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“You cursed. I remember now. But it was your voice.” I saw him grin, and I couldn't remember the last time he’d smiled like that. I ran my hands through my hair, trying to find solutions in my head for what to do next.
“Her story checks out. She’s the lottery winner omega. Comes from a poor family, it seems they shipped her off to an omega house run by social services. She comes from nothing.” Cy had joined us with his laptop, searching for proof and checking the facts. “Although it seems we have a bigger problem. Jameson’s becoming very attached to her.” I sighed as we watched the monitor.
“I can see. I don’t blame him. You smelled her scent. It’s incredible.” It agitated me so much earlier that I took Maddox in the bedroom the first chance I had. “I know what you’re thinking. But it’s too dangerous to have an omega with us right now. We need to figure out what to do with her. The girl saw my face, and Celeste will know by now that she was the intended target.” As soon as I spoke, my phone rang. It was the client. “One second.” I got up and went to the other room. This call would be interesting.
“Scorpion speaking.” We handled contracts anonymously, or at least as much as we could. This client was using a code name and a voice changer to assure anonymity on their end.
“It was an interesting vote today.” I held back a groan. “Celeste made quite the commotion coming in at the last minute to save her place in the company. Mind telling me how that could possibly happen?” I sat down in my desk chair, frustrated at our failure. We never failed, not like this.
“It seems that another omega was in her place. The girl must have been in our intended target’s room for some reason. My team waited for Celeste to enter the room, but she never did. Instead, we found a different omega, wearing Celeste’s clothes and drenched in her perfume. We suspect the target knew what was coming.” The voice paused on the other end of the line.
“I’m not so sure. Someone knew, though, and they helped her. Celeste doesn’t know of the plot, at least not yet. In any case, I might still need your services in the future.” Interesting. The leak might have been on the client’s end.
“I’ll return your deposit fee, of course. As for the omega, we determined she’s one of the lottery ticket winners. We haven’t seen any missing person alerts yet.” I spoke carefully, in the event that there was a chance the girl was still a pawn somehow.
“Yes, she’s a nobody. Belongs to some government housing, and likely won’t be missed by many.” I frowned.
“Any preference on how we handle her?” I asked as the voice on the line spoke in a dismissive tone.
“Dispose of her, or sell her on the black market. She’s worthless, and a liability. The official word is she ran off somehow. Her story will be a cautionary tale, in case anyone looks into it. Another uneducated omega not realizing the dangers of running off in the Eastern Province by herself.” The words barely came through before I was burning with rage. The room turned red, and I clawed at the desk to keep from throwing the phone across the room. Dispose of her? Sell her? Who did he think he was dealing with? I vowed internally to handle the omega my own way and never do business with this client again. “Well? Do I have your word? No loose ends?” The voice asked.
“Understood. You don’t need to worry, nothing will be traced back to you. We covered our tracks.” Except that the omega could recognize my pack member by voice, and had seen me briefly.
“We’ll speak soon. I have bigger issues right now.” They ended the call and I stood, breathing deeply to calm myself down. If the omega had no one looking for her, then logically no one was looking for us. We could take some time to regroup and figure out a plan to return her. Because under no circumstances would our pack be harming her.
I stepped back out to join the rest of my pack as we watched Jameson “interrogate” the omega. She was giggling now, and he was stroking her hair, having removed her restraints.
“Uh, Kian?” Cy looked over at me. “I don’t think Jameson’s going to let go of this omega anytime soon.” Seeing the deadliest alpha I knew with the little omega was doing something to me, and I didn’t like it. I couldn’t afford to complicate our lives with an omega.
“I can see. I’ll deal with it later. Right now, no one seems to be looking for her. You were right, she’s the lottery ticket omega. Try to keep her from seeing any more of your faces while I figure out how to return her home. The client, by the way, recommended offing her or selling her on the black market.” Cy and Maddox whipped their heads toward me, both of them looking at me with horror. “I know. But since she’s low profile, we don't have to worry much about anyone keeping tabs on her, or on us. She’s in the safest place possible. Anyway, I’m hungry. Let’s eat before we make any more bad decisions.”
Chapter 22
Maddox
I couldn’t stop thinking of the omega as I scarfed down my chicken and rice. I’d been the one to cook dinner tonight, taking full advantage of our stocked fridge. We hadn’t planned to be at the safe-house for more than a few days for the mission. But we always over-prepared, and that came in handy for situations like these where we needed to feed three alphas, a beta, and now an omega.
