Broken Dreams (Unhingedverse)
Broken Dreams: Chapter 19

BRET

“I’m surprised you wanted to meet,” I say to Hudson Hughes, sitting across from him in a Chicago lounge. It’s lucky for him that I’m still in the area.

I may have replacements for Linus and Makayla for now, but I’m still clawing with anxiety.

No one gets to leave me unless it’s in a body bag. I never had a chance to inject her with her next dose of the medication everyone at the club receives, which means the birth control is also working its way out of her system. If she’s fucking around and gets pregnant, I’ll cut the parasite out of her.

“Quinn being back is a problem,” Hudson mutters. “Yes, I know I said she wasn’t, but the Kelly boys are playing house as we speak.”

“Do they have a male omega as well?” I ask. I lie all the time, I’m not going to get my boxers in a twist when someone does it to me.

That would be hypocritical, wouldn’t it?

“No idea,” he says. “She’s coming to dinner in four days. Duncan Kelly says that he’s already entered the paperwork to accept her as his omega, but I want to unload her. I’ll sell her to you for fifty thousand dollars. Call it a replaceer’s fee.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I grouse. “If you want her gone, clearly we’re helping each other!”

Not to mention, Linus isn’t included in that fee. I’ll have to replace him on my own.

“Nah, I want sympathy from the families when she goes missing again,” he says. “I need her for a dinner and a reintroduction to the world party. You can take her from there.”

“And pay you fifty thousand bucks for the pleasure of it,” I state drolly, annoyed. “So when is this party thing? I have a business to run.”

“I had originally pushed it out to string her along, but I could do three weeks from today?” he asks hopefully.

Yeah, asshole, as if you’re not holding all the cards as it is. I don’t know where he lives, as he plays things close to his chest. I need him in order to replace Makayla and Linus. All of my eggs are sunk in this basket, and I fucking hate it. All of my contacts are coming up empty.

Honestly, I’m better off paying him the money than sinking more into a search where I’m unsure they’ll replace either of them.

“Fine,” I grunt. “Don’t fuck with me, Hudson.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” he says, grinning widely. Of course he’s happy, he has what he came here for and I’m about to be fifty grand lighter.

Standing, he fixes his suit jacket, nodding. “I’ll be in touch, Bret.”

I watch the alpha walk out before I order another drink. I’ll leave after this one. I need to stew in my anger or I may hurt someone. I took on a new manager to watch the club when I need to leave for business. It’s very rare usually, but it’s happening more often due to things outside of my control.

Saxon’s loss is being felt by me because I’d have just left him in charge otherwise. I fucking hate change, and this is one of many I need to get used to.

I need to fuck and knot a tight ass to help my frustration, and only Makayla or Linus will do. I’ve never touched either of them with my dick, but maybe some one on one time will remind them of the reason they live and breathe.

Maybe I’ll say fuck it and book them both for a snuff session. I have replacements for them, why do I need them? I can easily make one hundred thousand and up from that alone.

This is why I’m brooding and taking some time. I’m pissed off and that leads to terrible, short sighted decisions.

“Hi, can I sit with you?” a pretty, blonde omega asks.

Maybe I’ll get that fuck after all.

“I don’t see why not, darling,” I say, smiling.

This night is already turning around. See what a little patience can do?

CALLUM

“Fuck. I really hope this isn’t a trap,” I mutter as we get closer to Quinn’s childhood home.

It feels like a house of horrors now. I didn’t realize until recently that Hudson is part of the reason for Ayla’s depression. I simply thought that the kidnapping hit her hard, and now I have a sense of doom in the pit of my stomach.

I have so many questions, and none of them are being answered while I stew in this car.

“Breathe,” Duncan hisses, taking a hairpin turn. We’re breaking a lot of traffic laws tonight. “Did she turn off the cameras?”

“Yeah, I just set up the camera feed loop so it’ll cover our tracks,” I answer. “I just have this really bad feeling.”

“Yeah, me too. I’m going to park away from the front gate, and we’re going to come up from the side and jump that fence,” Duncan grunts. He’s sliding into his tactical zone, readying both of us to replace the worst.

“Got it,” I murmur, watching as he turns out his headlights and pulls off the road into a corner of someone’s yard.

I guess that’s why you should spring for a gate, asshole.

“Grab your gloves from the glove box,” he says, making me smirk. Of course. Where else would they be?

Making sure my gloves are in place, I set about doing everything else. Putting my laptop away, I’m glad my clothes are a dark color so I can blend into the night as I bail out of the car. It’s been a couple months since I’ve run a special operation, but fuck it. It’s like riding a bike or fucking, right?

I ignore the fact that I haven’t done the former in about a decade, and silently close the door behind me before jogging toward the fence.

