Page 10 of Going Down Smooth: Part One

“How about you go and chase after your defective Omega and not worry about how I take care of what’s mine. Oh right, she’s not your Omega, and knowing Mercy she will probably reject your asses again. I guess that makes you all defective Alphas. No wonder you’ve not found a mate yet. Embarrassing.” Derrick spits blood onto the carpet but backs away as Lox growls low in his throat. Chasson steps in front of Derrick, willing to take the punishment for his lead Alpha but Lox chuckles instead. The kind of chuckle filled with the promise of a later ass whooping.

“I’ll let you have that one, Derrick, because I can see as clear as day who the real rejects are in this room.” Lox turns his back on the three of them. The ultimate disrespect in our culture, almost daring them to come for him. But they don’t move as we leave the room.

“I’ve never liked them. Entitled rich bastards,” Trey says as we rush after Knight, who’s practically running through the house.

I jog to catch up, wondering what’s spurred him on all of a sudden but it’s Trey who stops him in his tracks.

“Knight, were you going to keep us in the dark about your prior knowledge of the will? Or were you going to pretend that none of us noticed your guilt?” Trey’s anger stops Knight in his tracks. Trey is usually slow to anger, he’s more contemplative in his approach to confrontations, so the fact that he is calling Knight out right here, right now, shows he is pissed. Knight hangs his head as Lox hisses behind us.

“Knight Biggs, tell me you did not know about this.” Lox walks slowly toward Knight, who immediately stands taller despite the dismay of being caught out. I knew he wasn’t responding the way he should have back there. Trey never misses anything. He knows all of our tells, especially Mercy’s.

We all crowd around my brother, our bond flooded with feelings of betrayal and outrage. Knight is the leader of our pack, not necessarily because he is the strongest, but he is usually the more level-headed of us. I look at him now like he’s a stranger. I can’t believe he would keep this from us.

“I’ve known for six months,” he replies. “But there’s more to the story.”

Well damn. If Mercy finds out she will think we set this up, and it will be hard to convince her otherwise.

I rub my hands down my face and offer my brother a hard stare. “Then we go find her and you tell her everything. Whatever is going to happen here today needs to begin with the truth.”

SIX

KNIGHT

6 MONTHS AGO

Idon’t know how long it’s been since I’ve been to Mercy’s parents packhouse. Three or four years, I can’t recall. Honestly, I’ve done my best to keep me and my brothers as far away from this place as possible. I don’t want to think about the hurt in their eyes, the rejection we all felt. And the fact that in the end, I commanded her to stay away with the force of my Alpha bark. It was unforgiveable and I know it, but I was so angry. Mercy didn’t try to hear us out, she had already made up her mind.

Nope.Not today, Knight. I can’t go over that day over and over again looking for clues, for signs that she would run, and they were right there in our faces. We thought our friendship was all the reassurance she needed. We weren’t just any Alphas, we were hers.

“It wasn’t enough,” I say to myself as I round the circular drive and park beside the horse fountain. I look at the gaudy thing and shake my head. I guess when you have money pouring out your ass like Benjamin Smooth, you can afford unnecessary extravagances like a massive horse water fountain that spouts water three-sixty-five. I think I’ve seen the thing frozen in mid-spit in winter.

Before I can climb out of the SUV, the front double doors to the estate home fly open to reveal a smiling, excited Seneca Smooth. Mercy is almost a carbon copy of her mother, sans personality of course, that’s all Benjamin. You don’t need to wonder who her biological father was. I think Mercy was born spitting bullets.

“Knight Biggs, where have you been, boy? Get on in here.”

Seneca holds her hands out to me as I climb the limestone steps and I have to bend to gather her in my arms. My throat tightens for the woman who took Nate and me in when we lost our parents. With no family left to claim us, we were left with a huge inheritance we couldn’t touch until I was eighteen and an empty tomb of a house. The Smooth pack took us in, and for five years Nate and I stayed with Mercy and her family. They had become our family, until the day of our mating ceremony. After it I just couldn’t stomach coming around. I can’t explain it really, but I felt in the moment like I failed. Failed my pack, well, Mercy’s pack. She chose us. But I still felt like I let them down, and in turn I let her family down as well.

