Page 15 of Blood Pack Beginning (Pack #5)

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Sasha drove like a demon out of hell. Fast and without care. Amir might have been more scared if he wasn’t so worried about his dumbass brother and plagued by guilt.

Their last conversation hadn’t been a pleasant one.

“I can’t stand it here,” Amir complained, not for the first time.

“Gee, I hadn’t noticed,” Amir had sarcastically grunted as he lifted the barbell from a squat position.

“I’m serious. We’re in the middle of nowhere with nothing to do.”

“Not that much different from Moon Dew, if you ask me.” The town only had one main street with a few stores.

“Yeah, but it was only a thirty-minute drive to the city, and we used to go on long-haul runs. I haven’t been outside these walls since those fuckers kidnapped us.”

Amir dropped the weighted bar with a thud and sighed. “For the last time, if not for them, we’d most likely be in jail or hiding. Can you imagine the shitstorm we’d have been caught up in? The cops likely would have arrested us because, hello, being the only survivors would have made us look suspicious as hell. And even if they didn’t lock us up, we’d have been hounded by the media. We definitely would have been dragged through the social media mud and had our lives turned into a living hell.” Their innocence wouldn’t have mattered. Gossip and the need to blame would have proven stronger.

He didn’t even bother mentioning the more fatal probability: that Nathan would have convicted them without trial and they would have been killed. Pack laws didn’t tolerate rogues that drew attention.

“Whatever. I’m done with this place. I’m leaving.”

“Okay.”

“Not gonna argue?”

“You seem determined, so why would I bother?”

“Do we have enough cash to rent a place? How long until you can be packed to go?”

Amir arched a brow. “What’s with this ‘we’ shit? You want to go? Go. I’ve already told you I’m staying.”

“Because you want to bang that bloodsucker,” Omar hissed.

“No, because I want to help stop what happened to the people in Moon Dew from happening elsewhere. I am gonna make damned sure our sister doesn’t get taken by some monster who’s got a boner for dormants. Then there’s the fact I happen to like it here. It’s nice belonging to a pack and not having to worry about getting my ass shot as a rogue.”

“Please, this isn’t a pack,” Omar huffed with a sneer. “It’s a bunch of mongrels taking orders from a snooty vampire.”

“A vampire with the alpha command, who’s mated to two of our kind,” Amir reminded.

“I don’t care. He’s not Lycan.”

“Maybe not, but his new pack has been recognized by the Lycan Council. One of our leaders is even sending loners here to join. Seems pretty legit to me.”

Omar changed tactics. “You have to come.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re my brother. You said you’d always take care of me.”

Amir had made that promise, but he’d never expected it would be forever. “I have taken care of you, but you’re twenty-four years old now, Omar. You’re old enough to work, rent a place, and live a life without a babysitter.”

His brother recoiled. “I’m not a baby.”

“Then stop acting like one,” Amir had snarled. “You don’t like it here? Fine. Put on your big-boy pants and leave. Hell, I’ll even make sure you have enough cash to put down a first and last month’s deposit on a place, plus a bit extra to keep you fed and shit while you find a job. But that’s the extent of my aid. It’s time you manned up and learned to stand on your own two feet.”

“I can’t believe my own brother is abandoning me so he can fuck a bloodsucker,” Omar hissed.

“Leave Sasha out of this. This has nothing to do with her. Jesus Christ, Omar, surely you didn’t think I’d be nannying your ass the rest of your life?”

“I see it’s no use trying to reason with you,” Amir spat. “Stay here with the whore. You’ll regret it when she drains you dry. I’m out of here. I’ve got a ride lined up with a vamp heading into the city after sunset.”

“Good luck. Drop me a line when you’re settled.”

“Fuck you.” The last thing said before his brother stormed off.

A part of Amir had almost chased down Omar, hating that they’d parted so harshly, but what would have been the point? His brother wouldn’t budge, and neither would Amir. Amir’s fault, really, for not dealing with the situation with his brother sooner. Lorelei had tried broaching it a few times, only to back down when Omar threw a tantrum. They’d both given in too often, wanting to avoid the fireworks. And now Omar had stormed off with the vampire who’d killed Lycans.

Guilt rode him hard and whipped his shredded emotions, until Sasha reached over and slapped him.

“Snap out of it, Puppy Chow. Your brother’s not dead yet.”

“Yet,” Amir repeated in a dull monotone. “Omar’s riding with a killer. It’s only a matter of time before he ends up like those other Lycans in the woods.”

“You can’t know that. Neither of us can. Monty must have taken him for a reason.”

“Yeah. To eat as a snack.” The very mention of it left a sour taste in his mouth.

“I can’t help but wonder if there’s something more to it.” Her fingers drummed the steering wheel before she asked in a barely audible mutter, “How good is your brother with computers?”

