Page 34 of Thrown into the Mob

The apartment was quiet and I wasn't used to it. At the Solari compound there had always been noise. Guards were patrolling, and there was the hum of the security system. My father always made his presence felt and his voice carried down corridors. Here there was nothing except the faint sound of traffic from the street below and Madd’s tiny movements as he tried to get comfortable.

I glanced up because maybe it was time to actually look at the man I’d mated. He wasn’t fidgeting or pacing the floor, not that I’d expected him to. Flint must have trained him before he went undercover, so Madd was skilled at covering up his emotions.

“What were you going to do if you'd actually left? Did you have a plan beyond holing up in this place?” he asked.

“Getting out was it.” I’d always assumed the escaping would be a feat, probably an impossible one, and I didn’t think beyond that.

“You didn't have anyone to go to.”

Oh gods, he’d just pointed out how lonely I was. I’d had no one. How different for him who had a large extended family and a pack.

I didn’t answer because the word “No” carried grief.

“You had no friends outside the organization?” Madd leaned forward. I imagined he had no idea what that was like. “There was no one you trusted?”

Trust wasn't something my father encouraged. “Father expected loyalty and obedience. But trust requires —” I couldn’t finish the sentence because I was putting my life under a microscope.

“It requires someone giving a damn about you.”

“Something like that.”

Madd pulled his legs up onto the couch. The shirt he was wearing was mine, the too-small one from the stash, though it had been washed. I’d only just noticed. Why hadn’t he taken a set of clothes from the apartment? I didn’t want to imagine that he did it because despite being laundered, it still had a hint of my scent.

“Tell me about your omega dad,” he said.

I flinched and so did my dragon because my life began in agony. “He died when he laid our egg.”

“I know that, but what do you know about him?”

“Almost nothing.” My father didn't talk about him, and there were no photographs in the house. Evander asked about him once when we were seven or eight and Father left the room. “I learned not to bring it up.”

“So you grew up without any sense of him?”

“Everyone, my father, Evander, our nanny, they all blamed me for his death. The nanny shared stories about our dad with my brother. I used to listen at the door, pretending I wasn’t there.”

Madd's eyes shimmered with tears. “You were inside an egg. How was that your fault?”

“It wasn’t. But grief needs something to take hold of, and he was alive before laying the huge egg and died soon after. They said if I’d been in my own egg, our dad would have survived.”

I wasn’t used to anyone talking to me about things that mattered.

Madd sniffed and wiped away a tear. “Evander got the stories, the nanny’s affection, and your father's approval. And he was made the heir.”

And I got this place.

“Conrad. Did Evander ever want for anything? Not material things. But did he ever need something he couldn't get?”

I thought about that. When my twin wanted something, it appeared. He'd never had to fight for anything because it was given to him before he asked.

“Everything came to him.”

“Do you see what I’m getting at?” He came over and squatted in front of me and took both my hands.

“If I wanted something, I went and got it or I didn't have it.” Evander and I had identical DNA and yet completely different lives.

There was a pain in my chest that was more frightening than being shot at or escaping from the compound. It was the beginning of understanding why my life turned out the way it had.

“Evander felt the pull toward you.” I gripped Madd’s hands hard and marveled at how soft they were considering his line of work. “He felt something, but he didn't need you. He wanted you because you were offered and because his body recognized something familiar. But he didn't need you the way —” Now I had to say it. “The way I did.” I forced myself to finish. “Our connection, that mate bond, found the one who had room for it and would welcome the connection.”