Page 45 of Breaking the Alpha
“No, you fucking won’t,” River growled.“You’ll beat them to their knees then pass them to me.Once I boot-fuck them to the ground, Grey can take a round out of them.And then we’ll hand them over to Winter to finish them off since he’s already serving time.”Angelina’s fingers grazed the back of his neck and slipped under the collar of his shirt to trail along his tattoos.He snapped out of the all-consuming rage building in his head as her soothing presence brought him down.“So what do we do now?”
Birch stood at the door and stared through the glass.“We do what they want us to do.”
Chapter Eighteen
River sat onthe edge of his bed in the dark, his fingers digging into the mattress as he struggled to get his ragged breathing under control.Angelina stirred beside him, her hand reaching toward him until it made contact with his bandaged thigh.
“River?”
“Shhhh,” he murmured, brushing her hair off her face.“Back to sleep, Angel.”
In the faint moonlight slipping into his bedroom, he saw her face scrunch up for a moment before her eyes blinked open and she sat up, groggy and disoriented.“Is it time for your meds?Did my alarm go off?”
“Not yet,” he whispered, the tension in his body draining a fraction with the sound of her voice.“Lay back down and I promise I’ll wake you up if I need you.”
She shook her head and wrapped her arms loosely around his neck.“You need me now.”Her lips grazed his shoulder before she relaxed into him.“Is it Grey, the room, or the deal?”
Her breathing was quiet and steady, the stable thumping of her heart giving him something outside of his own head to focus on.He snaked his arms around her to keep her tightly against him.“All of it,” he murmured as he buried his face in her hair.“It’s been three nights.Grey’s never been away from his home for this long.I know he’s twenty-three and it’s probably the stupidest thing to be thinking about given everything, but I can’t shake it.”
Squeezing his eyes shut for a moment, he exhaled.“And yeah, I hate being here.I hate being in this house.I hate being in this room.I hate that I can’t sleep because it’s too dark in here and I hate the fact that I keep remembering those three years that Birch was gone and Grey had a permanent mattress on the floor—right there.”
Her fingers skimmed along his spine before she adjusted her position and linked her hands around him, staying silent.
“And what am I supposed to say about this deal?”he said in a hush, glancing at his closed door and wondering if Birch was lying awake wondering the same thing.“Using Serpent’s Tongue as a transfer port for the drugs these guys want to move is risky as hell, no matter how many contracts we sign with the lawyers.I know the Feds want to take down the guys at top, but I’m not a fucking dealer.Neither is Birch.How long until one of us screws up and some kingpin comes gunning for us?Or there’s some mix-up at headquarters and the Feds take one or both of us down?I know Birch is pushing to keep me out of it, but there’s no way in hell I’m letting him do this alone.”
Angelina’s phone played a high, trilling song and she extricated herself from his hold.Reaching over to the nightstand, she used her cell light to read the pill bottles.“Two of these,” she said, handing him the first dose along with a bottle of lukewarm water.“And these.Don’t forget your inhaler.”
Choking down the medications he moved on to the puffer, coughing when the steroid aerosol hit his lungs.By the time he got his breathing back under control, there was a knock at his door.
“Everything okay?”Birch called from outside the door.
“He’s good,” Angelina replied, rubbing his shoulders until he lay back down beside her.
River could hear his brother retreat to his own bedroom, noting the absence of the door closing.“This must be killing him,” he murmured as Angelina curled up against him.“Birch busted his ass to keep me and Grey away from drugs and jail.I can’t count the number of times he hauled me out of the cells downtown for the petty shit I did as an idiot kid.And every time he did, he took extra days off work to hang out with me, like he worried I felt neglected or something.He dressed me up for every court appearance, drove me there and stood with me while I got my hand slapped.The one time he found weed in my backpack, he called Winter in the state pen and let that surly bastard scare the shit out of me.”He chuckled, remembering the terrified blathering promises he’d made to his growling oldest brother.“It was effective.It was also one of the last times we hung out, just us.I turned eighteen a few weeks later and Birch was in jail within the year.Then it was my turn to be the responsible one.”
“Was it hard to take on the father figure role?”she asked, her voice quiet and sleepy.
Tucking the blanket around her shoulders, he stared at the ceiling.“I can’t really say I ever did.I was just the older, just-as-scared-shitless brother waiting until the grown-ups returned.”
*
Angelina texted aquick thank you to Zoe for peeking in on Wholly Yours before she returned her attention to Jocelyn, who was explaining the proposition her New York lawyer connections reached with the Feds.
Birch and River had been at each other’s throats all morning.Birch was insisting only his name be added to the documents.River was flat out refusing to be excluded.
“I’m not one of the kids anymore,”he’d insisted, arms crossed and green eyes blazing.“You’re not sitting me out under the guise of protector anymore, Birch.I’m one of you now.”
Although Birch eventually relented, Angelina could tell he was uneasy with every detail Jocelyn reviewed with them by the way his eyes kept darting over to his younger brother with a mix of concern and frustration.
“The Feds will gain continual access to the security monitors once they’re in place.They have their own, so you won’t need to install the ones you ordered,” Jocelyn said, pointing at a block of text.“Neither of you will be held criminally responsible for any activity you need to participate in to maintain your cover.You’re also absolved of any tertiary fallout.Any damage done to Serpent’s Tongue as a result of your cooperation will be paid for in full, and you’ll be provided a small monthly stipend to offset any inconvenience your participation will cause.”
“Inconvenience,” River snorted, wincing as he tried to straighten his injured knee.“Nice.”
Birch grunted in agreement.“What time frame did they finally agree on?”
She watched Jocelyn skim through the contract.“Renegotiation in twelve months.”
Both River and Birch glowered at her answer, but accepted the pens she passed over.
