Page 26 of Knot Playing Fair 2

“No,” I said quickly, the feeling of having plummeted into my own personal lake of fire increasing. “That’s... pretty accurate, actually. And the quip about the kitchen was a really stupid thing to say.”

Mia tilted her head, looking me up and down. “For what it’s worth, the kitchenwasa definite selling point. Everyone, meet Nat. Nat, this is Zalen, that’s Luca, that’s Emiel, and the one with the mouth on him is Byron. Oh. And the cat is Princess.”

A gray cat seated unhygienically on the end of the kitchen counter paused briefly in licking her front paw to give me a baleful look, then went immediately back to grooming herself.

“Hello,” I said. “Thanks for agreeing to meet with me like this.”

In addition to Mia, Byron, Zalen, and the guy who’d brought Mia down to see me when she was in heat, there was also the same beautiful, slender male omega who’d been sitting with Zalen in the singles bar on that first, fateful night. I wasn’t completely oblivious—I knew he and Mia had struck up a friendship fairly early on in their acquaintance.

I didn’t understand the dynamic going on here, though. Had he really been okay with another omega coming into his pack like this? Was he okay with the fact that at least two of these alphas had fucked Mia through her heat?

The tiny voice of rationality and good sense that lived in the back of my head whispered,this is none of your goddamned business, you idiot. For once, I heard it loud and clear.

“Mia filled us in on what’s been happening,” Zalen was saying. “To say that what she told us is alarming would be an understatement.”

The other omega, Luca, looked sick to his stomach. As Zalen spoke, he hunched in on himself further, as though trying to disappear inside his barstool.

“Agreed,” I said, determined not to dig my own hole any deeper. “The problem is, I don’t see what we can do about it in the absence of solid proof.”

“Mia said you had surveillance video from the restaurant?” Zalen asked.

“Yes,” I said. “And I already fired the kid who planted the roaches in the dining room. But we’re talking grainy, low-quality footage, and it’s not like the container he dumped had a big label on it marked ‘roaches.’”

“Nat already filed a police report about that part of it,” Mia added. “The detective that took the report told him it would probably have to be a civil suit rather than a criminal complaint. Disgruntled employee, no concrete proof of wrongdoing,blah, blah, blah.”

I nodded grimly. “I assume it’s going to be even worse if we go back to them with a crazy story about gangland conspiracies and money laundering.”

“And still with no proof,” Mia finished.

“I expect so, yes,” Byron said, his expression completely deadpan. “The police mostly don’t know their own asses from a hole in the ground.”

The dark-haired omega—Luca—spoke quietly, without looking up. “Maybe you should just cut your losses. Open up another restaurant someplace else.”

Mia inhaled sharply.

Bloodshot green eyes rose to meet hers, though Luca still avoided the gazes of everyone else in the room. “I’m serious, Mia. A restaurant isn’t worth your safety.”

“Why should they be able to trample all over anything they want?” Mia shot back. “Luca—that restaurant is mylife. I’m not going to sit by and do nothing while someone tries to destroy everything we’ve worked for!”

Luca flinched visibly, but he didn’t back down. “You don’t know what they’re capable of,” he said—and just like that, it became obvious who it was that had personal experience with Joe’s gang.

Mia drew breath to argue. I recognized that stubborn look all too well. But the pair of them locked eyes for a long moment, and rather than speak, she let the air flow out of her lungs in a silent sigh. Her shoulders sagged.

“What about the other people they’ll go on to harass in the future?” she asked. “What about the next restaurant that opens in that building?”

“I don’t care about those hypothetical other people,” Luca said tightly. “I only care that you stay as far away from SSG as it’s possible to get.”

With that, he pushed off his stool and slunk out of the room, not meeting my eyes as he passed me. Mia watched him go with an expression of distress, but she didn’t try to follow him. To my surprise, she turned a pleading look toward the massive bruiser with the shaved head, who was leaning unobtrusively against a wall.

“Emiel?” she said.

Emiel grunted, straightening from his casual slouch. “Yeah, I’ll go after him.” He scooped up the cat who’d been sitting nearby, the animal immediately curling into his arms and starting to purr. Since arriving, I’d had the distinct impression that staring at him openly wouldn’t be good for my short-term health. But as he followed the distraught omega out of the kitchen, I thought I saw the faded remnants of bruising along the side of his face.

File this under ‘things I was probably happier not knowing about.’

I cleared my throat. “I’m not sure tucking tail and running is a financially viable plan for us. Even if it was an emotionally palatable one.”

“No, I understand,” Zalen said. “For what it’s worth, I did a bit of digging, and RICO cases in St. Louis are handled by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Eastern District of Missouri. It’s possible that tackling the potential money-laundering case might have a better chance of success than trying to tie SSG to attempts to sabotage your restaurant...”

---