Page 90 of Running on Empty

“Seb Murphy,” the tallest one said, thrusting out his hand. Ash shook it, then so did Jax and Ronan, introductions made before he turned to me. “And this is your omega.”

I bristled when this Seb stared at me, three other men who had to be his brothers clustering around him, each doing their own inspection. I knew what they were doing, what they were looking for, and when their eyes dropped to the almost gone bruises around my wrists, I shoved one hand behind my back before offering the other for them to shake.

“Stevie Turner,” I replied in clipped tones, because they would either see me for who and what I was, or they’d just see the other thing. Victim, abused, hurt, rap— I shook my head and waited for their response. The four of them smiled slowly, the reactions almost instantaneous until another woman bustled over.

Omega.

I wanted to step back from her, get away, that electrical, teeth set on edge, feeling rising, but then falling away again, especially when she shot the four of them a dark look.

“Charlie York,” she said, her voice so soft and warm it felt like a hot bath you could drop down into. “I’m their mate and a registered psychologist. With your permission I’d like to attend this… rescue mission. I’m well versed in trauma informed practice and Scarlett…” When she swallowed hard, one of the guys’ arms went around her, tugging her closer, even as she looked momentarily flustered by that. “I think I’ll be useful when you retrieve her from these…” She smiled slightly. “Fucking bastards.”

“Well, I’m sold,” I said, right as her pack and mine sighed.

“We could set you up in the nearby town and—” a man with bright green eyes said.

“No.” Her reply was firm but business-like.

“You could create a little consulting office in the hotel room—” a blond haired man said.

“No.” She frowned as the four of them sucked in another breath. “You know how it's going to be, so arguing is just a waste of time.”

“Pretty sure this is why I don’t take my omega on missions,” another man said, slapping Seb and his brothers on the shoulders.

“More like yours is relieved not to see your ugly mug for just one day,” the blond haired man snarked. “This is Knackers—”

“Corporal Billy Wilson,” the man said, holding out a hand. “Now, we don’t get out to play very often anymore. Last time was when someone took these fuckheads’ omega from them.” He grinned as the four of them bristled. “Now, I can see yours is here, so what’s the objective?”

Chapter53

These hard men with easy smiles, they weren’t the only ones to get off the plane. A man in a very sharp suit strode off the plane and made a beeline for us, two other men in tow. “Tobias Lockwood.” He didn’t offer his hand, seeming preoccupied with the map of the estate that Ash had spread out across the bonnet of one of the cars and then frowned. “Needless to say, if there’s anything you need, anything, you just let us know. There isn’t much we wouldn’t be prepared to buy to get Scarlett back in one piece.”

“Offer to buy a helicopter,” a tinny woman’s voice came down a phone line. “Surely that would be helpful.”

“Yes, darling, I’ll mention it,” a fair haired alpha named Beau said to the woman on his phone screen. Evidently they’d been able to talk their omega into staying home with one of her mates, but only if they promised to live stream everything. “Would a helicopter be useful to you?”

“Noisy fucking things,” Knackers said with a shake of his head. “So by the look of this you’re going to deploy the bulk of your troops down at the gates.” He circled the area in question on the map. “While we help you slip over the wall and into the house via these contacts of yours?”

“You’re opting to come in with us?” Ash’s voice was tight, something that had Knackers and the other packs smiling.

“As much as we like the idea of rattling this fuck’s front gate—” Seb started to say.

“Is that where you’d be safest?” Charlie asked with a small frown. “Perhaps that would be the best plan.”

“It’ll be melted through with thermite grenades,” Ronan added helpfully.

“Thermite?” Seb’s eyes narrowed. “How did you…?” He shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. You’ll need back up going over the wall. You reckon you’ve got some friendlies at the door who’ll escort you inside, but you don’t actually know that.”

“I kinda hope they’re not,” Ronan said, running his finger along the blade of the knife in his hand. Several of the men smiled wolfishly at that, their eyes flashing silver.

“And if they’re not, you’ll need some people at your back. Fucks like that are dumb enough to send most of their trusted men to the gate in a panic, but any guard worth his salt will ensure some people who are loyal to this Jack fuck stay behind,” Seb said and that’s when his brothers and friends smiled. “We can help with that.”

“Do you need more of this thermite?” Tobias asked, frowning as he looked at the map. He wasn’t going anywhere near anything on it, but something in him couldn’t just step back and let the more qualified take over. “I have contacts in the military and—”

“The less we get the actual military involved, the better,” the pale eyed alpha named Archer said.

Tobias blinked and then nodded.

“While you stage the rescue mission, I’m working on cracking the Spencer network,” Tobias’ brother, Max, said. “We’re in, but working out the right section to focus on is proving harder than we thought. There’s a highly encrypted section of their network that seems to require four different cyphers to crack before you can get in. We’re guessing that’s where the information about Rush is being kept, so we’ll keep on it, but…” He looked up then from his laptop, as if seeing the lot of us for the first time. “If you can wring any intel from the Spencers—”

---