Mavi crosses the room and takes my face in his hands. The touch grounds me instantly, the way it always does and the way it always will. “Hey. Breathe. You got this.” He glances aroundthe room. “I’m sure you do, judging by the state of paper across every surface. Now, let me go get your clothes. You get dressed. We leave in thirty minutes.”
Koda catches Mavi on his way to the closet. “He is ready. Are you?”
Mavi’s smile has teeth. “I’ve been ready since the diner.”
I walk into the Hollis family dinner with Mavi on my arm. The room shifts the moment we enter as conversations die mid-sentence, forks pause halfway to mouths, and glasses stop in the air. The scent hits first, our merged sandalwood and honey-citrus so deeply woven that every nose in the room reads it instantly as mated. The golden boy is mated and the Omega on his arm is not the Moreau.
Mavi carries himself at his full five-foot-six like it’s six feet as he wears full glam with editorial-perfect makeup and an outfit that shows off the several marks I played all over his skin. Koda’s perched off to the far side in a three-piece suit, looking as uncomfortable as I’d imagine he actually is.
His face splits into a grin when our eyes meet, though he quickly suppresses it into a smirk because the whole family is watching.
“Ready, Alpha?” Mavi murmurs against my ear.
I merely nod, guiding him toward our seats, one of the name plates clearly statingElias.Mom really thought in the end, I would follow her rules rather than my own. We take our seats and the dinner proceeds with the thick suffocating politeness of people who are furious but civilized as cold comments land and pointed silences stretch. My mother sits at the head of the table with her composure restored since the diner, though her eyes are fixed on Mavi with an expression that could freeze glass.
An aunt finally speaks up. "This can still be fixed. Mate the Moreau Omega and we move forward. Bond removal is—"
I stand and the room falls silent, everyone waiting for me to speak. Never once have I ever stepped out of line and yet, in two weeks, I’ve made my own path and made it clear who I choose. Now, I just have to state that choice loud and clear.
“I admit that making choices has always been hard for me.” Mavi grins up at me, folding his fingers into mine, giving me confidence. “But this was the easiest choice I have ever made. Mavi is mine. He will always be mine. And you can’t take that from me.”
My mother speaks from the head of the table. "We built you, Sai. Everything you have, the career, the galleries, the name, we built that. You owe this family—"
“I owe this family nothing I have not already paid.”
Movement happens at the other end of the table as Koda stands. He reaches into his jacket and pulls out a stack of documents and drops them on the table with enough force that someone's wine glass tips and spills red across the white tablecloth. Nobody moves to clean it up. All eyes stay on the papers.
“Every one of those contracts has my name on it. Not the Hollis name.Mine. Models, editors, galleries, they signed with Sai. Not with the dynasty. Threaten me. Try to ruin me. Pull every string you have. I still have a leg to stand on because these people want me. Not your name. Me.”
Silence falls between us as the wine spreads across the tablecloth like a slow-motion wound.
I push from my chair and walk to my mother. I stand over her, six-foot-two of broad-shouldered Alpha who knelt for an Omega an hour ago and is now towering over the woman who taught me that kneeling was weakness.
My voice drops low enough that only she hears it clearly though the room is so quiet everyone catches the edges. "But if you ever do something to my mate again, the paintings, the rent, the platform, the diner, any of it, this will be a very different conversation."
My mother's face cycles through several emotions as my father speaks from his seat. "You'll be cut off. That apartment was paid for by the family trust. The—"
Koda clears his throat from across the room. "Actually, that apartment is fully in Sai's name. It has been since he moved in. You can’t touch it."
Everyone stares at Koda. Koda shrugs and smiles the easy grin that hides the fact that he has been quietly protecting my assets for years without telling anyone. That and the fact that he’ll have to pay for his part in this, at least until he makes a clean break from the Hollis family as well.
I straighten my jacket with Mavi's tie at my throat. "I will move out if that is what you prefer. But you still will not have me. I am no longer your pawn."
"Please do not do this,” my mother whispers.
Mavi comes to my side, taking my hand in his as he glares at my mother. "You should have pleaded years ago. You had years to be a mother instead of a machine. You chose the machine."
Mavi tugs me out toward the front, my body willingly leaving the space that has felt like a prison for the last nearly thirty years. Koda is one step behind us, that grin he was suppressing now back on his face.
Outside, the cool air hits my face and I breathe. I really breathe, the way I breathe when Mavi puts the collar on me, the way I breathe when the noise finally stops. The machine sits at my back, the night stretches ahead, and the person I chose is standing right beside me.
I turn to Koda. The easy grin is back on my cousin's face but I can see what is underneath it, the cost. What Koda just did in that room, pulling out those documents, confirming the apartment, standing up beside me against the family. "What did that cost you?"
Koda shrugs. "A few more jobs. Some conversations I will need to have. Nothing I cannot handle."
"Koda." We’ve never really spoken about what he does for a living beyond racing elite cars. I know most of it’s underground but he never talks about it and I’ve never pushed.
"Seeing you walk out of there was worth it." He says simply. "That was worth anything."