“Toss something at it first to see if it’s electrified or not,” Duncan suggests.

Lord in heaven, please save me.

“Are you fucking serious,” I hiss, watching as he tosses leaves up and over the fence. Listening closely, I sigh when I don’t hear any signs that the fence is live.

Jumping up, I avoid the wire at the top, crossing over easily. Duncan drops to the ground next to me, and then we’re running toward the front door. Surprisingly, it’s cracked open, which has all the warning bells ringing.

Slipping inside, we close the door behind us to look around. Hudson in recent years has let go of his staff, citing that it feels silly when he only has two people living there. Instead, he chooses to employ a cleaning lady that comes twice a month.

Despite refusing to speak to him often, I still keep tabs on his household affairs.

“Ayla!” I call out, deciding to fuck the niceties. We need to pick up Linus and Quinn soon in the city, which means we need to spend minimal time here.

I have no idea when Hudson will be back.

A low moan from the back of the house has Duncan and I drawing our weapons and storming toward it. I didn’t see Hudson’s vehicle, but that doesn’t mean much since there’s a garage. Ayla said he wasn’t home, yet there’s so many possibilities in which she’d be forced to lie.

We rushed over here and into a potential trap on her fucking word. If she gets us killed, I’ll haunt her ass.

My knees nearly buckle for the second time tonight as I see Ayla unconscious on the ground, a bottle of Hudson’s expensive scotch clearly having chased the pills spilled out adjacent to it.

“Ayla,” I rasp, dropping to crawl to her. “Fuck. You can’t have been so stupid. We were on our way!”

“She could have done this before she called,” Duncan says numbly, crouching down beside her. Resolutely he pulls away the bottle and moves his fingers to her pulse.

“You’re a selfish twat,” he says as he turns her onto her side and holds her hair firmly. “This’ll be messy. You should move, Callum.”

That’s my only warning but I know him well enough to crab walk as far away as I can without being ridiculous. Duncan firmly shoves two fingers down Ayla’s throat, his eyes hard and determined.

“I will not tell Quinn that I got here too late,” he growls. “Puke that shit up Ayla!”

Duncan alpha barks at her, and I swear she begins to gag immediately. A moment later her body convulses, and he removes his fingers quickly in time for her to begin projectile vomiting. My brother rubs her back as he keeps her hair out of her face, though his snarl says he’s pissed off at her.

Frankly, so am I.

My chest is heaving with emotion and adrenaline as I watch them, deciding I need to get someone to pick up Linus and Quinn from work. Ugh, tonight is becoming a shit show. Pulling out my phone, I quickly call Jed for help.

Ayla is crying and apologizing, but Duncan looks as if he’s at a loss for words. I mean, what do we do next with her? Does she need to go to the hospital? Hudson will replace her in two seconds.

“Hey,” Jed answers on the second ring. “What’s going on?”

“A lot,” I sigh. “I’m tied up at the Hughes home. Linus and Quinn are working at Club Serenity right now and need to be picked up. Do you think you could get them?”

“Quinn,” Ayla rasps out, even as she coughs.

Yeah, you need to get cleaned up before you see her.

“That sounds complicated,” Jed says. “Tell me what’s going on there exactly.”

It’s a demand, but he’s not being an asshole about it so I cave. He’s doing me a favor by getting my omegas from work so I can deal with all of this.

“Quinn’s mother swallowed a ton of pills and washed it down with alcohol. Duncan got her to puke some of it up, but it definitely looks like a suicide attempt,” I explain.

“I’ll send Morris,” Jed says simply. “What time do Quinn and Linus get off work? You know what, it doesn’t matter. I’ll leave now with Adira. Where do you want Morris to meet you?”

“My house please. We need to get the fuck out of here before we’re caught. Thanks, man,” I say, knowing not to say more. Any conversation about owing him one will get me smacked by Adira.

“No worries. I’ll text you when I have Linus and Quinn,” Jed says, hanging up without fanfare.

“Get up, Ayla,” I say, pocketing my phone as I stand. I know I sound harsh, but this was the last thing I thought she’d do.

Or maybe it explains my feelings of dread perfectly.

“Time to go,” Duncan says, helping her up. “Quick trip to the bathroom to wash your face and then we’re getting out of here. No time to take anything. Understood?”

He’s already escorting her to the bathroom as she tries to process what’s happening. That’s not our problem, we need to get out of here before her husband catches us. Fuck, that sounded terrible. It doesn’t make it any less true.

Duncan stands just inside the door as Ayla washes her face and rinses her mouth out with what looks like a mouthwash. Rolling my eyes at myself as I see puke staining her shirt, I replace my feet moving in the direction of her room. Hudson and Ayla don’t sleep in the same space, and it’s been like that since we were kids.

