Page 39 of Toxic Revenge, Part Two (Mafia Omegas #2)

Chapter

Thirty-Five

MERCER

I wasn’t really one to sit back and let other people handle things.

Not even when the people doing the handling were members of a well-connected mafia family.

Talia was my mate—the woman I loved. Waiting for her family to solve her problems with minimal input from us simply wasn’t going to cut it. What Talia needed most at this moment was for Benjamin to be found, and I would put all of my efforts into finding him.

I might even be in a unique position to help out.

“Reaching out to Grave is only going to piss him off.” West ran a frustrated hand through his hair. “He’ll think you’re taunting him.”

I sighed, stretching out my legs. We were seated on opposite ends of the comfy couch in Talia’s suite, listening to birds chirping through the cracked-open window. “I will be taunting him.”

“Great. Let’s taunt the man who has a fuckton of feral bullets in his possession.”

“I doubt he’s using them. For one thing, he’s an alpha. Not gonna risk turning himself feral. And he’s the supplier. His goal is to distribute them far and wide, and they probably don’t want him wasting merchandise to fill his own weapons. Besides, is he going to find us here?”

“He could, now that we know he’s working with Benjamin.”

West made a good point with that one.

“Security is tight,” I countered. “If they were going to go for the Alfieri mansion directly, they would have already.”

He didn’t look convinced. Maybe I wasn’t fully convinced either, but if Pops brought the club here for an all-out attack, we had bigger problems. He would only do that if his benefactors told him to.

We needed to find Benjamin before the O’Connors made their big move, or Talia would be at even greater risk.

Not only because she likely factored into Benjamin’s plan, but because if things got much more heated, there was a chance he would die in the crossfire. His death would mean a broken bond, and omegas were too fragile to survive the fracturing alone.

Even if we managed to follow through Talia’s plan, get him to join a pack with us so we could claim her, there were no guarantees she would survive his death.

“What else am I supposed to do, West?” I let out a frustrated sigh. “It’s not like I can sit around doing nothing.”

He tossed me the burner phone. “Fine. Let’s hope this doesn’t mess anything up.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” I muttered.

Staring down at the simple phone, I took an extra second to consider it. Should I leave this to Talia’s fathers?

No . Pops could have information we wanted. He was probably the weakest link in the chain, because he was an idiot—and an idiot who thought I was dumb.

I tapped in his phone number and hit the call button, leaving it resting on my leg on speaker.

It rang three times, and I wasn’t sure if he was going to answer, but then his familiar, gruff tone came down the line. “What the fuck do you want?”

Despite how many times he’d yelled at me with that voice, it still brought a sense of… home, almost. His was the voice of the club I loved, even though I had no fuzzy feelings for the man himself.

Now, it was a reminder of what I’d lost. A group of people who’d paid far less attention to my character than I thought.

“Pops. Heard you’re looking for me.”

“Mercy? You’ve got some fucking balls, calling me. Get your ass back here now, and maybe you’ll get a clean death.”

“I don’t intend to die when you’re the one who messed everything up.”

Pops scoffed. “I’ve only made us stronger.”

“You’ve made yourself money,” I snapped, clenching my fists. “Everyone else from the club might end up dead because of you.”

West seethed across from me, his jaw tight. He hated the man almost as much as I did—maybe more, because he didn’t have any lingering sentimental ties. Not that I’d ever really loved Pops, but there was a time when I was little when I wanted to. I wanted him to love me too.

Pops laughed, the sound full of spite. How did the club not see that he was only out for himself? It was so fucking obvious.

“Collateral damage is a necessary part of growing stronger. I always knew you were too soft, even before the club gave you your pathetic road name.”

We were all his collateral damage. Every single one of us, but especially me.

I’d never been the son he wanted, so he’d used me like he used everyone else.

I kept my breathing steady, doing my best to stay calm. This wasn’t the time to spiral, to shout at him or let my resentment and betrayal overwhelm me. I’d called him for Talia’s sake, and I needed to press him for information. Nothing else.

“Was jumping ship to the O’Connors really that fucking lucrative?” I demanded.

“What’s more lucrative than helping someone fulfill a vendetta?”

West’s anger pulsed in the pack bond, impossible to block out completely. He stayed silent, but was liable to burst out into a string of curses at any moment.

“People are dying on the streets, Pops. More than just Alfieri associates. If they wanted revenge, Benji O’Connor could have found a better way than bullets that turn alphas feral.”

