Page 45 of Knotted By my Pack (North Coast Omegaverse #3)

JULIAN

The kitchen smells like cinnamon and coffee.

Noah’s at the stove flipping pancakes, Elias stands barefoot beside the fridge pouring orange juice, and Cora sits at the counter in one of Noah’s old shirts, bare-legged, cheeks flushed, trying to braid her hair with fingers that keep tangling.

We’re all sore, still aching from last night in that heady way that stays in your bones. There’s no awkwardness. No regret. Just this strange, quiet peace that wasn’t here before.

“We should start looking for a house,” she says as she reaches for her coffee.

Elias pauses, looks at her over the rim of his glass. “Today?”

“Why wait? If we’re bonded, we should have a place that’s ours,” she says. “Not a borrowed bedroom. Not somewhere temporary.”

“You’re right,” Noah says, flipping a pancake with too much flair. “No reason to wait.”

“I’ve got some calls to make,” I say as I glance at the clock. “Can’t stay long. But I’ll meet you after.”

Cora gets up, steps around the counter. Her arms go around my waist as I slide my phone into my pocket. She leans in, presses her mouth to mine. I kiss her slowly, one hand cradling the back of her neck.

This mouth is going to ruin me. Has already started.

“You okay?” she asks, voice low.

“I will be.”

It’s a lie I’ve told for years, but it tastes different when I say it to her. I kiss her again. Then I leave.

The sun’s brutal for how early it is. I park at the harbor and walk down toward the skeletal frame of steel and concrete rising out of the earth like a grave marker.

Beckett stands near the edge of the dock, clipboard in hand, barking something to a pair of men in hard hats. The scent of salt, fresh-cut lumber, and drying paint saturates the air.

Every board, every beam, is one more nail in the coffin of the town we knew.

“Beckett,” I call out.

He turns, face already tight with wariness. “I thought you weren’t allowed here.”

“Who said so?”

He doesn’t reply. We both know it has to be my brother pulling strings.

“It doesn’t matter,” I say, stepping closer. “This thing is a cancer. It doesn’t belong here.”

“We’re months in,” he says. “Materials ordered, contracts signed. This isn’t some fantasy build you can shut down with a tantrum.”

“Do you really want to go through with it?”

“I’m sorry, but I have a crew that depends on this to feed their families. It can’t be about what I think is right or wrong. Your father and brother are paying a lot of money for this project to be fast-tracked.”

“You don’t have to do this, man,” I tell him. “His legacy is rot.”

A voice cuts through from behind me. Cold. Clipped.

“Then maybe you should have told him that when you were doing his bidding all over the world. This town is the same as all the others we’ve worked in. You don’t get to have a moral high ground now, brother.”

Damien steps out from the side of the building like he’s been waiting. Dressed in tailored slacks, sleeves rolled, gun visible at his hip. His face is unreadable, too calm for the storm in his voice.

“You’re early,” I say.

“I always am. Unlike you. You’re late to everything. Especially the truth.”

He walks forward, stops a few feet from me.

“You want to sabotage this now?” he says. “When the permits are signed and the investors are watching?”

“This was never meant to be built.”

“You designed it for this town. To bring in revenue. Jobs. Tourism. You think I like this? Living in this backwater slum?” He shoves a hand through his hair. “But I do it because someone has to.”

“You’re doing it for him,” I say. “Not for us. And sure as hell not for me.”

“You think walking away made you better?” His voice is louder now. “You ran. You always ran. I stayed. I made the calls. I cleaned the messes. I built something from the ashes you left behind.”

“It’s not real,” I snap. “It’s fake—just steel and blood money.”

He takes a step closer, mouth twisted. “I keep the family name alive. You want to torch everything now? Go ahead. Set fire to it all.”

I glance toward the building, then back at him. “You think I won’t?”

“I know you will,” he says, almost laughing. “That’s why I brought this.”

He draws the gun.

Not slow. Not theatrical. Just precise.

“Put it away,” I say, body tensing.

“Not until you back down.”

Beckett takes a step away, raising both hands. “Hey. Let’s all calm the hell down.”

“You want to burn it?” Damien says, ignoring him. “Try me.”

“You honestly think you can get away with this?”

The moment the question is out, it dawns on me that this is probably not the first time my brother has done something like this.

A blur of motion flashes in the corner of my vision. Elias sprints across the dock, followed by Noah and Cora. Her feet barely touch the ground. Elias stops between us, breath ragged. What the hell are they doing here?

“Enough,” he snarls.

Damien’s eyes shift. The way he looks at Elias is different. Wary. This is the first time they’ve been this close since everything fell apart. Since Damien marked Elias’s mate.

“You have no idea what you’re doing,” Elias says. “Drop the gun.”

