Blood dripped from my belly onto the marble floor below. My vision was fuzzy and someone whimpered behind me. Glaring at the rest of Corey’s men, I tightened my jaws and felt his jugular snap between my teeth.

The bastard cried out as I dropped him to the floor with his life spilling out of him. He’d be dead in seconds.

I shifted back immediately and stared down the remaining four.

“Your leader is dead!” I cried out as his blood spilled out of my mouth. “You can fight and die for him, or you can get the fuck out of here now!”

The four alphas paused, looked at one another, then shifted back to human form. They were a group of real assholes, scruffy bastards from the east side of town. One of them opened his mouth to speak, but thought better of it.

“Come on,” he said quietly to his comrades. Quickly, they headed out the front door and over to the white sedan. My pack made sure they got in and left while I raced down the hall and into the kitchen.

My parents were taped back to back on a pair of stools by the counter. Their eyes went wide when they saw me. My mother was crying.

Bastard!

I raced over to them, snatched a knife from the butcher’s block and cut away the duct tape around their wrists. Both of their mouths had been taped. I ripped it away as fast as I could to avoid hurting them.

“Hijo!” my mother blurted out, throwing her arms around my shoulders. She hugged me tighter than she’d ever hugged me before. The pain in my heart made me furious. My parents had absolutely nothing to do with this and had no idea what was even going on, and here they were, taped to a pair of stools in Corey’s kitchen.

“Mom!” I cried out. “I’m so sorry! I’m so, so sorry!”

“What is going on?” my father asked.

“It’s a long story,” I replied. “We need to get out of here though. Are you both okay?”

“Yes, we’re fine,” my father replied. I pried my mother off of me—I had to. I would have hugged her longer, but we couldn’t risk spending any more time here. If Corey had more men on the way, or other family members, we didn’t want to run into any more trouble.

“Let’s go,” I told them, taking my mom by the hand and leading her towards the door. When she saw the aftermath of the battle, she gasped and put a hand to her mouth.

“Don’t look,” I told her, covering her eyes.

“Hijo, what happened!?”

“There was a problem,” I told her. “But we dealt with it.”

“A problem!?” She gasped, tears flooding from her eyes. I couldn’t stand seeing her this way. I knew it wasn’t my fault, but that didn’t make things any better.

“My new mate,” I told them. “Corey thought he belonged to him. He kidnapped you to get to us. I’m sorry, but we have to go!”

The conversation would have to continue later. It wasn’t a good idea to stick around here any longer. I put a hand over my mother’s eyes to shield her from the gruesome scene in the foyer, took her wrist and led her to the front door. I heard my father’s breath catch in his chest when he saw the aftermath, but he didn’t say anything.

As we came outside, I saw the truck pull up at the gate with Terry at the wheel.

“Come on!” he shouted. Preston hit the inside button to open the gate and Terry wheeled in and pulled right up to the front door. I tugged open the passenger side door and ushered my parents inside. Terry hopped out and let me take the wheel as the rest of the pack spilled into the truck bed.

“Go, go, go!” Preston shouted as I slammed the pedal down. The truck lurched forward and I yanked the wheel to the left and thundered up the road away from Corey’s house.

“Hijo, slow down!” my mom cried out. My father curled an arm around her and pulled her tight as I sped towards the freeway.

“We have to get out of here, mom,” I told her. “Don’t worry. I know what I’m doing.”

She was in quite a state, and it hurt my heart to see her that way, but it was something she’d get over. If Corey had more men on the payroll that decided to come back, that was something that could have real, serious, lasting effects.

“I’m sorry, dad,” I told him. “I didn’t mean for you guys to get caught up in any of this.”

“They came to the taco stand,” he said, his voice trembling, which was something I’d never heard before. “I—I wanted to fight, but there were five of them—”

“It’s a good thing you didn’t, dad,” I said, doing my best to comfort him. “They would have killed you and taken mom. You did the right thing.”

My father nodded slowly, but I knew he still felt bad about what had happened. My father was a proud man and surrendering like that would not have come naturally to him.

“How is the taco stand?” he asked as we hit the highway.

I looked over at him and smiled, trying to lighten the situation a little. “Banged up, but we’ll fix it up, pop. Don’t worry about that.”