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This has got to be a joke. An absolute joke. I take the envelope. “If this is a revenge or something else, I’m not playing. You may as well go find someone else to screw.”
I unfold it quickly, my brows rising as I read it over. It’s a lot of money. Its lodgings. It’s everything I need to get back on my feet and get out of sleeping in the abandoned buildings on Fifth and Noble or the shelters. I read it three times.
“What’s the catch?” I snarl quietly.
Missy smirks. “No catch, love. I need good, trustworthy people.”
“Who said I was trustworthy?” I snap back instantly.
“Scarlet Waring.”
The name takes the wind out of my sails. “Oh.” I half expected her to say Falcon. It almost hurts that it’s not him. Wait, Scarlet Waring? The female alpha of Pack Knight? The woman in crimson?
“Scarlet doesn’t know me,” I say cautiously. “We met in passing once,” I amend. “Why would she help me?”
“Your name is running in bigger circles now, sweetheart. Scarlet has heard of you, and she told me to snap you up. I listen to her because Scarlet is a good friend of mine. She said you’re a good person. So, here I am, recruiting people of excellence to our security team. Also, Adrian Shultz called me, his brother is a guy named Simon? Oh, and there was a call to Kandi, who works for me, from a woman named Yvette. And, finally, Sam joined our team and begged me to help you.”
I stare at her. There’s an excitement and hope that I haven’t had in a while running through my body. I can get out of the shelter. Enough money to do anything I wanted. I could travel. I could run. Far away. And maybe it will stop hurting.
But all those people, helping me? I’m speechless.
“Will you take the job? You come highly recommended.”
I glance around the empty cafe; I see the empty future that awaits for me, and I reject it. I want more.
“Yes. I’ll take the job.” I know I should be happy. I should be enthused, but I'm dead inside. If there was any justice in the world, people would be able to see the wound I'm walking around with. “There’s nothing left for me to do, anyway.”
Missy sits on my desk and swings her legs while I type up the report. She was right. Between Darion, Seb, Lukas, Missy, a beta named Kandi, and an older woman with a radiant smile named Ava, I found this job easy. It was similar to the work I’d done for Silas, a lot of compiling reports and information and presenting it in a logical way. It keeps me busy, and that makes the hours pass faster.
“I don’t know. I mean, I could get him what he asks for, but where’s the surprise for a present if I get him what he asks for?”
I give the omega an exasperated look. “Missy, I'm working.”
“I know. But hear me out…”
Instead of listening, I send a ‘help me’ message to Kandi through our computer message system. The omega’s bodyguard and best friend laughs and comes over to stand beside her.
“Missy. Just get both.”
The omega’s eyes widen and then get a glimmer of excitement that gives me butterflies in the worst way. Missy’s ideas get us on the wrong end of Pack Raptore’s fury, and while they might forgive Missy, I still can’t get used to their disapproval or the fear of losing this job.
“I’ve got an idea,” Missy says with excitement.
“Nope!” I snap. “I'm not getting involved.”
“Oh, come on. Help me,” Missy winks at Kandi and then lets out a little squeal when she spots her sisters walking inside.
Elise and Muse are cute, but what I really find different is the way the betas here are part of everything. More than half the staff are betas, but Missy treats them like family. And when I overheard Elise telling Lukas about a boy she liked, but didn’t want to say anything to him because she was just a beta, he calmly but firmly told her that no one is just a beta, that she was important and integral to their family, and anyone, alpha, omega, or beta, would be lucky to have her.
I’d stood in the hallway blinking back tears, wishing someone had said that to me.
Being here has given me time to let the voices of my father and Silver fade away. I'm starting to see that the rhetoric I’ve lived my life with is wrong. Designations are important until they aren’t. We each have a place in this world, and we are all useful to each other.
I press my hand to my mouth to hide my smile and watch the omega with her sisters. It’s sweet. This whole place is nice. It’s just…I miss the pack.
I miss Falcon’s calm and the way he would push his glasses up the bridge of his nose absently. Those glasses that I’d been so surprised to see because it was just another sign my alpha was actually human. And I miss the way Silas would silently pause at the doorways and watch us. Grayson had a bigger than life personality, but he always made me smile. He’d be teasing a smile out of me right now. And Dylan. I miss him more than all of them. I miss looking into the shadows and finding him there; I miss his eyes on me.
I feel broken without them, like I’ve lost a part of myself that I won’t ever get back. But most of all, I miss their casual touches, the reassurances, the feeling of connectedness, I'm a boat adrift without an anchor.
