Page 2 of Now Their Starlet

But it’s hard to do that now after she just threw herself down the stairs. Even harder, now that she’s accusing me of being the one to push her.

“Let me go!” I yell, thrashing my body against the grip the alphas have on my arms. The restrictive hold and dominating physical presence of the two walls of muscle beside me, hauling me towards the staircase and away from the front door, makes my panic so intense I’m practically choking on it.

Right as they start dragging me up the first few steps, I take a page out of my mom’s book and throw myself backwards, breaking free for a couple of seconds.

“Do your jobs!” Gina hisses from the floor.

Jobs?

What the hell did she hire these alphas to do? Drag me to my room? Keep me hostage in my own childhood home?

Stuart is kneeling beside her, seemingly done with whatever Gina wanted him to do, offering a hand I’m sure he intends to be reassuring. She isn’t giving him the light of day, her attention entirely on the scene I’m making.

Alphas are physically stronger than omegas. It’s a fact of biology. No matter how much time I spend working out, even if I were to do strength training instead of the cardio and Pilates I normally do, I could never hope to best an alpha who barely takes care of himself. Not that my mom would ever approve of me working out like that. She’s always been critical of people’s physical bodies. Herself especially, and by extension, mine as well.

Because that’s all I am to her.

An extension of herself.

It’s especially obvious, given whatever this stunt is.

The paid alphas let out soft grunts of exasperation as they chase after me.

Look, I’ve never been good at fighting. I took one self-defense class after I graduated high school, bought a can of pepper spray I keep on my keys, and called it a day. I don’t think I’ve used a single thing I learned from that class ever.

Maybe it would’ve been useful to keep up with that sort of thing. Maybe I would’ve been able to do something when my ex-boyfriend, Ezra Fletcher, physically assaulted me in a bathroom at the Grammys in a coke-fueled drug-haze. Maybe I would’ve been able to do something now.

Realistically? It would’ve done jack shit.

The two alphas somehow manage to get me in a hold where my arms are crossed over my chest as they grip my wrists and arms. It’s a much more efficient hold. A practiced one, it seems.

Are these guys paid to restrain people often?

Crazy job, if you ask me.

“Let me go!” I scream again, still continuing to thrash about, even though there’s literally nothing I can do. “Mom! What the hell is going on!”

I’m going crazy. I must be. Because, seriously, I never in a million years would’ve imagined this happening.

I remember feeling like this a lot growing up. I’d do something wrong and Gina would act like I literally committed a felony and was asking her to take the fall for it. The worst thing I ever did growing up was drink underage, but who in our circles wasn’t? Hell, I didn’t even drink and drive. Not once.

“The paperwork has been filed,” Stuart says softly.

With my arms twisted around my body like this, pinned between the two alphas, I can’t even turn to see him speak.

“This is for your own good, Andi. You obviously can’t be trusted,” Gina calls after me.

To the people who believe her narrative, who believe I threw her down the stairs, her words probably sound like she’s referring to that. But to me? I know they mean that I broke her trust enough by going to meet my dad that she’s willing to do something as insane as this.

I jerk my body backward with all my weight, nearly sending myself tumbling down the stairs.

The bald alpha lets out a frustrated grunt.

“Relax,” the alpha bark cracks through the air like a whip, and my body obeys instantly, a slave to my baser instincts and biology that I have no hope of controlling.

My eyes fly wide as my body goes limp in their hold.

I’ve never experienced an alpha’s bark before. Not even Ezra—as self-centered and kind of immature as he was—ever used it on me. Not only is it societally frowned upon, but it’s also illegal to use in a lot of cases. There used to be a time when alphas were allowed to use it against their bondmates all the time, but times have changed.