“Nico,” Elio began but our youngest pack member just shook his head.
“Not right now Elio, let me enjoy this a little longer before you read me a riot act.”
Elio sighed but didn’t argue. Instead, he clapped Nico on the back and led him toward the kitchen. “You want a beer?”
I didn’t hear Nico’s answer as they rounded the corner.
Suddenly, I was alone again, my half-written email still in front of me and no desire to finish it.
Saving it as a draft, I laid my head back against the high back of the sofa I was sitting in and closed my eyes.
Things were growing more complicated as Cini assimilated into the core of our pack. With each new bond she formed, the chances of us being hurt grew.
If we went back after this vacation and she was pregnant, then Amante would hide her away in the estate. There was no feasible way the man would let us stay with her even if most doctors agreed that an omega’s pregnancy had a higher chance of being healthy if their alphas were around her.
But I could already hear him telling us that Ciniwasn’tan omega. Not legally anyway.
Then there were the issues with our original plan to push Amante out. After spending the past five years gathering our allies, most had gone underground the moment Amante showed just how vile he was by paying to have his daughter experimented on.
They were slowly starting to resurface now that we had married the person who was essentially Amante’s heir, but it wasn’t fast enough for my liking.
Edison Keane was our only viable option for help now and he was still dealing with the fallout from the attempted coup in his own camp.
He was still hiding out in our headquarters, constantly making phone calls and meeting on secure video calls with his people, but every single time I tried to get him to commit to a timeline of when he would be in control again he grew cagey.
You’re a fixer, Ranieri,The memory of Alesso’s voice floated through my mind to one of our last conversations.
It had been the morning of Cini’s eighteenth birthday and we’d spent the night in some hotel on the outskirts of the city.
I’d been getting dressed and trying to figure out the logistics of the run we were supposed to do that night while he was still lazily lounging on the bed.
I wasn’t comfortable with the location that the Russians had chosen and I didn’t like that they had limited how many people we could bring to the drop either.
Alesso had yanked me back down midway through the buttoning up of my shirt and I had gone reluctantly, my brain moving a million miles a minute trying to figure out the best way to go about the meeting that night.
I had just needed to get through one more day and then I would have flown out the next day, leaving everything behind, everything including him.
If Alesso had known about my plans to leave our life of crime behind, he never said anything.
And now here I was, six years later and stuck in the same place. Except this time there was no plane ticket at the end of this and I was still coming to terms with that fact.
The gold band on my finger had been my choice. The guys had given me an out the day before the wedding and I had refused them.
It was the least I could do for Alesso… or at least that was what I kept telling myself.
A creaking noise brought me out of my thoughts and when I opened my eyes I found Cini standing in the doorway, her eyes on me.
She was dressed in a matching pink pajama set with a thick cardigan over it, the shorts riding up high on her thighs which looked sunkissed after a day out on a boat.
I waved to her and was surprised when she came to sit down next to me. I thought for sure she would join Elio and Nico in the kitchen.
At some point Cini had showered, her blonde hair still damp and smelling of the vanilla shampoo in the shower. Even still, I could smell Elio and Nico’s distinct scents intermingled with her own—proof that they had bonded fully.
Cini pointed to my laptop, a question on her face.
‘Work,’I signed, showing her the tab with all of the pack’s stocks on it.
She scrunched her nose delicately, clearly not impressed by the percentages and numbers she saw.
