Page 135 of Knot Here for You

“Ruin your pack, I think you mean,” Topher says, crossing his arms over his chest. “We’re going to be just fucking fine.”

His gaze moves to me, a hint of pleading in his eyes. “Think of your mother.”

I laugh. “Funny how you care about her now that you’re well on your way to losing everything you’ve built, when you’ve literally just admitted to never giving a shit about her.”

“Mom will be fine,” Jacks says. “We’re not complete monsters. She’ll just have to live in a slightly smaller house. I don’t think she’ll mind, actually. She never really liked that monstrosity you live in now.”

“You can’t do this.” Maxim’s voice is strained. “You can’t destroy everything.”

“We can and we will,” Ford says, sounding bored as hell. I can’t blame him. I’m done with this conversation, too. Done with him.

“We warned you what would happen if you didn’t leave Sylvie alone, Maxim,” I say, leaning against the island. I will never call him ‘dad,’ again. “You didn’t listen, and these are the consequences of your actions.”

His jaw tightens. “You think I don’t have contingencies in place? You think I don’t have ways of destroying you, destroying her?”

The growls that sound from all five of us, even Topher, are loud enough to drown out the rest of the threat. In a flash, Ford is across the room with his hand around my father’s throat, shoving him into the wall so hard the plaster cracks.

Maxim is the stronger alpha under normal circumstances, but not when my packmate is defending his omega. “You really want to threaten her, Maxim? My fucking omega?” He shakes the older man. Maxim’s face turns a deep shade of red as he bats against Ford.

Jackson carefully extracts Vee from his arms, handing her over to Topher and Asher, who both wrap her up with murmurs and kisses and soothing strokes of their hands. “You have a choice to make, Maxim,” Jacks says as he approaches Ford to stand at his shoulder, offering his support. “You can either come after us, after her, and we’ll take fucking everything you have. And I do mean everything. Your money. Your businesses. Your job. Your freedom. Your pack. We’ll take everything from you.”

Maxim’s mouth parts and he gasps out, “or?”

“Or you can leave us the fuck alone, crawl into a hole, and stay there. If we never see you again, we don’t have to take from you, the way you took from us, from Vee. Do you understand?”

Maxim’s head bobs in a grudging nod, and I expect Ford to let him go. But he doesn’t. Instead, his fingers tighten and he leans in close to the other man, getting in his face. “If I ever see you again, if you talk to Vee again, I will fucking kill you. Do you understand that, Maxim?”

He grunts out another sound of assent, and Ford finally releases him. The man I once thought of as my father drops to the ground gasping and heaving, his hand clutching at his throat as if that will help.

He lifts bloodshot eyes to me. “Davis.” He says my name like he thinks I’m the weak link here, that I will take his side against the woman who holds my entire fucking heart and soul, against my pack.

It doesn’t take much for me to turn my back on him, to move to the far side of the kitchen and pick up where I left off. The biscuits are done, but now I need to make the bacon and eggs to go on the sandwich for my mate.

“You can’t do this,” Maxim pleads. “Don’t do this. I’m your father.” He must be looking at Jackson now, but I don’t know for certain because I’m too busy laying out slices of bacon on a baking sheet.

“You’re a sperm donor at best,” my brother replies. There’s a scuffle and I glance over my shoulder to see Ford and Jackson pulling the older man to his feet. “It’s time for you to go.”

The last glimpse I have of one of the men I considered my father is of him being dragged from the room. Fuck. I hope I never see him again.

A small soft hand presses against my spine as I move to add bacon to a second sheet. There are a lot of us, and I need to make sure Vee eats enough. Her lips press into the space between my shoulder blades before she edges between me and the counter, blocking my view of the task at hand. Her fingers curl into my waist as she looks up at me with those pretty hazel eyes of hers, browns and greens and golds.

“Are you okay?” She asks quietly, stroking my skin.

I force a half smile and bend to kiss her lips, tasting Asher on her tongue. They must have distracted her with some post heat sex before they got up. “Of course, beautiful,” I murmur back.

My girls not buying it, though. “Davis. He’s your father.”

My jaw tightens at her chiding tone, and I want to deny her words. But I’m worried my tone will be too harsh, so I take a deep breath and kiss her again, keeping my bacon covered hands away from her.

She scowls up at me when I’m finished, and I sigh. “I think he gave up the right to be called our father the moment he decided to hurt you, to hurt us, for his revenge. For his broken heart. He wanted you to suffer because of your mother, and he didn’t care if we suffered too. That’s not the actions of a father, Vee.”

She leans into me, nuzzling her cheek into my chest, marking me with her honeyed nectarine scent. “No, it’s not,” she agrees, hugging me to her, her fingers stroking up and down my spine.

I drop my chin to the top of her head, returning her affection the only way I can. “I’m not sure he ever really loved us,” I whisper.

Her arms tighten, and then she pulls back to look up at me, hazel eyes shining. “I’ll give you whatever love you need, Davis. So much you won’t even…” She trails off and bites her lower lip, then shakes her head. “I can’t say you won’t miss him, but I’ll try to love you enough so it won’t hurt so much.”

Love pours from her into our bond, lighting up my chest. I groan and kiss her a little more intently than I had before, before I pull back. “Fuck, beautiful. Not fair for you to do that when I’m all covered in bacon juice and I can’t touch you.”

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