“Why? What makes you say that? I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself and other people,” I said a little too fast. I could feel my face going hot, too. There was no way Amy knew what I’d been thinking of doing lately, even though she was my best friend. She might have guessed I was up to somethingbecausewe were best friends.
“Some guy came in here looking for you earlier,” she said, making me flush even hotter and my stomach tighten.
“Some guy?” I asked with pretend innocence, moving to the row of lockers and taking out the apron I wore over my nasty store uniform. It really needed a wash, or I needed to buy a few more store shirts, but A, I didn’t have twenty bucks to spare on a new shirt, and B, I hated going into the laundry room in my apartment building, because creepy Mr. Tindall always seemed to be lurking there, and hewasan alpha.
“Yeah.” Amy pushed away from the wall and walked with me back to the hallway as I tied my apron. “Some alpha. Tall, scruffy, dressed in a suit. Ring any bells?”
“No, none at all,” I lied, hurrying ahead to the duty station at the end of the hall, where my assignment for that shift would be posted on the board.
Amy stared at me like she didn’t believe me as I read the list of stuff I had to reshelve from the front and the new endcaps I was supposed to build. I felt awful hiding the truth from the one and only friend I had in the world, but if things went the way they might, I wouldn’t even have her as a friend anymore.
“I’m worried about you, Zo-Zo,” she said, lowering her voice when Larry, one of the supervisors, walked past us. “You’ve been struggling since your papa died.”
“I’m doing fine,” I said, much the way I’d lied to the guys at the DFC. “It’s just, you know, grief is hard.”
That was the understatement of the year. Grief was horrible. As long as I’d had Papa to take care of, I’d been the strong one, the one on top of things. I’d approached the world with single-minded focus, taking care of Papa and advocating for his care, even though we didn’t have any money. I’d been the strong one while Dad bailed on us and Jeff cut ties so he wouldn’t be asked to help. In the end, I’d been all Papa had.
Now he was gone and I had no one.
Some days it was too much. Some days I just wanted to give up, let go, and check out of the world. Not literally, of course. I was too big of a coward to take my own life, and really, I wasn’t suicidal, not at all. But for an omega, there were dark cracks and shady middle grounds between pushing ahead as a brave little soldier and death.
That was where Rick Deluca came into the picture.
“What do you want me to tell this guy if he comes looking for you again?” Amy asked as we headed out onto the shop floor to start work.
“Um….” What did I want her to tell him? What did I want to tell him myself? “Don’t tell him anything,” I finally said.
“Zo-Zo, are you in trouble?” Amy asked seriously.
“No,” I laughed, pretending it was all a joke. “Not yet, at least.”
That wasn’t a joke at all. That was a real possibility.
“Okay,” Amy said like she didn’t believe a word that had just passed my lips. “But if you’re in trouble and you don’t open up to me or trust me, I’ll be really pissed off.” The way she said that made me gulp. A pissed off Amy was a scary thing.
We went our separate ways, and I started my rounds of reshelving unwanted merchandise. I tried not to identify too much with the discarded things I put back on shelves. The thingwas, as much as some people, like my family, didn’t want me, there were others who did.
Rick Deluca was the head of a super shady, definitely underground trafficking organization. The way he described it to me, he dealt in human merchandise. I’d found him almost by accident on a really bad night. I’d been at a bar a few weeks after Papa died, attempting to drown my sorrows, even though I hated beer. He’d cozied up to me, and in the course of the conversation, he’d mentioned that there were billionaire alphas with secret condos and island getaways who would pay good money for a pretty omega like me. I could collect the money for selling myself, put it in a bank account somewhere, and I wouldn’t have to worry about a thing for the rest of my life. All I’d have to do was be some alpha’s slave.
Yeah, it was stupid-dangerous, but I was a kinky sub at heart. I played with strangers through the Dark Fantasies Club and got off on it, so how bad could it be to do that full-time? At least I wouldn’t have to worry about making the rent or stinky work clothes that I couldn’t wash because Mr. Tindall was lurking in the laundry room. Maybe I’d get lucky and some mob boss or crooked politician would look like the alpha I’d nearly run into coming out of the DFC office earlier.
There were worse things in life than ending up as some reprehensible alpha’s sex slave…right?
“Maybe not,” I sighed as I put a few auto parts that hadn’t sold back on shelves in one corner of the store.
“Enzo, Enzo, Enzo,” I tensed and straightened at the sound of Mr. York striding up behind me with his slipperiest voice.
“Hi, Mr. York,” I said with as much of a smile as I could manage, turning away from the row of windshield wipers. “What can I do for you today?”
It was our store’s motto, but Mr. York looked at me with the memory of that blow-job in his eyes. “You can work a double shift tomorrow is what you can do,” he said with a toothy smile.
A double shift meant more money. It also meant being out of the apartment, in case my dad dropped by looking for money, which he’d been doing more and more lately. It meant being away from gross Mr. Tindall.
“Okay, I’m fine with that,” I said, relaxing a little.
Mr. York looked disappointed that I would be so accommodating without an argument. “And I need you to work both Saturday and Sunday next weekend,” he went on.
I froze and swallowed. “Um, I, actually, I can’t do that, sir,” I said. The omega auction was that weekend. If I was chosen to participate, I needed those days off. Granted, there was no guarantee I’d make the cut, so I said, “Family thing. Stuff with my papa’s estate.” If I ended up with nothing more than a weekend free, I could live with that.
