My Father Sold Me to a bunch of Crazy Alphas
Chapter 79: Puppy in danger ( Emiliano’s POV )

Chapter 79: Puppy in danger ( Emiliano’s POV )

I didn’t have much time to think. Honestly, my body moved on its own.

It wasn’t until I was covering Luther’s body with my own behind the stone counter of the kitchen, I could finally grasp what happened.

Not because of my raised pulse or the deafening sound threatening to break my eardrums, but because of my wife’s shivering.

I covered his ears more tightly as my hearing was still recovering slowly.

Thick smoke surrounded us, burning out lungs and making our eyes water.

I pushed Luther’s head deeply in my collarbone as I covered it rapidly with my shirt.

We were not safe yet.

Far from it.

I could hear the steps reaching the door.

Was Tom still alive?

Was Damian? Was he the one who sold Luther’s location out?

Questions that could still await their answers.

I grabbed Luther and took a run to the passage to the basement.

The door of it was made of stainless steel and it locked from the interior. Even if they managed to enter, all I had to do was let out pheromones. But I couldn’t here.

If Tom survived the grenade, my pheromones would kill him despite being a beta.

They were chemically projected by myself to kill everyone who inhales them.

So I had to run for the moment.

Fire swallowed my living room, yet I had no time to grieve the loss. Luther’s head was bleeding heavily, provoking convulsions.

I needed to reach the basement as soon as possible to treat him.

I ran.

The hallways blurred around me—walls too close, lights too bright, air too thin. I didn’t look back. I didn’t need to. I could hear them: boots pounding, voices barking orders, metal scraping against metal. They were gaining. Fast.

But that wasn’t what scared me.

What scared me was the way Luther was shaking in my arms.

My arms tightened around him. His blood was soaking through my shirt, hot and slick and constant. I couldn’t tell how much. I didn’t want to know.

We turned the last corner toward the basement stairwell. My feet slammed the steps two at a time, nearly slipping on the concrete, but I kept moving. I didn’t stop. I wouldn’t.

Luther twitched, barely, and a weak sound escaped his throat. Not a word. Not even pain. Just... effort. The smallest effort to still be here.

His head lolled slightly, curls damp and clinging to my neck. I pressed my cheek against his temple for one breath, just one, and nearly lost my balance.

He was ice. Shivering in my arms like his body couldn’t decide whether to fight or let go.

The men behind us didn’t matter. They will be dead the moment I reach the basement.

But this—him, bleeding out in my arms, flickering in and out like a dying flame—I didn’t know what to do with that.

Not if I lost him.

I hit the bottom of the stairs and shoved the basement door open with my shoulder, breath ragged. It slammed behind us, echoing through the cold, cement room. We were close. The safe room was just ahead. I just had to keep going.

I glanced down at Luther.

His lips were pale. His eyes unfocused.

I ran faster.

The door slammed shut behind me with a hollow, metallic thud. I turned, one arm still holding Luther tight against my chest, and slid the bolt home with my free hand. Then the second lock. Then the third. Reinforced. Steel-lined. They could shoot at it all they wanted—it would hold. For a while.

Luther stirred weakly, breath hitching, body twitching in short, fragile jerks. His skin was colder now. His shirt was soaked through, the blood heavier, darker. Too much. Too fast.

I laid him down gently on the cot, grabbed the emergency med kit from the wall, and tore it open with shaking hands. The oxygen mask came first. I slipped it over his nose and mouth, adjusting the seal carefully, even as the pounding started behind me—boots, fists, the sharp crack of gunfire.

They’d found the door.

Luther’s chest rose, slow and shallow, but at least it rose. I secured the mask tighter, watched for three full breaths. Then I pressed two fingers to his neck. Pulse—faint. Unsteady. But there.

I inhaled, sharp through my teeth, and forced my hands to keep moving. Gauze. Pressure. Tape. Stabilize first. Painkillers later, if he stayed conscious long enough to take them.

Another shot rang out—closer now. They were trying to blow the hinges.

I stood, crossed the room to the panel on the wall, and flipped the final switch.

