“Can we please get out of here?” I said quietly against his throat, “It smells like rotten meat.”
Leon gave a grunt of assent and turned, taking me out of my nest which had previously been my safe haven. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to sleep in it again.
“Owen, grab the door for me.” Leon said over my head and Owen hurried to pull my bedroom door open.
“Where are we going?” I asked as we climbed the flight of stairs at the end of the hallway. Ric had told me that it was the attic when he was giving me the tour on my first day here. I hadn’t paid it any mind over the past three weeks and regretted it as we climbed the stairs. The door at the top was directly above the stairs and looked more like a trap-door than anything.
Owen pushed the door open and turned to look at us, looking a little bit sheepish, “Gage has been working on this for the past two weeks. Ric and I have been helping too but Gage did the lion’s share of the work.”
Owen clambered up into the attic and Leon lifted me and put me just inside and hurried to climb in after me. My knees landed on a soft cushion and Gage’s pine needle scent curled around me. The attic was maybe eight feet by ten feet with a large circular window on one wall looking out into the bay area. The floor was completely covered with thick mattress pads in my favorite colors, blues and greens. Sheer curtains were hanging from the exposed wood rafters and dimmed fairy lights had been entwined through them giving the room a soft glow. There were more blankets and pillows in the room than I knew what to do with.
“Is this…?” My voice was a little bit choked up as I looked from one corner of the room to the other.
“A nest.” Owen confirmed as he pulled me further into the nest. “Gage wanted you to have a space in the house—we’d planned to give it to you next week but figured now was as good a time as any.
I turned to look at Leon who was looking around the nest with a clenched jaw and a faraway look.
“Are you okay with this?” I was still touching him, afraid that if I moved too far away the panic would set back in and send me spiraling.
The faraway look in Leon’s eyes disappeared with a blink and looked at me. There was no more of the vitriol that his eyes had contained when I came to live at the Russo house three weeks ago. There was simply a resignation that worried me.
“Honestly? Someone attacked you in my home. If you wanted us to bulldoze the entire place and rebuild it I would.” His words surprised me. I did not know how to unpack all of that and quite frankly I was so exhausted that I decided that that was a problem for tomorrow. I gave a great yawn and stretched my back, the comforting scent of pine needles, campfires and the faintest scent of vanilla were making me drowsy.
“Will you stay with me?” Leon looked like he’d rather do anything else but stay but he settled in next to me in one corner of the nest, pulling a down comforter over both of us. I looked over at Owen who didn’t seem to know what to do, “You too?”
Owen flopped down in front of me and drew me into his chest. With Leon behind me and Owen in front of me I finally felt completely safe for the first time since I’d awoken.
“Thank you,” I murmured, “For the nest and for coming to help me.”
We lay quietly for a while and a rumble came from behind me, it washed over my skin and worked out the kinks of tension still inside of my body. I realized with a little start that Leon was purring for me. I’d never heard an alpha’s purr before—neither Ric nor Gage had ever done it around me and I’d never been around alphas before I perfumed. I was so afraid to point it out for fear that he’d stop that I just snuggled closer to Owen who was already lightly snoring and let the purr wash over me and lull me off to sleep.
19
“Please, no more.” The man tied to a hard metal chair in front of me begged as I used a clean white towel to wipe down my serrated blade. It’d been three hours since I’d brought him into this windowless room in the basement of the Russo building. We hardly ever used these rooms anymore, since Russo Enterprises had gone legit. But of course they were still useful from time to time.
Growing up as a member of Santini Russo’s crime family I was familiar with rooms like these. I had learned, early on, that making myself useful was the easiest way to be able to stay with Leon. I had risen through the ranks quickly and easily, leaving my father’s chop shop behind and becoming Leon’s consigliere and had stayed that way all the way until Leon had taken the Russo family businesses and turned them legit. But old habits die hard.
“If you don’t want me to do anymore then you will need to tell me why the hell you were in my omega’s room and who sent you.” I put the serrated knife down on the metal tray that I had wheeled next to the man. Over the past three hours I had gone through various knives and other instruments that rarely ever saw the light of day anymore. The man hadn’t broken, which told me that he was probably a part of some other crime family. They trained their soldiers from a young age not to give out any information.
Frustration and anger were sitting in the pit of my stomach. My instincts were telling me that I needed to eliminate him—to eliminate the threat to Eloise.
Gurgles of pain were the only thing that I received as an answer from the man and I quickly selected a short, slender blade from the tray. “Fine. Suit yourself.”
I slammed the blade into the top of the man’s thigh, his screams of agony bouncing off of the soundproof concrete walls of the room until they cuff off abruptly. He had passed out.
I wasn’t going to get any more information out of him for a while. Wiping my hands on the towel I stepped into the hallway. Dominic was leaning against one of the walls looking a little green, Levvy and Hendrickson were standing on either side of the door, expressionless. They had both grown up in the Russo family with me and now functioned as my security associates in the building. This was nothing new to them.
“Strip him and look for any tattoos. I have a feeling he’s Russian.” About halfway through my interrogation he called out to someone in a different language that sounded Russian. But it could also have been Ukrainian or some other slavic language.
“What the fuck do the Russians want with us? We’ve had no dealings with crime families for almost seven years now.” Levvy looked a bit disgruntled by the idea of being involved in anything relating to our past as criminals. He had a wife and baby on the way now and I knew he was protective over them.
“I don’t know but I intend to find out,” I glanced at Dominic who was looking queasy, “You good Dubois?”
“Who, me?” The Frenchman asked, “Of course I’m ok. Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Because you look like you’re about to hurl.” Hendrickson clapped Dominic on the shoulder as he and Levvy turned to head into the room where I’d left our prisoner.
“Let’s head back to the house. I want to check on Eloise.” We stepped into the elevator and I decided to address the elephant in the room, err the elevator.
