8. Felik

FELIK

Jeremiah, get over here," Andro, the oldest, said, jerking his head toward where his omega and his brothers were standing behind their father. The two omegas stood on their tiptoes trying to look over their alphas' shoulders.

Well, this certainly blew up in my face faster than I had expected it to. But I was prepared for something like this. Mostly. I released a clip on my gun and turned it in my hand so it wasn"t pointing at them. "I can explain."

"Felik?" Jeremiah looked at me, his eyes full of questions and sadness. I hated that. I put that look on his face. I had so much to say to him and explaining why I snuck a gun across the country and into his family's home was probably not even the highest priority for either of us.

"Jeremiah, perhaps you can explain why your boyfriend is a member of the Mennetti family." Andro's voice was as cold as ice. I knew from what limited knowledge I had of the crime world that Andro was deadly with a gun, and if he had his sights on your back, then your days were numbered.

I was afraid my own countdown started the moment I walked in the door.

Jeremiah sucked in a breath and narrowed his eyes. "Is that true? Are you–"

Orsino, the second-oldest of the alphas, glared at me, and I wasn't sure if he was about to shoot me himself. "Your brother probably asked you to get close to Jeremiah to see how he could use him against us. Is that right?"

Fuck Orsino and his business sense. He and my brother were cut from the same cloth, so of course they would come up with the same sort of scheme.

"It wasn"t like that. Not now, anyway."

Andro's eyes narrowed even more and I could almost feel his hate from across the room. "Now that you"ve been caught? Did you think we wouldn"t know everything about the Mennetti family? Give me one good reason why I shouldn"t put a bullet through your brain."

Jeremiah stepped between me and Andro.

Andro flinched, and his gun was immediately pointed toward the ground rather than at his brother. "Jeremiah, whatever he"s told you, you can"t trust him. I"m sorry this has happened, but you need to let him go. We"ll take care of this."

I grabbed Jeremiah's arm to turn him to face me. I needed him to see me, to look in my eyes so he knew I wasn"t lying.

But before I could, his brothers were on me. Louie pulled Jeremiah away while Andro and Orsino wrestled me to the ground. My gun fell to the floor, and Andro kicked it away. Not that I was going to use it on them anyway.

Orsino pulled me to my feet and then held my arms back while Andro landed a hit to my jaw and another one to my stomach.

Fuck, it been a long time since I'd been in a fight. I struggled to pull air into my lungs. The only thing holding me up was Orsino.

Jeremiah was in tears, and it was all my fault that he was begging for mercy. "Stop, you"re hurting him."

I was finally able to gasp out the words I never wanted Jeremiah to hear. "My brother did send me after Jeremiah. To seduce him. But it wasn"t like that."

Andro glared at me, and I thought for sure I was a dead man. He wound up to hit me again, but Jeremiah pushed him out of the way.

"Stop it!"

God, the cracking in Jeremiah"s voice did me in, and I couldn't keep my feelings to myself anymore. "I love him. I would never hurt him."

Orsino pushed me to the ground, his knee landing on my back and my head facing the wall, so I couldn"t see what was happening.

There were footsteps walking away and a door slammed. Even without visual confirmation, I knew Jeremiah had left the room.

"I"ll go check on him," one of the omegas said.

"Both of you go. Take the children with you. And make sure Trev is standing guard outside his door. Louie, alert Nil and Tobias as well."

Once everybody cleared the room, they let go of me. It was three against one, plus their dad who I was sure could still hold his own despite his age.

"You come here, to our home, after using our brother the way you did, and what? You expect mercy? Hate to break it to you, but you won't find it here." Andro rolled up the sleeves of his white button-down shirt as if he was going to work me over right there in the dining room.

"I want to hear what the boy has to say." Vern, the former leader of the Ferrini family, stepped forward as my head was turned.

"Dad, why don"t you go with?—"

Vern tapped his cane on the ground, and Andro went silent. "I may not run the family business anymore, but I have a feeling business has crossed over to a more personal realm in this situation. And in that, I still have a say. Let us be civilized."

