Page 54 of Toxic Revenge, Part Two (Mafia Omegas #2)

Chapter

Forty-Nine

TALIA

The scent of blood was heavy in the air as I regained my senses. Everything was hazy and so painfully loud. It was hard to tell what was going on, until…

Gunshots. There were gunshots to go with the blood.

And a rough hand on my chin, dragging my attention upward.

Benjamin sneered down at me, words falling from his lips that I couldn’t hear. My head pounded, my cheek stung, and as he ripped jewellery off me I couldn’t help but whimper.

He’d caught me.

I was his, same as I’d been the night he’d bonded me.

Were my alphas coming to save me? Or was that why there were gunshots? Had they already been…

I tried to fight against Benjamin’s touch, his hands patting me down. My mental walls were shattered, and his hatred was more potent than ever. The man despised me. He hated everything I stood for; everything I was. He wanted me to hate like he did.

If I didn’t have my alphas, I might have succumbed to him.

But beneath the blood, I scented them faintly—and whether it was my imagination saving me or reality, they were there.

Sandalwood and brown sugar.

Warm wool and smoke.

Autumn leaves.

Mercer, West, and Conrad.

I trusted them to come for me. Even though the plan had gone south, they would save me. I knew they would.

When I finally blinked away the haze, Mercer was sprinting towards me. His expression was twisted in determination, my pain reflected in his eyes.

I yanked at my restraints, wanting to reach for him, but they held fast.

And then he faltered. Blood dripped. I could almost feel his pain rushing through me like I felt my own.

“Mercer!” I screamed.

Thrashing in the chair, I’d almost made it tip sideways when an imposing presence placed a hand on my shoulder.

My head snapped up, fresh fear rushing through me until I saw familiar green eyes and a furious expression.

Conrad’s gentle touch calmed me, and I relaxed more when I spotted West behind him.

They were both alive.

“Get the fuck away from her,” Conrad snarled at Benjamin.

My bondmate grinned like a maniac, a glint in his eyes. He backed up, but it didn’t feel like a retreat. It felt like he was on the prowl, readying for an attack.

There was something left up his sleeve, and it wasn’t the men he’d brought with him. There weren’t that many of them, and most had gunshot wounds already. The rest had lowered their weapons and were backing away, ready to flee.

What was he going to do? Why did he think he could still win?

My gaze snapped to Mercer.

The bullet had only gotten his arm. The blood loss made it look worse than it was.

But what kind of bullets did Benjamin’s men have in their guns?

Conrad undid my restraints while West trained his gun on my bondmate. I fell out of the chair and crawled across the floor toward Mercer, who rushed forward to meet me.

“Hey, hey.” He wrapped his good arm around me. “I’m fine. Just a flesh wound.”

I pressed my cheek against his chest and glared at Benjamin. He was still backing up, smiling maniacally. We needed to capture him—but I assumed my fathers had men on the way. They would restrain him when they got here. Until then, we just needed to keep him from fleeing or attacking.

“What kind of bullets are they using, Benjamin?” I demanded, still clutching Mercer close despite the blood soaking into my clothes.

He laughed. “Wouldn’t you like to know, babe.”

Conrad cursed, dropping to his knees beside Mercer and trying to pry me away. “Talia, he could be?—”

I shook my head.

Benjamin’s emotions raged inside of me. He was shoving them at me, creating a maelstrom that was hard to push through. It was near painful to exist with him like this, but there was a downside for him.

I’d felt his regret, the millisecond of it that had existed.

A psychopath like him wouldn’t regret shooting my alpha, so I could only assume he was regretting one thing: not shooting with feral bullets.

“They weren’t using the bullets,” I said confidently.

Conrad frowned. Mercer tried to pull away. “Sweetheart, it’s not a risk we should take.”

I clung to him, refusing to let go. “Trust me. They weren’t.”

“Oh, how sweet. You trust him.” Benjamin’s tone dripped with sarcasm. “Until he pins you down and takes you like a feral beast, anyway.”

“No. Right now, it’s you I trust,” I shot back. “I trust you to be the evil bastard you’ve always been deep inside. Your emotions told me everything I needed to know. Turns out having me bonded to you is a double-edged sword, isn’t it?”

I was shouting by the end, tears dripping down my stinging cheeks.

A crash sounded in the distance, followed by shouts and gunshots. Benjamin looked over his shoulder, and his desperation became my own.

He was a beast backed into a corner, and he was about to lash out.

What was his plan? Would he go for me? Or one of my mates?

His emotions couldn’t tell me that much as he took a few more steps backward, one hand reaching behind him.

“A double-edged sword indeed,” he said.

The sound of metal scraping against the wood table had my mates putting themselves in front of me. Mercer curled over me protectively, and Conrad shielded us both. West’s gun went off, aiming for Benjamin’s shoulder.

I would have been terrified of the coming gunshot, but in those milliseconds of panic, I tuned in to his emotions again.

All he felt was smug. He knew he’d won, and in that instant I knew what he planned to do.

Benjamin’s hand didn’t shake as he pulled the trigger, despite the blood streaming from his upper arm.

I watched in sheer horror as the bullet tore through his own torso, the resounding boom of the gunshot echoing around the wide-open warehouse. Deep red blood spread rapidly through his clothing and dripped down onto the concrete floor, creating a puddle.

Benjamin laughed, and the gun clattered to the ground.

“See you on the other side, bitch.”

The pain hit me all at once.

It seared through every part of me. My bondmate’s pain mixed with his emotions, creating a cocktail of hatred and distress. I screamed, dropping to my knees and fighting to block out what I could.

