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“Toshi really talked up those Cannolis,” I lie, glancing at Toshi. “I was really looking forward to trying one.”
“They’ll have more tomorrow,” Spencer says quickly. “I’ll go earlier so we don’t miss out.”
Toshi gives me an impressed look. I got Spencer to promise his favorite dessert for tomorrow.
He could easily manage the same if he tried.
It seems like his Alpha enjoys taking care of Echo, and I’m guessing that’s because he’s his mate, not just because he’s an Omega. It’s hard to tell how Spencer feels about Toshi. He doesn’t seem to wear his heart on his sleeve like Echo, but I think the hint of gruffness he seems to have toward him feels like a rejection sensitivity reaction.
I wonder exactly what happened when they met.
Did anyone mention a mating bond? Or have they all been avoiding it in case Toshi isn’t interested, or ready, or something?
“So, how did you guys meet?” I ask, looking at Spencer.
He puts down his paper fork, massive slice of cake done.
“Echo moved to the city with his mom ten years ago. His parents were trying to get him to enrol in Goldcrest Omega Academy.”
I look at Echo. “I assume you managed to avoid that when you met your Alphas?”
“Just barely,” he admits. “I was worried I might actually have to go be the oldest Omega in that place for about an hour, before I saw the ad for the assistant here. Lucky for me, Spencer and E.A. were fated for me, because otherwise my parents would have done anything to get me into that place.”
“And what about Toshi?” I ask, feeling his dark eyes on me from across the desk. “How did you meet him?”
“I came in as a client,” Toshi admits. “I used to work in I.T. and I discovered a file in a system I was working on that was extremely sensitive. I wasn’t sure who to trust with the information, but I’d heard these guys worked on trafficking cases, so I brought it here.”
“What was it?” I ask, intrigued.
“Some idiot client of a trafficker kept video files of the woman he bought,” Spencer growls.
“Oh my God,” I murmur. “That’s awful.”
“It’s not the worst part,” Echo tells me. “We tried to get the guy to talk, to name the trafficker. We couldn’t get him to flip on the guy. So, we took it to the cops. They weren’t quick to arrest him. Thankfully, the woman survived in spite of this, but the guy never saw the inside of a prison cell and he never named the trafficker.”
“He got away?” I ask.
Spencer shakes his head. “According to the police report, he shot himself. Looked more like an execution if you ask me, but there are dirty cops in every department of the force. Things get covered up all the time. This was one of those things.”
“You saw the crime scene?”
“I saw the police file.”
“Wow.” I shake my head. “What about the woman? You said she survived. Didn’t she remember anything about the guy who sold her?”
“She described an auction to the police,” Toshi says. “Everyone who moved the girls around was dressed in black with some kind of dark mask covering their faces. The guys in the crowd were wearing something similar. She had no idea who kidnapped her from her bed the night she was taken. No known enemies. No husband or boyfriend.”
“When they told her what year it was, she cried for a half hour. Turns out she’d been sold five years ago, the night before she was due to start a degree at Cressidan City College.”
That poor girl. I can’t even imagine how awful that would be.
“How is she doing now?” I ask, knowing they’ll know.
If I was working on that case, I would have checked in on her.
It’s not the kind of thing anyone could just walk away from.
“She’s doing better than she was,” Toshi says. “She’s back staying with her parents because she doesn’t feel safe anywhere else. She’ll have complex PTSD for life, most likely. The last time I saw her, a few weeks back, she was learning self-defence and she’d found a good therapist.”