Thankfully everything seemed to be calmer now. The client didn’t care for the omega in our possession one way or another, and since she was low profile, no one else seemed to care about her either. Cy had a program set up to flag any news articles or social media posts that mentioned a missing omega to alert us in the event the investigation made the news. But it wasn’t uncommon for omegas to disappear in this area, especially if they didn’t have money or protection. It was why visiting omegas were warned never to wander. The locals knew how to navigate this area and look for signs of trouble, but anyone from the Western Province was too naïve in their safe upbringing to get around easily here. Just like our little omega, I thought. I internally slapped myself. She wasn’t ours. She was just in our possession. But hearing her talk through the feed and knowing that no one was missing her made me feel empathy for her situation. I’d grown up similarly, with no one watching me or caring if I was gone. If it wasn’t for Kian, I’d probably be struggling to survive, my talents either wasted or used for nefarious purposes. The gangs in the area I was from would love to have someone with my skill, but Kian had seen my value and made me part of his pack early on. I remember being in awe that the son of Ansaldo would even look in my direction. Kian first saw me at a conference for experimental medicine and watched me present my latest project. I was barely out of high school then, and awkward on top of it. He’d come up to me after my presentation, asking questions and looking me up and down with that confident, cool gaze of his. When he’d suggested exchanging numbers I was speechless. I should have been terrified - everyone was when it came to the Genovese crime family. But despite their reputation, Kian had been nothing short of honorable to me. He could somehow give me a feeling of safety that I’d never experienced, and I saw him for who he was instead of what his family represented. I hadn’t known at the time how isolated he was, knowing he could potentially be offed by his own half brothers. He confided in me, encouraged me to grow, and helped me hone my skills. I had so many interests that I dabbled in everything, and Kian helped finance me. I was a beta from a lower-class neighborhood, and though we weren’t impoverished, my parents still had a hard time providing for all of us. I would have floundered had I not met Kian at the right time.
He and I worked on assignments together, eventually recruiting Cy and Jameson along the way. The connection was natural with each of them. We made a strong team, each of us an expert in our own way. All of us knew how to fight, but Kian was a master at business strategy. Cy was someone we found while searching for a black market hacker. Jameson ended up finding us by accident, initially hired to take out Kian. But in a strange turn of events, Kian had found out and challenged him to work for us for double the price. We knew from the first time we were around him that he was meant to stay with us. By the time our pack was formed, we’d moved to Roebri to start our own business far away from our past. Our reputation was already stellar amongst certain groups. We were known to be efficient, successful, discreet, and stable. We had our own set of values that we lived by.
Jameson sat down to join us at the table, taking up several large portions of the food for himself. He needed it with his amount of muscle mass. I heard a low sound and realized he was humming as he ate, looking as happy as I’d ever seen him. “The omega doesn’t know who Kian is. She couldn’t even describe you, except to say that she remembers hitting a man with a handsome face.” His deep blue eyes crinkled up with laughter as Kian scowled at him.
“All the better for her, then. It will make it easier to get her home if she can’t describe us.” Jameson immediately went stiff as a stone wall, then looked at Kian.
“Does she really need to be returned home? You just said no one was looking for her.” Kian looked conflicted.
“What else can we do? She can’t stay here with us. No matter how tempting it is. It’s too dangerous.” Kian’s face was all stern businessman, but I could tell he was slightly conflicted as well. The omega had us all turned upside down. “Has she eaten yet? She’s probably starved.”
I jumped up at the same time as Jameson pushed his chair back from the table. I scowled at him. “No Jameson, it’s my turn. You’ve already been around her all day. I’ll take her the food.” Jameson growled under his breath.
“No, Maddox is right. Let him bring her the food. You already untied her.” Kian ordered as Jameson looked at him, unconcerned.
“So? She doesn’t pose a threat. To me anyway. I can’t say the same about your face.” Cy tried to stifle a laugh as Kian looked at him cooly. The small bruise forming on Kian’s otherwise perfect face was a testament to how safe this omega was with us. Anyone else would have been a dead man after touching our pack leader. I grabbed a bowl full of fruit and headed toward the bedroom, pulling a ski mask on before I entered. She’d already seen too much of our pack as it was.
When I reached the door, I cracked it open and looked in. The room was set up minimally for a reason - with only a bed and a chair, there was nearly nothing to use as a weapon. But since Jameson had removed her restraints, I didn’t want to have any unexpected surprises waiting for me. She was sitting in the chair next to the bed, watching me warily as I slowly entered the room. I got a fresh hit of her incredible scent and tried to clear my mind. It was hard to concentrate with her sitting there looking so cute and her scent all over the room. But I could tell by the sour tinge in the air that she was scared.
“I have some food for you.” I said and shut the door behind me. She looked up at me from her seat.