It was no use.

Our bond was breaking. He was dying . I should have known better than to think he would ever let me live a happy life after him.

Through teary eyes, I watched as Benjamin collapsed, his laughter making him cough up blood. He’d killed himself to ruin me, but there was no regret in his emotions now—only his insanity. Only his smug superiority.

We hadn’t considered that he would go this far. Hadn’t been cautious enough.

West rushed over to Benjamin, stripping his shirt and pressing it over the wound. He let out a string of curses when it soaked through within seconds. Even alpha healing wouldn’t save my bondmate—we needed a hospital, and we were nowhere near one.

He was going to die.

And so was I.

Conrad crouched down in front of me, grabbing my chin and forcing me to look at him. “Calm down, princess. We can fix this.” His tone had a hint of desperation to it.

No one could fix it.

With my bonded mate dead, I would die too. It was almost a certainty.

At least I would have the loves of my life to watch over me in my final days. Or hours. I wasn’t sure how long my body would be able to hold on.

I collapsed into Conrad’s lap, devolving into a series of sobs and whimpers. Benjamin’s presence in my mind was fading rapidly, his vile, negative emotions leaving as he lost consciousness.

His pain remained.

Or was it my pain?

I couldn’t tell.

Whoever it belonged to, it tried to devour me whole. I buried myself against Conrad, taking comfort in his hand stroking my hair and his gentle words of reassurance. It helped until the final moment.

Benjamin’s last breath.

The fading bond finally snapped as he left the world.

I’d never experienced anything as visceral as the agony that overcame me in that moment. It was like I was dying too, like his pain all transferred to me and now I had to live with it. His fatal wounds were mine, but I didn’t have the gaping hole that would end it quickly.

My end would come slowly.

The world around me was hazy and dark, feeling like it only half existed. Conrad’s warmth tried to fight the cold spreading through my limbs, but it was no use.

I shivered and trembled, lost in the pain until I felt the press of something sharp at my wrist.

My vision cleared enough to know it was West, his lips parted over the delicate skin. He was poised to bite—to mark me and claim me like Benjamin had.

No. He can’t.

I tried to tug my wrist away, but he held fast. Watching me intently, he pressed his teeth down, almost breaking the skin.

“Don’t!” I croaked. “I’m dying.”

“This is the only chance for us to save you.” Conrad’s lips pressed against my neck, the opposite side from where Benjamin had left his unwanted bite.

“I’ll still die.”

This pain was too much for me to live through. Our original plan had hinged on them being my pack before my bondmate died—it wouldn’t work this way.

If they bonded me and I died anyway, they would all know the pain of losing a mate. I didn’t want to put them through it.

“You’re ours.” Mercer pressed his lips to my shoulder, the same side as Benjamin’s mark but further down. “Our scent match. Now and always. If we can’t save you, I’ll gladly accept the pain.”

Scent… match?

No, that wasn’t true.

Benjamin had been…

But he was dead.

I inhaled deeply. The first scent that hit me was the coppery smell of blood, the stale aroma of cucumber and moss. Then, three comforting, familiar scents. Autumn leaves, sandalwood and brown sugar, wool and smoke.

All stronger than they’d ever been before.

All with a hint of cranberries and roses.

All mine.

I sobbed. “You still can’t?—”

West’s teeth sank into my wrist before I could finish the denial. A new bond burst into life, bright and hopeful. Conrad bit me next, and I felt his connection like a flow of fresh air through me. Mercer was last, his bond grounding and stabilizing me.

The pain of my broken bond flowed through me to them. My pain became shared, and they didn’t so much as flinch.

“Will you claim us too, sweetheart?” Mercer asked. “Without complete bonds, you might not have a chance.”

If it had been anyone else, I would have hesitated. Benjamin had used our bond to hurt me. He’d died to kill me with it, and giving another alpha that power… was terrifying.

But my pack weren’t just my scent matches. They were risking a life with broken bonds to save me when we had no clue if it would work.

I would give myself the best chance to live through this.

For myself… and for them.

Reaching up with a trembling hand, I pulled Mercer’s head down to mine. I pressed a kiss to his cheek, then trailed my lips to his neck. I bit down, and the bond strengthened, the threads connecting us becoming a thick rope.

He kissed my cheek before pulling away, guiding me toward Conrad next. A blanket of autumn leaves laid over me as he eagerly bared his throat.

I would have laughed at his eagerness if we’d been in any other situation. Instead, I managed a smile, biting down as Conrad growled.

“Fuck, it’s a good thing that guy is dead, because I would have killed him for all the pain he made you feel,” he gritted out.

My bond with him flourished too, his love and protectiveness flooding me and stealing more of my pain. Even without all three bonds completed, I almost felt free.

It didn’t make any sense. My bondmate was dead.

Replacement bonds shouldn’t fix the pain of that broken connection—but they were. The new ones were patching the old, broken one and making it something new. A blocked off path that no longer connected me to the man who’d forced it on me.

“West, come here,” I whispered.

He hesitantly came closer, lifting a hand to caress my cheek.

“Talia, I…”

“Let me claim you too.”

Leaning further forward, he tilted his head to the side. For all his previous doubts about whether we could be good together, he would do anything to have a chance to love me for longer. Even put himself at risk of another heartbreak, when we all knew another one would end him.

I kissed his neck before I bit down to lay my mark on him, and he gasped.

The three completed bonds overtook the original one almost entirely. They’d staunched the incoming flow of pain, sharing in the agony I’d already been feeling, lessening its burden.

Where all hope had been lost, now I had everything.