The man who’d kidnapped me had been hired by own brother, and he’d hurt my mother. The man in question remained silent and still, not moving from his seat at the table, his fingers steepled before him as he observed me with the same curiosity one might expect from a child examining an insect.
“How dare you hurt my mom? All she is guilty of is loving me. She had nothing to do with you, Liam. What the hell is your motive for hurting an innocent woman?” I couldn’t even tell if the things I was saying were making any sense at all. The powerthat coursed through me was so strong, I struggled to keep it under control.
“Rory wasn’t supposed to be hurt,” Liam said suddenly, though his lips didn’t move.
I stopped, stunned. That’s when it hit me. He’d been the person speaking in my head this entire time. My anger momentarily gave way to astonishment as I stared at him.
It was all too much to take in. I was a volcano on the verge of erupting. The vibrations in the room escalated as a testament to my barely contained fury.
“Is that supposed to make it better?” I said, shaking with rage. “It’s still your fault she was hurt. Without your involvement, she’d never have been in harm’s way.” The room trembled even more violently, the vibrations reflecting the tempest within me.
The quake I was causing didn’t seem to bother him in the slightest. “Rory was only meant to be detained,” he said, speaking aloud this time. “The man responsible for hurting her is no longer an issue.”
I stared at Liam, the tremors quieting while a million questions whirled through my head, but one rose above the rest. “What do you mean, ‘no longer an issue’?” I whispered.
Liam avoided the question, and the unsettling darkness in his gaze made me shudder. As the room suddenly grew colder, an involuntary chill ran through my body. My imagination painted a vivid picture of what might have happened to the man who hurt my mother, and it filled me with a strange mix of horror and satisfaction.
“Tell me what happened to him,” I hissed. Part of me needed to know the truth, even though I was sure I might regret it.
Liam hesitated, then sighed. “Let’s just say he won’t be hurting anyone else ever again.”
The finality in the way he told me was all I needed, and cold realization settled over me. Despite the fact the man had hurt my mother, the idea of Liam taking such drastic actions left a bitter taste in my mouth. I was torn between relief and fear.
Sensing my thoughts, the house began to rumble again, matching the agitation that coursed through me. I clenched my fists, trying to regain control, but it was like grasping at sand.
“You need to slow your breathing down, Liza. Find the anger inside and lower it.” It was a command, but his tone was soothing.
I attempted to center myself. Slowly but surely, the room stopped quaking, and my ears popped at the sudden silence.
Now that my anger had subsided somewhat, I didn’t bother to mask my disbelief. “Liam, is that really you?”
“Unfortunately, yes,” he said with a bitter smile. “It’s been a long time, Liza.”
“Too long.” It felt like I was staring at a ghost. Not just a ghost, but a distorted reflection of myself. The resemblance between us was astonishingly uncanny, from our strikingly similar eye color to the identical shape of our jaw lines, and even down to our noses. Nevertheless, there was an indescribable and unsettling aura surrounding him that had unease twisting in the pit of my stomach.
“Are you okay?” Liam asked, genuine concern lacing his words. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“What do you think, Liam? Just as soon as I think I have all the pieces of the puzzle, someone snatches them away at the very last moment. The pieces keep shifting, never allowing me to see the full picture.”
“Sit,” he said. “I’ll explain everything.”
“Where do you even begin?” The question slipped unbidden out of my mouth. It was more of a rhetorical statement than anactual question, but Liam offered me a wry smile as he reclined in his chair.
“Let’s start with our father,” he said, running a hand through his blond hair that was a shade darker than my own. “To be honest, he wasn’t a good man. There’s no point in pretending otherwise. I won’t do it. Not only was he a bastard, but he was a cold-blooded murderer, and to top it all off, he was the undisputed leader of a notorious crime organization. Ironically, I now find myself at the helm of that very organization.” He paused, his eyes darkening. “Whatever he was, I have to believe he loved his family. Despite the twisted nature of his beliefs, he genuinely thought his actions were for our benefit.”
I sank down into my chair and wiped my damp palms on my trousers.
“Your mother carried the omega gene,” he went on. “Our father was a strong alpha, but he was also a covetous man. He hired a geneticist who told him that if he and Portia were to have a female child, there was a very good chance she would be an omega as well.”
Liam pinned me with a scrutinizing stare. “An omega stronger than any alpha. Feared by those who didn’t understand our kind. There’s a reason omegas were hunted down and killed, even by members of their own species. Because of the threat they posed to others, they would outlive their usefulness and become a liability. Our father believed there was another way. He believed omegas could be better controlled…moldedinto something useful if, rather than waiting for an omega to emerge during adolescence, they began training young.”
His jaw worked for a moment, and he was full of sympathy when he continued. “That’s why you were born, Liza. You were created for the sole purpose of becoming a weapon. Josef was sure there was a way to train you so he could control you.”
“By brainwashing them—me—from birth,” I spat, rage coiling in my belly like a snake.
“Essentially, yes,” Liam said, never breaking eye contact with me. “He began your training as soon as you were born. He died before it could be completed.”
“Training?” I asked, struggling to wrap my head around the idea. “You make it sound like I was some sort of pet project.”