“This doesn’t concern you.”

“You made it concern me,” Elias growls. “That’s my brother you’re pointing a gun at, so I would suggest you think twice before you do something stupid.”

Damien’s face twitches. His grip on the gun tightens.

Noah moves next, stepping into Damien’s line of sight.

“As head of development in this town, I’m shutting this down,” he says. “Construction’s halted. Beckett, get your men out.”

“No one’s authorized to—” Beckett starts.

“I said go.”

Beckett looks between us, mutters something, then nods to his team. They start packing up fast.

“This isn’t over,” Damien says, eyes wild now. “This is my life. I did everything right. I made money. I followed the plan. I carried the name.”

He starts pacing, hitting the side of his head with the flat of his hand.

“I built this. I built all of it. And you’ll tear it apart because you’re weak. Because you can’t handle what our father is all about.”

“No,” I say. “Because you’re still chasing a man who destroyed everything.”

Damien spins toward me, gun still raised. “Say that again.”

“You think he’d be proud of this? This shell? He’s not watching anymore, Damien. He doesn’t actually care about you. You think you’re a king, but you are a fucking pawn. I wish you could see that.”

Noah starts forward, but everything happens at once. Cora screams. The gun fires. Elias lunges into my chest and takes the bullet.

His body jerks against me. His knees hit the ground.

I drop beside him. There’s blood. Too much. Cora’s screaming my name, then his. Noah tackles Damien to the ground, slamming his fist into his face over and over.

“Call the medics!” he yells at Cora. “Now!”

She fumbles for her phone, voice shaking as she dials.

Elias is on his back, chest rising fast. His hand grips mine tightly.

“You idiot,” I whisper. “You stupid, stubborn—”

“I’m not letting you go alone,” he says, voice thin.

The blood spreads under him as I press both hands to the wound, teeth clenched. “You’re not dying here.”

He smiles at me, eyes glassy. “You’d better mean that.”

Cora drops beside us, hands trembling as she cups his face.

“I’ve got you,” she says. “We all do.”

Siren wails echo across the harbor.

This was supposed to be a legacy.

Now it’s a war.

The hospital reeks of antiseptic. Cora hasn’t sat down since we got here. Noah’s pacing.

The blood dried under my fingernails won’t wash off, no matter how hard I scrub in the bathroom sink. Every second stretches out like it’s daring me to break.

The nurse finally tells us Elias is in surgery. Says the bullet missed his heart by an inch but ruptured a vessel. Says the bleeding was bad, but they got to him fast.

She doesn’t say what I really need to hear.

I nod, thank her, then go back to standing against the wall like I’ve been nailed there.

Damien’s gone. They cuffed him and dragged him out, yelling about how none of us deserved what he built. About how this town would rot without him. He kept calling it justice.

I didn’t answer once. I just watched the blood on Elias’s shirt and thought about how everything could’ve ended differently if I’d done something—anything—sooner.

The doors swing open again. A man in blue scrubs steps out, wiping his hands, calm in a way that makes everyone in the waiting room freeze.

“Elias Hawthorne,” he says.

We rush toward him.

“He’s stable,” the doctor says. “Your friend’s an Alpha. Strong regenerative properties. That helped. But he lost a lot of blood, and we need to move quickly with a transfusion.”

“I’ll donate,” Noah says before the doctor finishes.

“Me too,” Cora says.

“Same,” I add.

The doctor nods. “We’ll test everyone.”

I wait until they disappear with the nurse, then turn down the hall.

There’s a quiet corridor near the emergency stairwell. I pull my phone from my coat and dial the number I deleted weeks ago.

It rings once. Twice. Then he answers.

“You finally grew a spine.” My father’s voice slides down the line like oil.

“You’re finished,” I say, keeping my voice level. “The permits are dead. Beckett’s pulling his crew. Noah, Lockwood’s replacement, he’s a part of my pack. Damien’s in custody. And your name’s already poison in this town.”

“You think they care about you?” he snaps. “You think they’ll take your side? After everything?”

“I’ll make them. I’ll bury you in court filings and bad press.

I’ll drag your skeletons into the sun and burn them down to ash.

You forget that I know where everything is hidden.

You can keep pursuing this, or I can come for you and the oil industry you’re trying to be a part of. You and Damien. You’re both done.”

There’s silence on the other end. Then, low and bitter, he mutters, “You always were a mistake.”

I laugh, empty. “Then I’m your final one.”

“You threaten me again—”

“I’m not threatening. I’m promising. You’ve got one chance left. Call off your dogs. Leave this town. And pray you disappear before I finish what Elias started.”

He says something else.

I hang up mid-word.

Stare at the wall.

And breathe for the first time since the gun went off.