'm actually okay.

"Just wait here," he tells me.

He opens the drawers, taking out all the fun bondage equipment we didn't even use during my heat. He hefts my groaning brother against the wall and ties his legs together and his arms behind him. Anthony is bleeding from his side, blood seeping through his white shirt.

Lorcán comes back and crouches before me. He grabs Finn's gun and holds it. He's still just in his underwear.

"Don't open the door for anyone. I will be right back," he promises. He kisses my hair, and the lock whirls as soon as he leaves.

"Can't even look at me, can you? Do you know what you've done?" Anthony asks, his words slightly jumbled. I don't look over at him, can't even believe I fucking shot him, but what choice did I have?

There was never a true sibling relationship between us, but for it all to come down to this? I never imagined it was truly this bad. Did he kill my pápa on top of all the heinous things he's done to me?

"My men have probably killed them all already. The only way you're getting out of here alive is if you leave with me," he taunts.

I shake my head. There's no way that he found and assembled a team of trained assassins by this point. The men he brought here were probably as hopeless as him. Part of me still hurts for Anthony, that he turned out this way. But when I think about all the things he's done, there's no excuse.

He laughs and shakes his head. "It's been weeks, and none of them have even bonded you. They don't even want you, Elena; they just want to piss me off."

I turn and face him. His pupils are huge, and it's then I realize he's on something. He had a small problem with cocaine when he was in college, but as soon as he came home, our father nipped that in the bud. At least, I thought he did.

"You were never kind, Anthony, but you were never this cruel. I'm your sister. I'm supposed to be your family. Pápa made a contract with the O'Brien's. All you had to do was follow it."

"Oh, fuck your precious Pápa. He only cared about his empire. I think I've done a pretty fine job of destroying that. It was easier taking him out than I thought it would be." Anthony laughs, blood pooling around his abdomen.

Tears fill my eyes as I look at the man I'm supposed to be connected by blood to.

"How could you? He left you everything. I don't know why you're acting like the world wasn't handed to you on a silver platter. You're nothing but a selfish, pathetic man, Anthony."

He breathes through his nose and rests his head against the wall.

"That's the problem. Father was going to leave you everything, not me."

I tuned out my brother a while ago, even though he keeps rambling about more and more nonsense.

He killed our father, he wanted to kill Lorcán and send me off to God only knows what kind of pack. I wonder if pápa knew what Anthony did or if he died not knowing his only son murdered him.

"Are you going to beg them to keep me alive? You're stupid enough to do some shit like that. That is, if they are even alive. They could all be dead. How long will you survive in this room with my rotting body, Elena?"

"Shut up," I finally yell at him, done with his incessant talking. "I hate you," I whisper.

I remind myself that I would know for sure if Finn was hurt. All I can feel from him is sheer annoyance.

"You know how I figured it all out? I tapped into Logan's phone. At first, I thought he was just a rat, working for the O'Briens. Then there were the obscene amount of photos of you, it was sickening. I decided to do some more digging, and there was no Logan Becker in the system. But the stupid fuck had a record, and low and behold, Lorcán-fucking-O'Brien was under my nose the whole time."

"Pápa knew who he was," I interrupt what feels like his eightieth villain speech.

"Liar, I'm the one who brought him into the fold. Doesn't matter anyway, Matteo Amante is as dead as we all are."

"Maybe pápa brought him into our lives for you, too. Maybe if you stopped crying about how terrible your fucking life is, it wouldn't be so bad. All he did was his best, he loved you in his own way, how could you do all this?"

He laughs, but it turns into a groan.

"You were always so fucking stupid. He wasn't my real father."

I blink at him, wiping the tears off my face.

"You're lying."

"I did a DNA test, he's not. Maybe that's why he never loved me like he did you. Either way, he was in the fucking way. So I took care of it. It was easier than you'd think, given that the man chain-smoked cigars and drinks liquor like a fish, it was easy to stage a heart attack."

"You're a horrible fucking person."