“Hey, Momma Seneca. I’m sorry we’ve stayed away. It’s hard, you know.” I place her back on her feet and she pulls away to look into my eyes. She studies me for a second, searching for something. What exactly? I don’t know. My sadness, my pain, my loss, I’m not sure. But she finally pats my cheek and grabs my hand to pull me into the house. She seems smaller now. Her almond shaped brown eyes and beautiful heart-shaped face, so much like Mercy’s, my heart clenches from the reminder. Golden brown skin, her laugh lines now have tiny wrinkles in the corner of her mouth and eyes, the only indication of her age. Seneca Smooth hasn’t really changed. She moves through the house so swiftly, her navy-blue maxi dress swishes around her ankles, her perfectly manicured bare feet slap against the tile floor. I can’t help but smile. Nope, hasn’t changed a bit.

“I have a feeling in my gut, Knight Biggs. You give her a little more time and she will see the error of her ways,” she says with so much conviction that my stomach twists in knots from the hope her words hold. I can’t muster a reply, so I keep my mouth closed. My inability to communicate my feelings is telling but she doesn’t call me out about it.

I follow her through the maze of hallways and familiar rooms that made up part of my childhood. The memories of many games of hide and seek, both inside and outside of this place hit me. The secrets kept amongst children, the promises made, and the failure to keep those promises falls upon my shoulders like a weighted blanket, minus the calming effect. It feels like the walls are closing in on me as I struggle to breathe. Even after all these years the memories of Mercy are everywhere I turn; traces of her scent linger in the air, the sounds of her roaring laughter, and her sweet, whispered promises long forgotten. I know it’s not real, impossible, just my own overactive imagination.

Seneca brings me to the kitchen where she promptly gets back to what looks like fresh pasta. My stomach has a mind of its own as it growls loudly, echoing around the room. The large island standing between us is littered with flour, eggs, a pasta roller, and other ingredients. I can only guess this is for her famous shrimp alfredo that we all used to scramble over each other to get to.

The rest of the kitchen has had a bit of an upgrade, grey, cream and black marble countertops, modern appliances and a huge refrigerator with glass doors are the newest additions. I turn to sit at the nook in the corner, the old circular wooden table still sits in the corner where we all sat for breakfast before rushing off to school. As I take all of it in, the old and the new, it is all too much.

“You can stay for dinner if you want. It’s just Edward, Christopher, and Benjamin now that Grace has found her pack.” Her smile is hopeful with a touch of sadness for her empty nest. As tempting as the food alone is, I have to work tonight.

When I don’t reply she smiles softly and nods in understanding, making my heart ache for her. It must be hard to go from a house full of children to take care of, to empty silence.

“I really miss you all. I haven’t seen Nate, Trey, or Lox for a very long time. But I hear great things about the bar you all opened up on the other side of town.” She smiles proudly as she cracks eggs into the middle of the mound of flour on the counter. She begins to mix it all slowly as she continues to speak. “What’s the name again?” She raises her eyebrow, a hint of playfulness in her knowing smile. Of course, she knows the name.

Stuffing my hands in my jeans pockets I shrug as if it means nothing. Although, the name means everything. “M. Bar,” I say confidently with a wistful smile. It had taken us days to figure out a name. We even rock, paper, scissored for it until we finally decided on M. Bar. Mercy’s Bar really, but our customers didn’t need to know our meaning. It wasn’t the future we wanted but we were determined to make the most of our circumstances.

Nate and I had money to burn once we had access to it and we decided to go into business together. Trey was our star attraction and Lox ran the bar. Nate and I handled everything else. It is a place for all designations to party and gather, Alphas, Betas, and Omegas. We have strict rules in place to protect Omegas of course, although they rarely come through the door unless flanked by their pack. Omegas generally don’t like crowds, but I think that has everything to do with our culture and what’s been instilled in them. The fear of being taken, abused, or forced into bonding ceremonies unwillingly. Yes, that was the past, hell, it still happens if you follow the news. But times are changing, and we want our bar to reflect that. Had Mercy been here, I’m sure it would have been an idea she would have jumped at.

“She would be proud of you, all of you.” She sighs. “I just wish she had trusted the bond you already had with her. Omega or not.” She shakes her head and goes back to kneading the ball of dough in her hands.

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