UNDYING: A Bad Boy MMA Romance (Midwest Alphas) (Book 3) (2 page)

“Claire?”

I pause, hearing a second voice say my name. I close the door behind me with a quick kick backward and charge into the kitchen.
“Charlie?”
I whisper.

He sits at the kitchen table across from my mother. She’s poured him a cup of fresh coffee, still hot with wisps of steam rising over the rim. I drop the laundry basket to the floor and a smile strikes my lips, one of hope and relief.

“Hello,” he says as he stands up to meet me. I rush towards him and throw my arms around his torso. He chuckles softly in my ear. “I missed you, too, kid…”

I fill my nose with him, taking in the scent of his clothes and the house and the barn; all of it detectable on him. It all comes back to me, six months of degrading senses flood back to the forefront and tears bleed down my cheeks.

I pull back as dread fills my heart.
“Tobias
— is he okay? What’s wrong?”

Charlie shakes his head and holds my shoulders steady. “Tobias is
fine
,” he answers.

“Then what are you doing here?” I ask, my eyes searching his face and my mother’s expression — anything that’ll give me some hint of what’s going on.

“I got in touch with him this morning,” my mother says.

“Why?” I ask.
Getting in touch
with Charlie isn’t exactly easy anymore. First, it involves my mother calling an old cop friend of his in Kansas City. Then, he contacts Bradley Jones, Amy’s father, in town back home and then he passes the message on to Charlie. Needless to say, the system is meant only to be used for dire emergencies.

She stands up from the table and walks over to me. “I thought you could use someone to talk to…”

I furrow my brow in confusion. “You didn’t have to call him for that — not that I’m not happy to see you, Charlie — but…” I say, smiling at him.

“Yes, I did,” she insists. “I know my limits, Claire. What you’re going through, well…” she reaches out and pushes some stray hairs behind my ear, “it’s not something I’m equipped to help you with. But most of all, you need a friend and you’re sure as hell not going to find one around here.”

I nod, glancing between them. “Thank you…”

“I’ll be in the living room.” She dismisses herself, pausing to kiss my head before leaving.

I look at Charlie again. “Is Tobias really okay?”

“Yes,” he nods. He turns around and wanders back to his seat at the table.

I take my mother’s seat across from him. “Are you sure?” Images flash in my mind, memories of my blood-splattered dreams.

“I didn’t come here to talk about Tobias,” he says.

“I know,” I say. “I just… I need to know what’s going on over there.”

Charlie takes a quick sip of his coffee. “Well, from what he’s told me, they’ve made some progress taking back their territory.”

“Really?” I ask, hopeful.

“Lily and Pike have managed to weed out what members of the Alphas remained loyal and which ones didn’t.”

“How many were there?”

He shakes his head. “I don’t know for sure, but it was more than they anticipated. There may still be some left they don’t know about…”

I sigh. Pike said there were many. I’d hoped he was wrong. “And Rick?” I ask. “Where’s he now?”

He hesitates. “They still don’t know.”

“Coward…”
I whisper beneath my breath.

“You’ll just have to be a little more patient, okay?” he says. “I know you want to come back home and, believe me, I want you there more than anyone, but until then… you need to stay put.”

I chuckle. “You sound like Tobias.”

“He’s not wrong.” His eyes flick up and down. “More than anything, you need to stop worrying about all of this and start taking better care of yourself.”

“I’m fine,” I say quickly.

“If you were, your mother never would have contacted me,” he points out. “She’s worried about you and, quite frankly, I am, too, now that I’ve seen you.”

I pull the long sleeves of my jacket down to cover my palms. “I keep…” My tongue twitches. “I keep having these dreams. Dreams about Tobias. He’s not safe.”

Charlie reaches out and places his hands on mine. “Claire, Tobias can handle this,” he assures me. “You and I have to believe that or else we’ll
both
lose our heads.”

I look into his eyes. He has the same eyes as his son’s, deep tunnels of jade green. I cling to them now for comfort, but it’s not the same. “I miss him so much…”

“I know,” he says. “He misses you, too.”

“Does he know you’re here now?”

“No,” he says, sitting back in his chair. “Whether I tell him or not is up to you. Right now, he thinks you’re fine and he can maintain his focus on ending this situation.”

“But if you tell him how I really am…” I say. “He’ll get worried.”

“Exactly.”

Lies. My life is so full of lies now, I can hardly tell what’s truth and what’s not. Even now, between Charlie and myself, I have to be careful about what I say. When I told Tobias what Pike told me the night of the last tournament, it nearly destroyed him. Lillian Tombs, the head Dame of the Midwest Alphas, his mother’s old friend, was directly involved in covering up his sister’s death. We didn’t even want to imagine what Charlie would do with that information, so we agreed to keep it to ourselves.

“You shouldn’t tell him,” I say, meeting his eyes again. “He doesn’t need to know—”

“Claire—?”

I look over my shoulder. “What is it, Mom?”

“Come here. Now.”

I slide off my chair and step into the living room. Charlie follows close behind me, responding to the intense urgency of my mother’s tone. We find her on the couch, her eyes locked on the television screen in the corner.

“Isn’t this…?”

I follow her gaze and instantly recognize the bright neon lights of Lillian’s nightclub on the screen.

A reporter stares back at me, her eyes gently flicking back and forth as she reads the cue cards with a stiff voice. “Bad news out of St. Louis this evening as one of their most popular nightspots has officially been shut down following the death of its owner, a local woman named Lillian Tombs.”

I place my hands on the couch in front of me to keep from falling over.