“Maybe so, but the O’Connors are done with Banfield being ruled by alphas, without any opening for betas to move in.

The Alfieris are the greatest threat, with all those omega daughters.

Feral alphas were an ingenious strategy to strike fear into their little omega hearts.

Into your little omega’s heart, from what I hear. ”

My heart rate kicked up. He knew about Talia.

“Benji O’Connor is literally a fucking alpha,” I growled.

“One of only two in the entire O’Connor family. And no omegas, either.”

“You’re an alpha too. Why would you support making alphas go feral?”

I knew why. It was because he put profit over people. His own gains over everyone else in the world. He didn’t care what happened, so long as he came out on top.

My father wanted to make me into a beast like him, and god was I fucking glad I never gave in.

“No skin off my back if they do. Did you have a reason for calling, or did you only want to waste my goddamn time?” Pops asked with an irritated growl.

“I want you to stop hunting us down.”

“Tough luck. Benji O’Connor wants you dead, and I plan to deliver.”

There it was.

My father, admitting out loud and with no remorse, that he was trying to kill me, and that he orchestrated this entire plan to do it.

My chest tightened—the feeling was akin to betrayal, but not as potent. It was more of a resigned pain. Nothing about this surprised me, but he was still my father. It shouldn’t be like this.

“Some asshole wants me dead and that’s it? You’ll kill me?” I asked.

“Not like you’re a suitable heir. Weak little shit. Better to take the money—then my millions can be my legacy.”

My packmate’s rage reached a boiling point.

“Fuck you, Grave,” West snarled. “Mercy could have been as ruthless as you, and you still would have thrown him under the bus.”

“Arsenal, of course you’ve stuck with my son. Just as pathetic as he is.”

“I’m loyal, unlike some fucking people.”

“Loyalty is overrated. Face it. Benji wants you dead and wants your little omega pet to be his puppet, and he has plenty of people willing to work for him. You’ll die, whether I’m the one to kill you or not. Why not profit?”

My temper snapped too. “Because you’re my fucking father!” I bellowed.

“Not anymore,” Pops growled. “Consider yourself disowned.”

Disowned? Like it mattered now.

He was driving the club into the ground, and they’d all taken his side. That was my only inheritance, and it wasn’t going to exist much longer.

“Fine,” I said coldly, reigning my anger back in. “Then I guess this is our last conversation.”

“Unless you’re turning yourself over, I have no reason to talk to you again,” Pops said.

“I’m not.”

He hung up.

Not even a goodbye. Nothing.

I watched the screen flash once to show the ended call, and then go black.

That… was it, then. We hadn’t gotten much workable information, but I could classify this as closure. Until that conversation, a small part of me had hoped that maybe Pops was being coerced.

But, no. He was perfectly in control of his actions. Always had been. He was just fueled by greed and didn’t have a paternal bone in his fucking body.

“They’re not going to stop until we’re dead and they’re ready to use Talia for whatever they need her for.” West broke the silence.

“Then we can’t stop either. I’m going to find that son of a bitch and make him wish he’d never met Talia.”

“What about Grave?”

I gripped the phone firmly, shoving it into my pocket. There was only one thing to do about Pops, and it made my chest tighten despite the chasm between us.

“If he wants to get in the way, then we kill him.”

“You sure?” West asked.

“Yes, I’m fucking sure,” I snapped. “It’s not like I want to kill my own father, but he’s made it really goddamn clear which side he’s on, and it’s not ours.”

“Got it. Just…” West hesitated, rubbing a hand across the back of his neck awkwardly. “If it comes down to that, let me take the shot. OK?”

Fuck, he could tell how conflicted I was. I wanted to brush it off and insist I was fine, but I wasn’t. Would my finger freeze on the trigger?

I brushed my thumb over my knuckles, the numbers staring back at me like they always did. I was a survivor, but maybe I didn’t need to be the one to kill my tormentor.

That’s what friends were for, after all.

“You take the shot,” I agreed. “Thanks, West.”

“Anytime.”

Clearing my throat to dispel the emotion tightening it, I stood up and started to pace. “We didn’t learn shit from him, which isn’t what I was hoping for. Only that?—”

The door to Talia’s bedroom flew open, slamming against the wall. I reached my hand down to my waistband on instinct, grabbing for a gun I didn’t have, before the familiar scents of autumn leaves and cranberry and roses washed over me.

Conrad stood in the doorway, angrier than I’d ever seen him, a rattled-looking Talia carried in his arms.

“That bastard called her.”