Page 3 of Hunt

“Another thing. The new Carbone alphas will fall in line like their fathers before them, or they will be eliminated.”

The line clicks off. He’s leaving no room for argument.

I don’t even give myself the time to stand around scratching my head. I just jump into action. Snatching the little black bag from the ground behind the stairs, I reach inside and grab the little black flip phone before racing back to the house.

Quietly and on nimble feet, I slink back through our small townhome, gritting my teeth the entire way back to mybedroom. I stop in the hallway near our laundry closet, opening it up to remove a comfortable black bra and a thick pair of socks from the dryer. Slipping the garments on, I crack my bedroom door open and tiptoe over to the bed before slipping on a pair of running shoes laying off to the side.

I’m wasting precious time as I stand here, staring down at Hector and Silas. Neither one of them has moved from the spots I’d left them in only a few moments ago.

My eyes rove over the plains of Hector’s tanned face. His mouth is relaxed in sleep—making him look more vulnerable than he lets anyone see during waking life. Rage flows through me, wondering how in the fuck someone managed to sneak in and sedate them without anyone noticing.

My fingers shake, clasping the traitorous phone tightly and I squat down to the ground. My hands slip between the mattress once again, this time planting the second phone where the last one previously hid. I hadn’t meant to keep the other one a secret for this long, but I knew the guys would disapprove of me contacting Mama in the first place.

I knew it was risky when I bought the thing. I knew I was placing all of us in jeopardy, but something inside of me could never cope with not knowing if Mama was okay. Just hearing her voice every few weeks had been enough to ground me in reality.

I don’t know what’s on this fucking phone, but I know it can’t mean anything good for me. Alessio doesn’t do anything without motive behind it, but right now I don’t have the luxury of investigating.

After placing it, I slowly lower the mattress back into place. I stay squatted to the ground, low enough that my face is now level with Silas’s, but his face is still buried in my pillow. He breathes steadily, and it takes all of my willpower not to reach out and run my fingers down his spine reverently.

With a shake of my head, I pull back and get back to my feet. Slinking out of my bedroom for the last time, I don't even bother looking back because it will just make this harder than it needs to be.

Despite my body tugging me towards the two closed doors at the end of the hall, I force myself to bypass Sam and Dante’s bedrooms. It would only break me more.

Alessio said I was allowed to bring personal items along with me, but for some reason I just can’t bear it. Everything that means anything to me in this world is back in those bedrooms, sleeping soundly without suspicion that they’re being betrayed right under their noses.

As I bypass the living room where we all made love only hours before, I almost become violently ill. But I shove that feeling down deep and make my way over to the safe in the dining room.

With a few clicks, it opens up for me to reach inside and grab my little hand gun—the one I’ve kept close since I was just a girl. It’s the only thing aside from the clothes on my back that I allow myself to take.

As I walk out the front door for the last time, I let hot tears trail down my cheeks. They’ll never forgive me for this. But as the lock clicks behind me, I know it’s for the best.

Securing my weapon in the waistband of my pants, I make my way out to my car on quiet feet, not looking back, not even for a second.

CHAPTER 2

SAM

I can’t findher anywhere. The gym we’ve been going to for the past three months every morning is filled with the usuals, but there’s no sign of Bella. Usually she goes straight for running track that circles the top of the weight room by now.

I’ve scoured the building without any sign of the blue-haired woman who drives me crazy in a way I’ve never known. For some reason I can’t explain, my heart speeds up in my chest and my stomach tightens with dread.

She could just be late. Count on Bella to get distracted, especially since she shares an house with four men. Men who gladly fuck her at every available opportunity. The alphas are insatiable, and even Silas can barely keep his hands off of her. She could have easily gotten caught up again in another shower with Hector or stuck lazing around in bed with Dante.

We’ve gotten into somewhat of a routine over the last few months since we fled. We’ve come all the way to Canada to escape the De Luca pack until the Carbone alphas can reorganize the pack and get everything in place. Hector and Silas have beenflying back in secret once a week and meeting with betas who are still loyal to them. I’d give it another month or so before we’re comfortable with going back and establishing order again.

I suppose that makes me part of the Carbone pack. My stomach curdles. I never thought of myself as a traitor. But I can’t go back to the De Lucas. Not after what we learned about Bella’s sister.

Jogging over to Donny, the gym manager, who’s standing over at the front desk looking through papers, I ask him if he’s seen Bella today, but he just says no, and that she never showed up for her session this morning. She’s been working as a personal trainer for a month now, teaching self-defense to teenage girls. It keeps her busy and her mind occupied.

Slipping from the stuffy room, I make my way to the locker rooms. Bella wouldn’t miss a session, especially without giving the girls notice first. She’d spoken to Hector about wanting to start her own gym someday when everything calmed down. In her head, she probably thought that training women in self-defense was some sort of way to cope with all the bad in her early life, but a part of me thinks she wanted it to relieve her own guilt. Not that I think she has anything to be guilty of.

Bella opened up to us that day three long months ago—the day before the world fell apart. She told us about how she was raped in De Luca pack house by one of their own men, and how her fifteen year old self was forced to handle it all alone like a grown woman well before she should have.

I still shudder when I picture what my girl had to go through. Despite the fact that the bastard had his brains blown out, I’d give almost anything to bring him back just to kill him again… this time slowly. Or maybe I’d leave that part to Hector. He always was the one with the darker nature.

Bella never told the alphas about her even darker past, though. The one I only know of because it was my job as herbodyguard to know. The guys have no idea that Bella was once a killer. A pack assassin trained to hunt down her father’s enemies and eliminate them. It was their compromise for not selling her off once she hit puberty. They thought her heat was latent, or even just delayed. They had no idea she’d orchestrated it herself with medications.

Bella is an unusually strong and capable omega. The De Luca alphas recognized that early on. She had the heart of an alpha female if I ever saw one.

---