I exchanged a helpless glance with Tony.
He found his words first.
“That’s the thing, though. People like Lorenzo Vozzina don’t ever pay for the stuff they do. Not as long as they only hurt the victims that no one in power cares about.”
That was exactly it.
I licked my lips. “I learned way too young that what happens to people like me doesn’t matter.”
“It fuckingdoes,” Heath said. His presence snapped angrily inside the bond, like flames licking at dry wood.
“It does toyou,” I shot back. “But you are literally the first people I’ve ever met who were actuallydoingsomething about it, even though it put you at risk.”
Tony huffed out a breath. “They’re the third people I’ve met. The first was a pack in St. Louis who helped me get out from under my stepfather’s boot.Youwere the second, Jez.”
I paused, my jaw clicking shut as I remembered the resoundingcrackof a heavy lamp base slamming into bone.
“And this pack was the third,” Tony added. “But it’s different, seeing society forced to deal with someone like Vozzina publicly.That’sthe part that doesn’t seem real.”
Knox’s voice and expression softened. “The Vozzinas are about to experience just howrealthings can get. It’s wrong that neither of you got the help you needed, back when you really needed it. It’swrong, and to the extent that it’s within my power, I’m not going to let it stand.”
“We’ve been chipping away at the edges of this shit,” Gage said. “Doing damage control... sticking our thumbs in the dike, trying to plug up the holes. Maybe it’s time to drain the floodwaters instead.”
Knox raised an eyebrow. “Tortured metaphors aside, you should both know up front that the court cases are likely to drag on for ages. Dockets, appeals, more appeals... there won’t be instant justice. But with everything I’ve put in motion, there isn’t going to be any bond set for these assholes. The Vozzina pack isbehind bars, and they’ll stay that way while the wheels of justice grind onward.”
“So, we’re safe now?” I hadn’t meant to ask the question aloud. But I’dneverbeen safe. Not being safe was, quite possibly, the defining characteristic of my entire life to date.
Heath and Gage exchanged a glance, twin waves of protectiveness washing across our connection. Heath crossed the room and wrapped me in his arms. Then he gestured with one for Tony to join us in a three-way hug.
Gage grumbled, “Argh. These fucking bones can’t knit fast enough. Give ’em an extra squeeze for me, Heath.”
“Jez—you and Tony are members of my pack,” Knox said, from his perch against a heavy side table. “Any danger that comes for you has to go through all three of us first.”
I felt Tony tremble in reaction to the words... or maybe that was me.
“And there’s a lot fewer dangers for us now, with these sadistic shitheads locked up in the slammer,” Gage said with finality.
Tony let out an unsteady breath and eased away from Heath’s hold.
“In that case, do you think we could arrange an overnight trip to St. Louis, one of these days?” he asked. “There are some people back home that I’d really like you all to meet.”
I’d heard a lot from Tony about the pack in St. Louis that had helped him when he was a kid. I wanted to meet them, but I was also super-nervous about it. Not a surprise to anyone, since I didn’t exactly have a lot of experience being invited to nice places where I was expected to make polite small talk with respectable people that I was trying to impress.
For better or worse, it ended up taking several more weeks before Knox was willing to consider traveling away from the safety of the gated community where we were staying. This was good in one way, because it meant that Gage was out of his leg cast and sling, although he was still using a cane and doing PT exercises several times a day.
However, it was also nerve-wracking, because the main reason Knox kept putting off the trip was because the police and FBI were still tracking down more people connected with Lorenzo Vozzina’s operation.
An abundance of caution, he called it.
Even Knox seemed taken aback by howhugethe investigation had grown.
“I thought we were tackling one asshole and his minions, trafficking omegas through Chicago as a side hustle,” he muttered, after yet another call with his team of high-paid lawyers. “But this fucker has been running the largest operation in the Midwest, with ties to Mexico and Canada as well.”
My heart skipped a beat.
“Canada?” I asked in a choked voice.
He put his phone down, giving me his full attention. The two of us were alone in the kitchen—him with a cup of coffee, me with a late breakfast since I’d overslept for the third day in a row. I’d been exhausted and cranky for the past few days, and this new revelation wasn’t helping.