Lillian Tombs is dead.

“The club has officially been labeled a crime scene as the police comb it for evidence.” A photo of Lillian’s face fills the screen, showing off her thick smile and long, crayon-red hair. My gut wrenches. “The local authorities have refused to comment further on the details surrounding her death, except to say that it was
a senseless act of violence
.”

“My god…” my mother mutters, clutching her chest. “That’s horrible.”

I see anger in Charlie’s eyes, no doubt matching my own.

We both know who did this and we both know why.

The war has officially begun.

Chapter 2

This Is My Home

I turn around and walk back into the kitchen. When my mother and I went into hiding, Charlie instructed us to memorize important phone numbers. If things went bad, we may not have to luxury of grabbing our little black books to take along with us and we aren’t allowed to have cell phones anymore. There were four numbers I committed to memory: Charlie’s, Tobias’, Amy’s, and finally, Rick’s.

I’m not entirely sure why. I guess it was a play from Lillian’s book.
Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.

I grab the land line phone off the wall.

“Claire, what are you doing?”

I ignore Charlie’s voice as I dial the number with shaking fingers. It rings softly, each tone bringing me closer to a full-on heart attack.

“Hello, Claire.”

His voice. I’d almost forgotten how dark it sounds. “Rick, what have you done?”

A chuckle falls off his lips. “I thought it would get your attention.”

Charlie steps into my eye line. “Claire, hang up the phone…” I turn away from him, refusing to follow orders.

“Is that Uncle Charlie I hear?” Rick asks. “Tell him I said hello.”

“This isn’t funny, Rick…” I shake my head. “Why did you do this?”

“I wanted to send you a message,” he answers. “Come home. Now.”

“Never.”

“Claire,” he sighs, “you’re going to want to reconsider that.”

“No, I’m
never
coming back to you, Rick,” I seethe. I feel Charlie’s hand on my shoulder, but again, I ignore it and listen very closely to Rick’s low voice.

“You can stay in your protective bubble if that’s what you want, but I highly doubt you’ll last.”

I quiver at the threat. “Why?”

“Because I will kill every single Alpha Dame in the entire state until you come home,” he answers, his voice firm as stone. “One-by-one, I will hunt them down. Their blood will be on
your
hands, Claire.”

A tear rolls down my cheek. “You’re insane, Rick.”

“I’m in love.”

“This isn’t love,” I argue. “You don’t know the first thing about love.”

“Oh, but I know
everything
about you,” he whispers. “I know that you’ll never forgive yourself if you let this happen. You may not care so much about Lillian Tombs, but what about
Amy Jones
?”

“Leave her alone—”

“I will,” he says. “I give you my word. Just come back to me and I won’t lay a finger on anyone else — including Tobias.”

Tobias.
I lean forward to rest my head against the wall. “This isn’t fair…” I whisper.

“I think you’ll make the right decision here, Claire.”

The line goes dead and I drop the phone. It dangles from its cord, gently tapping against the wall beneath the receiver.

“Claire?”

I don’t move. I can’t move a muscle — other than the violent shaking racing through my nerves.

I could hear it in his voice. That determination. Rick is telling the truth. He’s already killed Lillian Tombs. There’s nothing to stop him from going after Veronica or Amy. Even Kimi and Lisa are at risk.

It’s my life or theirs.

“Charlie…” I turn around and wipe the tears off my cheeks. “It’s time to go home.”

He looks at me with hesitation. “Claire, you can’t leave—”

“I have to.”

“What did he say to you?”

I open my mouth to answer, but then I quickly bite my tongue. “It doesn’t matter,” I say. “I have to see Tobias tonight.”

“You are not going,” he says.

“Either you take me back with you or I catch the first bus out of town,” I say. “No, Charlie. It’s time for me to come home.”

He sighs. “There’s a right thing to do and a wrong thing to do. Are you sure you’re making the right choice?”

I blink and Rick’s blood-covered eyes flash open. “Yes,” I say. It’s not just the Alpha Dames I’m worried about. Rick has shown his true colors. He’s just as willing to kill as Tobias was. He won’t back down. He won’t give up. I don’t want this to end with me lying in a pool of blood, dragged down into the abyss after watching my friends and lover die. “I can’t just sit here and watch while my friends get hurt.”

“I understand that,” he says, “but—”

“Charlie, please…” I beg. “It’s not right for me to stay here, especially not when I can stop it.” I move away from him and turn towards the hall to my room. “I won’t have any more blood on my hands.”

I hate agreeing with Rick, but he’s right about that. Lillian’s death is my fault, as is the rest of this damn situation. For the first time in months, I feel a sense of control. A sense of purpose. I can’t hide in the dark anymore. I can’t sit back and wait for others to solve my problems. Rick is
my
problem. He always has been. It’s time I take responsibility for that.

But I have to see Tobias one last time before I do.

I pack my suitcase quickly, grabbing only the most necessary of items to take with me, a rather easy feat considering what little I own nowadays.

“Claire…”

I pause, hearing my mother’s voice in the doorway. “Everything is going to be okay, Mom,” I say, lying right to her face.

She doesn’t believe a word of it, but she forces a half-smile anyway. “I know there’s nothing I can say that will change your mind, but…” She steps into the room and closes the gap between us. “Please be careful — and mind Charlie. Do as he says.”

“I will,” I nod. I step closer and wrap my arms around her. “You should still be safe here. Rick can’t trace that call, even if he tried.”

She nods and trembles as a sob rushes through her body. “I love you, honey.”