The Great Disapurrance: BBW Shapeshifter Surprise Pregnancy Romance (Chicago Catastrophe)

A
lot
of things could go wrong,
his rational side warned.
And I’ll be stuck with a hostage.

But Arlen’s tiger already had its teeth bared and was ready for action. His muscles coiled and tensed, itching to put the hurt on someone, to release some of that pent-up energy. Rage bubbled up inside, for no apparent reason.

He opened the car door and jumped out, only half in control of his actions. The heat was clouding his judgment, but there was nothing he could do about it now. He was stomping towards the townhouse and had already gotten the guard’s attention.

The woman shifted uncomfortably beside the guard, her eyes widening as Arlen drew closer. He stared at her for a couple of seconds as he approached, his hands shoved into the pockets of his leather jacket, managing to forget why he was even there.

“Hey! Stop! Who are you?” the large man asked as Arlen neared the steps.

Oh, right.

“I’m the new security guy,” he replied, pointing his chin towards the house.

The man looked him up and down, raising a brow at his casual attire.

“All of Jack’s guys wear suits,” he commented as his hand slid behind his back and in between his waistband.

Arlen already knew what the guard was reaching for. With a snarl, he bound up the steps with two huge leaps. The man had already pulled out his gun and was lifting his arm to aim it at Arlen. The woman flattened herself against the front door, eyes swinging between her guard and Arlen.

She didn’t have anywhere to run and that was probably for the best. Yet when the gun came into view, all Arlen could think about was that it was her who was now in danger.

Nothing can happen to her…

“
H
e doesn’t even leave
the house anymore. Everything has to be brought to him, it’s crazy. Just because one of the lieutenants got his throat ripped out,” a nasally male voice complained.

Arlen Johnson sipped his beer and perked up his ears, listening in on the conversation happening somewhere behind him. It was a Friday night and the bar he was in was packed. The clatter of glasses and the din of inebriated voices filled the room, but he could pick up and distinguish the sound he wanted to hear with ease.

“You ask me, he’s being paranoid. From what I hear, Jackson was being stupid and had it coming,” the man continued.

“I mean, he tried to squeeze a damn hardware store owner who was a bear shifter. With three of the guy’s sons in the building at the time! Spirits above, how fucking stupid is that? No lieutenant should go into shit like that on his own, especially not without backup.”

Arlen sighed into his glass. He had been following the guy known on the streets as ‘Lotto’ for weeks now, hoping he would let something useful slip. Arlen wanted to know as much as he could about his boss, a man known only as Holland.

But all Lotto did was whine about his responsibilities or brag about how much money he was making, or bitch and moan about life in general. Still, trailing him had led Arlen to the most probable location for his target, which was a victory in itself.

What counts for a victory these days?
he thought, stifling the urge to roll his eyes.

He’d been on Holland’s trail for what felt like ages at this point. Working alone, he had been given another mission by his employers, The Firm, and he’d taken it. This one simply came with the added luxury of hunting for a man that might as well have not existed by how much he made himself seen.

Not that Arlen could blame him. Crimson Claws, the premier mob in Chicago and the organization Holland belonged to, had been taking some hits lately and as rumor had it, all the lieutenants were laying low.

They’d made their fortune by taking over the Chicago underground in what seemed like the blink of an eye. Built primarily around a core membership of tiger shifters, they were ruthless and had their hands in all the pies, including having some high-ranking friends in the law enforcement industry.

Getting anywhere close to those guys was nearly impossible, at least if one intended to come out of it alive, which Arlen certainly did. The Crimson Claws ran everything from squeezing pennies out of small business owners for ‘rent’ – which had apparently gotten this Jackson guy whacked – to running drug, providing ‘enforcement’ where needed, and so on.

Chicago had never been a safe place, but these shifters had only made it worse. Which was where Arlen came in.

Holland was playing the best hand he could by laying low.

Arlen didn’t like it one bit.

If getting a beat on Holland was this difficult, he could only imagine what kind of overtime the guys at the intelligence unit were pulling, trying to get to the target The Firm was ultimately after – River.

That was the name the Crimson Claws’ founder and leader was known under, or at least one of them.

Now that was an elusive man. Arlen was sure he wouldn’t find anyone talking shit about
him
in a bar. There was barely a person in Chicago who wasn’t scared of River.

Arlen certainly didn’t envy the agents tasked with tracking him down.

The strong scent of liberally applied perfume invaded Arlen’s nose as a young woman plopped down on the barstool next to him. It was an unwelcome distraction.

“Hey, handsome, you drinking here all by yourself?” the girl asked, leaning on the counter he was sitting at with an elbow.

His manners were the only thing that made Arlen look up from his glass. His Nana would turn over in her grave if he was ever rude to a lady. The woman was definitely pretty, with long blond hair and large blue eyes. A bit too skinny for his tastes, but conventionally attractive, he figured.

Her appearance was of little importance, either way. Arlen was in the middle of a mission, and even if he weren’t, this wasn’t the time to get involved with a woman. But her scent hit him right in the nose and he felt it a bit too sharply for his liking.

The tiger inside of him was growling, growing more restless with each passing day. It wasn’t good.

I don’t have time to go into heat. Not with this asshat making things difficult.

If he was a regular tiger shifter, he would be out looking for his mate. Someone to bond to during his heat, someone he could start a family with. Or she would have been chosen for him by his family, as was the traditional way.

The latter obviously wasn’t going to happen. And the former? Arlen’s life was dangerous and violent, dragging someone into the middle of that wouldn’t be fair. He would handle his heat on his own.

Just like he did with everything else.

Screw biology. There wasn’t a mission yet that he’d failed and he wasn’t about to falter on this one. Not on getting his target, and certainly not on letting his heat get into the way of it.