Her room is on the bottom floor, so I walk quickly inside to grab her a change of shirt. Spread across the bed are papers, piquing my interest. Finding a bag open with clothing, I pick it up and add the papers to it, zipping it closed. I lied, we’ll take whatever is in here.

Snagging a shirt from the half open dresser, I can see that she was in a hurry. She planned to leave, so why the damn pills? I don’t understand.

Something must have happened.

Continuing my movement out of the room, I feel that sense of foreboding again. Fuck, fuckity fuck.

“Take this, I have a bad feeling,” I tell Ayla, pulling the door half shut to give her enough privacy to change. A moment later, she’s shoving the door back open, her steps unsteady.

“I’m ready,” she slurs.

Duncan scoops her into his arms because it’s faster, and we double time it through the house.

“Can you open the gate from here?” I ask her.

Signaling for Duncan to stop at the door, she begins to reach out toward the gate when her eyes widen.

“The light is green. The gate is open,” she whispers.

“Then that’s the way we’re going out,” Duncan mutters, looking out the window.

Hudson’s car is just moving through, so we jog right out the front door, and even shut it after us. Ayla stays quiet as we stay out of the headlights of her husband’s car, crossing the front lawn to exit out the front gate just as it begins to close. We couldn’t have planned this any better.

Hustling to the SUV, Duncan carefully puts Ayla on her feet and into the car. I climb into the vehicle just as he does, and he’s quickly turning over the engine and driving away. He doesn’t turn on the headlights until he’s turned away from Hudson’s house, just to be safe.

“Someone is going to come to the house to monitor you,” Duncan says, carefully glancing in the rearview mirror to check on her. We’ve both watched too many horror movies, and are waiting for her to lose her shit on us.

Thankfully she’s calm and nods, leaning against the headrest. Kidnapping my future mother-in-law wasn’t on my bingo card, but here we are.

“Why, Ayla?” I ask, disappointed and finally being able to say it.

“It’s so much worse than you could ever imagine,” she says softly. “Did you see the paperwork on my bed?”

“Yes, I packed them up in your bag. What about it?” I ask.

I’m terse, reeling at how close we were to losing her. I think part of it is how much of a mother figure she was for Duncan and I. It’s hard to see her as a coward.

“They’re proof that Hudson sold Quinn to a man named Miles. I don’t know his last name, but my husband arranged for my baby girl to be kidnapped,” she whispers. “I was packing to leave when he called me. He told me that I would never get to see our daughter again, because I didn’t deserve to. He said…”

“What?” Duncan asks, his knuckles turning white as he grips the wheel. We know his name because Quinn told us, but now it’s another nail to hammer into Hudson’s and Miles’ coffins.

“Hudson has become really successful because he’s laundering money with a gang in Wisconsin and another in Chicago,” she explains. “Since he’s several hours away, he figures it’s less likely that anyone will connect him to it. My husband told me when he got home he was going to tie me up, throw me in the trunk, and give me to one of the gangs to rape until they killed me. It’s weak, I shouldn’t have done it. He sounded so close by…”

He was. We missed him by milliseconds. I don’t know what she’s been through in the years time has forgotten about her, but I can’t judge her for this. She’s fragile and small, and her husband knew how to push her past her limits.

“Okay,” I whisper, shuddering. Whatever else has happened, Quinn deserves to hear from her mother’s mouth. “Ground rules. Your daughter has changed a lot. Don’t expect her to be the same as she was at fourteen.”

“Speech is difficult for her,” Duncan adds. “So she’ll use silence as her shield. Don’t feel intimidated.”

“We have two scent matched omegas, and we put in our paperwork to claim them both,” I tell her, waiting for the judgement.

“That’s amazing,” she says instead. Tonight is making me a prickly bastard. “Love in every form should be celebrated. Congratulations.”

I can feel myself getting emotional and take a deep breath.

“Thank you,” I rasp. “There’s still a lot of hurdles left to overcome, but we’re getting there.”

We’re almost home, and I worry about springing this on Quinn. We just told her and Linus we’d be up front with her about things, yet here we are with another surprise. We’ll get Ayla situated and wait for Morris.

Hopefully, they’ll both understand. It’s clear there was no way we could have left her there. She’d be dead in order to escape her husband or dead by her own hand. Both of those options suck monkey balls.

Glancing at the time, I see she’s still performing, and I feel my anxiety sparking. I can only manage what I can control, which is the next few moments, and then the next. Duncan hasn’t received any calls yet, meaning we aren’t on the list of suspects.

Not yet anyway.

Hudson, you fucked around and found out. Prepare to lose everything you’ve ever worked for. It’ll be my pleasure to take your business, house, and finally your life. I’m not taking any prisoners.