“Why?”

“Because Monty is great at a bunch of things, but technology wasn’t one of them. I don’t know if Diego told you, but someone compromised the compound security system.”

“Diego did mention something about some cameras being on a loop because of a hacker…” Amir paused. “Oh shit.”

Sasha’s grip on the wheel tightened and not just because she whipped the car around a curve in the road. “Your brother is a hacker.”

“He never used that term, but I know he spent a lot of time on his laptop. Even when we were long hauling, he’d be in the cab’s bunk tapping away. When I told him to stop playing his dumb-ass games and give me a hand, he said he was working his second job as a programmer.”

“Did you ever ask what kind of programming?”

“Not really. I assumed he wasn’t very good at it since he was always whining about being broke.”

“If he was the one to change the camera feeds and reprogram the gate, then you do realize that means he’s in cahoots with Monty.”

“He wouldn’t have helped kill our kind.”

“Are you sure of that?” Her counter.

He couldn’t be sure of anything anymore. Amir’s head dipped and his shoulders rounded. “What will happen to Omar if we find him?”

“I don’t know. Monty will, for sure, be staked out in the sun for his treachery, but your brother’s fate will likely depend on if he was influenced or abetting of his own volition.”

Amir banged his fists off the dash. “Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.”

“Hey, no abusing my baby!” Sasha yelped.

He clenched his hands instead, simmering. How could Omar be so dumb as to betray Thaddeus? Then again, he knew his brother. Unfortunately, Omar never had a chance to see true loyalty in action. Their family had left their first pack then joined the new one in America as outsiders. His mother had a hysterectomy because his parents didn’t agree with the Pack Law of taking more mates. Then, the pack exiled Lorelei and Amir left with her, after which their parents died. It all resulted in Omar having a stunted maturity and survival-mode narcissism.

So, Omar looking out for himself with no regard for the lives of others? Not so farfetched.

“I’m sorry,” she softly said.

Amir paused in his self-flagellation. “For what? Not your fault he’s a fucking idiot.”

“Who was influenced by someone we thought we could trust. How could we not have known we had a traitor in our midst?”

“Could be Monty wasn’t happy with the direction your boss was taking and acted on his own and not because he was following orders from this master we keep hearing about.”

“It’s possible, I guess.” A reluctant agreement. “Which makes his actions even worse. Monty could have left for another flock. There was no need to sabotage what Thaddeus has been building.”

Her phone rang, and she clicked a button on her steering wheel to answer. “What?”

The speakers played Pierrot’s voice. “I’ve got an update on the sedan.”

“Do you know where it’s going?” A valid question since they’d yet to catch a glimpse of taillights.

“No, because the fucker unplugged the nav system, disabling the GPS tracker, and they must have either destroyed their phones or hidden them inside a faraday pouch because I can’t ping their location,” Pierrot grumbled.

“Is that the car Monty usually takes when leaving the compound?” she asked.

“Actually, no,” Pierrot suddenly exclaimed. “He usually prefers the Range Rover, but it’s in the shop getting its brakes done.”

“Can you access the Range Rover’s previous destinations? I want to know where Monty has been going. Also, check his phone logs. Who’s he been calling? Texting? Find me everything you can. Maybe they’ll contain a clue to indicate where he’s fleeing.”

“On it.”

Pierrot hung up, and Amir sighed. “We might as well flip around, seeing we lost them.”

“Seems so.” Her disgruntled reply. “We should have caught up to them by now.”

“Assuming they stayed on the main road. They most likely turned off to lose us.”

“Even so, there’s not many directions they could go. If they went east, then they’re heading for the city.”

“Where we’d never find them,” Amir pointed out.

“Don’t be so sure. Pierrot has ways of tracking people in the city by splicing into security feeds and then running facial recognition software.”

“A process which will take time and luck.”

“That’s assuming they’re heading there. Keep in mind their route options are limited. They can’t go south because there’s no way to cross the river since the flood took out the bridge and ferry terminal. West is a government nature reserve. If they’re planning to leave the state, they’ll have to drive north and traverse the newly built bascule bridge. If we get there before them, we still have a chance to stop them.”

“And how will you do that? Your tiny car ain’t exactly built for ramming. Heck, I doubt parking it sideways to block lanes would slow a sedan that size down.” Amir couldn’t help but point out the flaw in her idea.

“As if I’d allow any harm to come to my baby,” she huffed. “Much easier to mesmerize the operator into raising the bridge, which will put a stop to all the cars trying to cross.”

“Which will cause unwanted attention as folks will notice the bridge being raised for an invisible boat.”

Her lips pursed. “You have a better idea?”

In turned out they didn’t need one, because Pierrot called them back, excited because he’d discovered where Monty might be heading.

And it wasn’t anywhere they would have predicted.