"We can"t trust him." Louie nudged my hip with the bottom of his shoe.

"If you think your brother is so naive that he would trust a man who would hurt him, you don't know him at all. It would do you well to have a bit more faith in him."

"That"s not what I said." Andro's eyes narrowed and his gun came back to align with my heart.

Louie and Orsino kept their gaze locked on me while their father and brother spoke.

I sat up and rolled my shoulders back, resisting the urge to touch my face. My jaw ached where Andro had landed a punch, but I was ready to have this conversation. I was ready to finally come clean about everything. Though I had hoped that Jeremiah would be there to listen. "I want to speak to Jeremiah."

"That's up to him," Vern said. "First, you'll speak to us."

We all sat at the table, completely ignoring the man"s birthday celebration. In spite of everything, I did feel bad about that.

It took a minute for me to find the right words, but once I did, I just let it all out. "Vince called me a few months ago and asked me to introduce myself to Jeremiah. He wanted me to see if I could get information about you all. And yes, his ultimate goal was to bring Jeremiah to his home and use him as leverage against you."

"And you were gonna do that? You were gonna seduce an innocent omega for your brother"s game?" Orsino's palms were tight fists as he pounded the table.

"I didn't say no to the request, that"s true."

"You just happened to live in the same city as him?" Vern said with a raised brow.

Well, when he put it like that…

"Okay, technically, I did move to Stanford and staged an opportunity to introduce myself to him. And yes, initially, I did plan on going through with what my brother had asked. At least partially. But then I fell in love with Jeremiah. How could I not? I would never hurt him in any way. In fact, I was supposed to take him to my brother"s cabin this weekend to meet up with Vince, but I came here instead, knowing you all would recognize me. Even if you didn't know who I was, I planned to speak with you about what Vince was planning."

The four men stared at me.

Maybe approaching the situation with "Hey, at least I didn"t kill your brother" wasn"t the best idea. That wasn't a very high bar to claim.

I sighed as I began to lose hope. "Listen, I don"t agree with the things Vince is doing. I don"t know why he"s intent on gaining more territory when things have been just fine the way they are for the past however many years."

"He"s trying to prove himself since he"s head of the family now. What about you? You don"t care?"

"I"m a half-brother. I"ve never been involved in anything." I cocked my head and looked at Andro. "I'm surprised your research didn't tell you that."

Andro looked to Orsino, who nodded.

"I don"t trust you." Andro finally put his gun on the table and sat back, folding his arms over his chest. "And we"re not letting you go. We"ll talk to Jeremiah. But don't be surprised if we just kill you in the morning because of what you"ve done to him."

"If I can't have Jeremiah…" I swallowed hard, feeling emotion clogging my throat. "If he will never forgive me, then I would gladly lay down my life for him. Tell him I"m sorry. I didn"t mean for it to go this far."

Andro blew out a heavy breath. "Orsino, I"ll take him to the guest room on the first floor. Have Silvan keep watch."

Louie finally spoke up, glancing between his brothers and his father. "We do have the jail cells in the basement. We could finally put those to use."

Andro looked like he was considering it for a moment as his gaze slipped to his father. Thankfully, the older man shook his head.

"Not today. But I"m definitely keeping that as a possibility."

Orsino gripped my arm and pulled me to my feet. He pushed me toward a door opposite of the one we used when we came in.

"I'm sorry for interrupting your birthday dinner, sir." I looked at Vern and hoped he didn't hate me beyond forgiveness.

The man snorted out a laugh. "When you get to be my age, you enjoy excitement like this. I hope to see you again, Felik, but if my boys find out you've treated young Jeremiah badly, then I'm afraid this is goodbye."

"I didn't, sir. I promise you that."

Vern smiled. "I'm rooting for you."

I supposed that was good to hear. Though, it didn't seem that the old man had much sway over the brothers.