Page 14 of Toxic Revenge, Part Two (Mafia Omegas #2)
Chapter
Thirteen
CONRAD
Well, fuck.
Four businessmen stood in front of me, grim expressions on their faces, wearing suits worthy of a C-suite boardroom. They stared me down, waiting for me to step out of their path.
People like this didn’t frequent the Omega Haven Residence. They had to be Talia’s fathers.
I wasn’t expecting to meet them alone—I wasn’t prepared to be their sole freaking focus. My hair was a goddamn mess, I’d missed my chance to shower, and my injuries were nowhere near healed.
I’d hoped that meeting us as a group, they wouldn’t notice my messiness, but we were alone in this hallway.
Look on the bright side, Conrad. At least you aren’t meeting the parents in a hospital gown.
“Are you needing something?” one of them asked, raising an eyebrow at me.
I opened my mouth, then closed it again. They would be headed for the meeting room where Mercer and West were, same as me.
Why had I needed to stop at the damn bathroom? I could have been safely tucked away with my pack and not out here alone, where no one would see me go missing.
Alright, that was an exaggeration.
This place was full of cameras.
But still.
“Um…”
I needed to make a good impression.
They might kill me if I didn’t. If I was dead, I wouldn’t be able to kill Benjamin. I wouldn’t be able to help save the love of my life from her asshole scent match—now, bonded mate. She needed us, and I needed to make amends for what I’d done.
How did I make a good impression on mafia bosses who didn’t know who I was?
Was I supposed to… bow?
I cringed. It was a stupid idea, but maybe… it was the best one I had right now.
I had to do something to convince them I wasn’t simply a problem they had to solve. If I pretended I didn’t know who they were, they’d see me in the meeting room and think I was an absolute idiot.
“Sirs,” I said, nodding. The nod was huge and exaggerated, almost as deep as if it were a bow. “Are you Pack Alfieri?”
Eye contact, or no eye contact?
I chose eye contact. Not prolonged—all I did was quickly glance into the eyes of each of the men in front of me. It gave me a chance to gauge how pissed off they were.
Oh, yeah.
These men were ready to start a war. The fury blazing in their eyes and the tension in their bodies screamed of fathers who were about to blow some shit up for their daughter. Probably not the best time to stand in front of them.
This definitely wasn’t going to be the good impression I envisioned.
“You must be one of those Villem motorcycle club alphas.” A different man spoke, a growl in his tone.
“That’s me. Conrad St. Pierre.” I paused. Shit, should I give them my road name? “Four Leaf, as the club knows me.”
“We’re aware of both of your names, don’t worry.”
They glared at me and my skin tingled uncomfortably under the attention. I was an alpha, but they had many years on me. They knew how to use their designation to make themselves bigger, more intimidating, and impossible to fuck with.
Maybe I should just flee to the meeting room where I wouldn’t be the sole focus of their scrutiny.
“Do you know which direction to the meeting room? I can lead the way. I’m familiar with the facility.”
“So are we.”
I swallowed past the lump in my throat. “Alrighty then. Well, uh, I’ll just see you in there, then.”
“Wait.” The first man spoke up again.
I froze.
“Tell me, what kind of first impression were you trying to make just now?”
That was not a good sign.
I’d fucked up, massively.
Not sure when or how, but I must have, right? That was why he was asking. Damn it, I missed when my four leaf luck had actually helped me out of messes like this.
“I wanted to be helpful and polite,” I said. “So you don’t murder me. I want to make sure Benjamin is dead before you murder me. Needed to buy some time.”
That earned me a few chuckles, but I couldn’t tell from which of her fathers. I certainly wasn’t making eye contact now.
That must have been where I fucked up. The eye contact wasn’t demure enough, or something.
“Duly noted. Let’s head to the meeting room. There’s lots to discuss about your motorcycle club and poisoned bullets.”
At the onset of the meeting, I learned that the angry one was Nico Alfieri, and the one curious about my intentions was Jurah Alfieri, pack lead and head of the mafia.
The others were Hart and Penn, but they were watchers more than they were talkers.
Jurah led the conversation with a sense of intense purpose. “Who did you make deliveries to?”
“The first delivery of the bullets was to an alpha named Malice,” I said.
“Did you make that delivery?”
“I did.”
“Do you know who Malice is? Who he works for?”
My gut clenched. I was probably supposed to know. “No, sir.”
“He recently switched sides from the Windsors to the O’Connors.”
Of course he did. We were selling merchandise to the O’Connors on Windsor territory, which would piss off two of the three major crime families. Including the family the love of my life was a part of.