Above us, in the narrow passage between the basement stairwell and the living room, a solid steel plate slid down with a groan of hydraulics. I heard it lock into place with a deep, satisfying clang. Then silence.

They were trapped. Cut off. Isolated between two sealed doors with no way forward and no way back.

I turned and looked at Luther.

His fingers twitched on the edge of the cot, the oxygen hissing softly as it fed into his lungs. He was still too pale. Still too quiet. But he was alive.

As the shooting continued with the idiots not realizing they are trapped like rats, about to be dead, I sank down beside him, brushing a blood-matted curl away from his cheek. My heart was still racing, my knuckles raw from how tightly I’d gripped the med tools. But I stayed still.

Because he needed stillness. Not panic. Not promises. Just me, right there, not letting go.

Not now. Not ever.

I listened as his breathing steadied before dealing with the rats.

I pressed the button.

No hesitation. No dramatic flourish.

There was a brief pause—maybe three seconds. Then it began.

At first, I heard coughing. Muffled, frantic. Then the sound shifted—wet, ragged, clawing at air that was already betraying them. My pheromones filled the space fast, mixed into a gaseous dispersal agent designed for sealed environments. Refined. Efficient. Deadly.

I didn’t need to see it. I’d seen it before. But the monitor above the switch flickered on anyway—black and white feed of the corridor.

They were staggering. One dropped to his knees, hands gripping his throat like he could force the air back into his lungs. Another slammed into the wall, eyes wide, red spreading from the corners until the pressure inside his skull pushed one clean out of its socket.

A third was screaming, mouth stretched wide, but nothing came out—only thick ropes of blood that poured from his nose and ears as the capillaries in his brain ruptured. The gas didn’t burn. It didn’t sear. It betrayed. It mimicked oxygen, crept through their lungs, and turned on them from the inside.

One man—taller than the rest—began to scratch at his throat. At first, desperate. Then frenzied. Then surgical. I watched as his fingers tore into his flesh, nails raking down with enough force to split skin. He didn’t even scream—he just kept digging, trying to find the breath that would never come.

There was blood everywhere now. Smears on the walls. On each other. On the floor, still warm from their boots. One of them made it halfway to the door before he collapsed, twitching violently, mouth still opening and closing like a dying fish on dry land.

I turned the monitor off.

Behind me, Luther was still breathing, the hiss of the oxygen mask steady, delicate. I glanced at him—at the faint rise and fall of his chest—and rested my hand gently on his shoulder.

"They will pay for this, puppy. I’ll bring you their bones to chew. Each one of them will be dead by tomorrow."

My voice came out wrong.

Not sharp. Not composed. It wavered—just slightly—but enough that I heard it, felt it in my throat like a crack in something I thought was solid. I tried to speak again, to steady it, but the words caught. Too thin. Too soft. Like they belonged to someone else.

I wasn’t used to this.

Not the blood. Not the gas. Not the death. That part—I’d seen it, caused it, cleaned it up.

But this?

I’d never been this scared for anyone before.

Not even myself.

Not even when I burned down the prison that made me the monster that I am.

I feel dizzy. Lightheaded.

It could have been the adrenaline level finally decreasing, but I doubt it.

Why?

Because I just noticed the giant glass shattered piece stuck deeply on the lower left side of my back.

I blinked slowly, squinting over my shoulder, trying to gauge the angle. Lower quadrant. Off to the side. Could’ve missed the kidney. Maybe. Depends how far it went in. The blood said too far, but I’d seen worse. I’d walked with worse.

Still. It was deeper than I wanted it to be. Deeper than I’d like to admit.

Everything started to dull around the edges. Not in panic. Just distance. Like the room had taken one quiet step away from me.

My vision blurred at the edges, sound dipping into a low, underwater hum. I felt the cold of the floor before I hit it, distant and fading. Then everything slipped—adrenaline, breath, light—gone before I could hold onto any of it.

My only thought before slipping into unconsciousness with a smile was about my dear wife next to me.

"At least my puppy is safe."