“Waiting for someone, actually,” he replied with a friendly smile, hoping the woman got the hint.

“I can keep you company until they get here,” she offered, batting her lashes at him. “I’m Kim, by the way.”

So she was persistent.

A table of women about her age were following the interaction closely, whispering and giggling. He could tell they were all tipsy, bordering on drunk, Kim included. It figured, he’d noticed them arriving a little past when he did.

Her girlfriends had probably egged her on to come talk to him.

“Nice to meet you, Kim. I’m Arlen,” he said, keeping the sigh out of his voice.

Might as well blend in.

He wasn’t really interested in keeping the conversation going, but talking to someone instead of skulking at the bar all by himself for hours on end did make him less conspicuous. He knew Lotto’s nights tended to drag on.

“That’s an interesting name. So, Arlen, who are you waiting for? Not a girlfriend, I hope,” Kim smiled, biting her lower lip a little.

Arlen looked at his watch and pretended to be slightly embarrassed. If he and Kim kept talking and the ‘someone’ didn’t show up eventually, that could raise some questions.

“To tell you the truth, I think I’ve been stood up. That’s online dating for you,” he shrugged sheepishly, giving her his most charming grin.

He’d been told a few times that it was a good one and by the way Kim leaned forward, he had to figure that it was.

“Her loss, my gain,” Kim commented, twirling her hair.

Arlen still kept one ear on Lotto’s conversation, but the man seemed to have veered off work-related topics and was telling stories of his latest conquests. Stifling a yawn, he offered to buy Kim a drink. She replied with the name of some fruity cocktail or another, which he parroted to the bartender, but he was barely listening.

His attention was already yanked in a different direction.

A man entered the bar, smelling of anger and gunmetal. His hand was tucked into his jacket, clutching something there. Sweat ran down the guy’s brow as he made a beeline towards Lotto’s table. Something was about to go down, Arlen could just tell.

“Arlen? Hello?” Kim asked, clearly annoyed.

He ignored her, already standing from his stool and pushing her behind him, but it was too late. The unknown man pulled out a gun, aiming it at Lotto’s head.

Shit.

The bar erupted in screams as people scrambled to get out, running into each other and bumping into tables. Kim shrieked, clinging to Arlen’s arm, and his free hand twitched for his sidearm.

The single exit was too small and the people too panicked. The door was clogged within a few seconds, bodies scrambling to get through.

This is about to turn ugly.

“Whoa, dude, what’s your problem?” Lotto asked, hands in the air, his thick brows furrowing in a mix of panic and annoyance.

“I went bankrupt because of you! Four generations my family has owned that store, and now I have nothing!” the man yelled, his hand around the weapon shaking slightly.

The gunslinger was definitely unstable. Arlen didn’t doubt he would pull the trigger, and Arlen needed Lotto alive if he wanted a shot at Holland.

Not to mention the man could start shooting at whomever was closest and got in his way after he was done with Lotto. Arlen didn’t have a choice. He had to get involved. He rolled back his shoulders wearily, cracking his neck. The joys of a day on the job with The Firm.

“Don’t wait around for me, honey,” he murmured over his shoulder at Kim, staring at him doe-eyed.

This time, his grin didn’t pack quite the punch he would have liked, because Kim looked no less panicky than she had before.

It only took him a couple of long strides to get to the armed man.

“Why don’t you put that down and we can talk?”

Arlen had come up on the side of the anxious man, keeping his hands visible and palms up. His voice was low and calming.

“This has nothing to do with you,” the man responded, gun still aimed at Lotto.

“Come on, listen to him…” Lotto trailed off as his eyes narrowed and his nose crinkled. “You smell familiar,” he remarked, eyeing Arlen suspiciously.

Lotto had made him as a tiger. And he’d seen his face. Not only seen – he’d done that several times before, subconsciously or not, as Arlen wasn’t exactly built in a way that was easy to miss – during the time Arlen had been tracking him, but this time he actually acknowledged his existence.

This night was turning out to be a disaster.

“Hey, I’m the one with a gun here,” the man protested, waving his Glock around for good measure, sweat rolling down his forehead.

Lotto took advantage of the man’s divided attention and jumped out from behind his table with a vicious snarl, meaty fingers looking to grab onto unsuspecting flesh. The stranger’s eyes widened and he squeezed the trigger, but Lotto was already on top of him at that point. The bullet hit the ceiling, eliciting more screams from those still trapped in the bar.

Okay, this has gone on for long enough.

Arlen’s tiger growled deep in his chest as he pulled the two men apart from one another. Grabbing on to Lotto first, he put his hands around the man’s head and gave it a sudden, vicious twist that barely seemed to cord Arlen’s muscles. A loud snap let him know he’d severed Lotto’s spinal cord.

He let go and the man slumped to the ground, lifeless eyes staring into space.

He turned to the other man, who was busy collecting his gun from the floor. Arlen grabbed a pitcher from one of the nearby tables, the tacky fluorescent lights reflecting off of it, and smashed it over the guy’s head. His eyes rolled back as he belly-flopped onto the beer-covered floor, the Glock scattering to the floor once again.

Some of the patrons had stopped jostling about and were staring at him in wide-eyed disbelief. He looked around the bar and saw Kim cowering in one of the corners, staring at him in horror.

Guess I’m not so inviting anymore.

He felt his lips tight over his teeth, a snarl on his expression that he hadn’t planned. Gingerly, he smoothed his face into a mask of indifference, though adrenaline was pounding through him at a million miles an hour. The heat was doing a number on him. Usually he was far better than this when controlling his own emotions.

People cleared a path for him as he headed for the exit. Sirens wailed in the distance, but he’d be long gone by the time the cops finally arrived.

Just another Friday night out,
he thought grimly under the weight of frightened stares.

This is exactly why I can never have a family.