“That’s why I couldn’t find any fucking proof that he was working with the O’Connors,” Mercer muttered under his breath.
He’d done his research, but Grave was smart. Any drops that were obviously not within our bounds, he must have been doing himself. The ones that weren’t as clearly wrong, he’d sent us on.
And then he’d framed us for being the ones to start selling to the wrong side in the first place.
“You don’t have the resources that we have,” Nico said bluntly. “You may have been in line to lead your club, but a motorcycle club is nothing compared to our empire.”
Mercer sighed. “Yeah, but my father’s been playing us for fucking years. I should’ve known and accused him before he could accuse me. Something to get the upper hand.”
“You wanted proof first,” Hart said; his first contribution since he’d introduced himself. “And couldn’t dig deep enough to find it without risking Talia. I can respect that.”
“Let’s not put words in his mouth,” Nico grumbled. “He didn’t say shit about wanting to keep our daughter safe.”
Hart rolled his eyes. “That’s because you only hear the actual words. I’ve heard a lot more than that since we started talking to them.”
One of them seemed to actually like us, thank fuck.
Was one out of four enough?
We’d been supplying their enemies with bullets that could wreak absolute havoc. Unknowingly, but it did make us look like idiots.
Jurah sighed. “Let’s not squabble here. We can save that for when we’re back home. Just tell us everything else you know about the bullets your club has been passing out.”
Mercer launched into an extended explanation, and I relaxed somewhat. I was off the hook—for now.
The rest of the conversation was mostly between Nico, Jurah, and Mercer, with West pitching in the information that he’d found. Grumpily, I had to add. He was brooding more than normal.
I wasn’t surprised when Mercer sent him from the meeting room with the excuse of someone needing to check on Talia. If my first impression was bad, West’s was abysmal. He was making us all look bad.
On his way out, West told them where to find the bullets he’d stolen and hidden. They made a call to have them picked up as he grumped his way out of the meeting room.
Her fathers relaxed a bit toward us after that. Maybe because they realized we’d just handed over one of our only methods of clearing our names.
I was bouncing in my seat, itching to leave and check on Talia myself. Before I could try and excuse myself, Nico started the real interrogation.
“With business out of the way, let’s get to the more important questions. You’re wanting to be with our daughter.” Nico Alfieri glared across the table at us. “Yet, you’re the reason she ended up in this position in the first place. Why shouldn’t we kill you?”
My chest tightened. We were the reason she’d been alone and vulnerable in Villem, an area of town she wasn’t supposed to ever set foot in.
Maybe she hadn’t been visiting us when everything went down, but if she hadn’t known us, she wouldn’t have stayed with me after my surgery. I wouldn’t have gone feral and scared her off while she was in the early stages of heat.
Her savage bonding was my fault, and I’d never forgive myself for that.
But I also couldn’t bear the thought of being without her.
“Because she would never forgive you if you did,” Mercer said.
Our pack leader projected an air of casual confidence, but I sensed his anxiety when I pushed at the bond. If the Alfieri mafia leaders didn’t want us near their daughter, we would never see her again.
“Talia would recover.”
“Do you want to make that bet after what she’s already been through?” Mercer asked. “We want to be with each other, so why not give her a chance to be happy?”
Hart sighed. “He has a point, Nico. They all have their mother’s stubbornness. If we did anything to these men, she’d never forgive us.”
“Her safety is more important than whether or not she likes us,” Nico countered.
“I don’t think they’re unsafe for her.” That was the first input Penn had on anything.
It sounded like he was on our side. Was that two out of four? Did we have fifty percent of the pack fathers rooting for us?
I tried not to get too hopeful, but hope was kind of my thing.
“What if you’re never able to bond her?” Nico demanded. “What will you do then?”
Mercer spoke for us again, but it was the answer we all would have given. “The bond isn’t everything. She’s meant to be with us. I’ve known it from the first time I saw her.”
She’d drawn us all in like moths to a flame. I’d been the least capable of staying away, of saying no to her, and I didn’t see that changing anytime soon.
Especially with how much I had to make up for.
“She’s all we need. Bond or no bond,” I said quietly.
Talia’s fathers glanced at each other. Nico rolled his eyes, seeming annoyed with the outcome of their assessment. “Fine. We give you our blessing. For now.”
“Does that mean we can get back to her?” I asked. “She wasn’t keen to let us leave.”
“For tonight, you’re free to go. Nico and Hart will go with you to check in with her,” Jurah confirmed. “We’ll be looking into your information on the bullets.”
I wasn’t worried about that. Mercer had told the truth and hadn’t left a damn thing out. All I was worried about was Talia.
The faster I could get back to her, the better.