"Says the person who just shot me. Can you loosen the restraints on my arms?"

I glare at him, and he rolls his eyes like it was worth a shot.

The door to the nest opens, and my breath hitches as I turn around. All four of them are there, and I take a relieved breath. Cillian is the only one fully clothed, while the others apparently handled all of this in their underwear.

Declan and Finn have blood on their chests, and it doesn't take me long to realize it's not theirs.

I look at Declan, and his eyes meet mine. "Is Maeve okay?"

Declan laughs and shakes his head. "It's going to take a lot more than a bunch of wannabe gangsters to take her out. She shot one square in the chest with a shotgun and hid in the closet."

I nod my head, my eyelids feeling heavier than they were before.

"This is cute and all, but can you shoot me in the head and put me out of my fucking misery?" Anthony complains from the corner.

Cillian stands in front of me, his gray sweatpants blocking my view of what they're doing to my brother.

"Can you stand? I'm taking you out of here while we get everything cleaned up."

He holds out his hand, and I take it.

Cillian covers my eyes with his hand as he walks me out of the nest and through the house. He only lets go of my face when we get to one of their vehicles.

There's already a bag for me in the backseat, and I rest my head against the window as Cillian pulls out of the driveway. I expect him to head towards the strip, but he doesn't. He drives towards Henderson instead.

I honestly don't care where we go as long as I get some sleep.

We pull up to the Green Valley Ranch Resort, and Cillian tips the valet handsomely. I wonder what we must look like? Both of us wearing sweatpants and hoodies. But I don't really care because Cillian holds my hand while we check in and head to our room. He isn't using his cane, but I don't see him straining, so I don't call him out on it.

As soon as we enter the room, I climb into the bed. Cillian helps readjust the sheets around me. Every inch of my body that I was ignoring finally protests in pain.

"Take these," Cillian says, holding out two pills and a glass of water. I don't even bother asking what they are as I swallow them both.

Cillian gets in the bed behind me, wrapping his large arm around my waist. I'm ready to sleep for hours on end and not deal with reality, but Cillian apparently does not have the same plans.

"You know what's going to happen to him?"

"Yes."

You don't spend your life growing up in this world and not understand the consequences. Anthony not only killed one of the O'Briens' men, but he was also going to hurt me.

He killed our father. He's the reason all of this happened in the first place.

"I'm sorry," he murmurs into my hair, and I know he means it.

I wipe a tear from my eye and turn to face him. I cup his cheek, remembering how beautiful I thought he was when I first saw him at the High Roller. I still do.

"He wasn't my brother anymore. I suppose he never was."

He cups my face and rubs my cheeks.

"You're allowed to be upset."

"I know. I think I'm honestly just so tired I don't know how to feel. He said a lot of things that I'm not sure are true or not."

"Like what?"

"I mean, besides all his madman bullshit? He said he killed my pápa because he was leaving everything to me and not him. That he's only my half-brother."

"I'm so sorry, Elena," he whispers, pushing my hair out of my face and kissing my forehead. "I can have my lawyer look into his will if you want."

"I shot him," I tell him. I'm not sure if that has really sunk in or not. Anthony is my father's killer, and I shot my supposed half-brother. I always thought Anthony looked like our dad, but maybe my mother just had a type.

It's all too much.

"Lorcán would probably be dead if you didn't. You were protecting yourself. I'm so fucking proud of you."

"My mother is probably rolling around in her grave."

"Hey." He cups my face and kisses my forehead. "None of this was your fault. You did what you had to do. You didn't kill him."

I nod my head, knowing that I'm not the one to end his life, but there's no doubt in my mind that he will be dead in the next few hours. I thought more guilt would consume me, but maybe it's because I'm so tired. I can't even think straight.

"Just get some rest. Do you want to eat first?"

I shake my head. My stomach is too messed up from everything that's happened.

"Get some sleep. We'll take care of everything for you. We've got you."

For the first time in a long time, I know that I'm truly safe.