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Prologue
Cyrus
The wall in front of me held a web of names and locations. Large marks ran through the faces of the nearly twenty men I’d already eliminated.
“I’ve got them,” my son Hayes said as he came in, tacking up five more pictures. “We’ve got it narrowed down to Senator Henry Burke’s inner circle. I’ve had my eyes on him and Antonio Alvarez for months.”
“There’s an opening at the senator’s campaign office. One of our contacts let me know they need a security team,” Sterling added. He was my oldest, an alpha like me, and he was just as hellbent as I was on finding every single fucker involved in this trafficking ring. We’d watched his mother wither away after what they’d done to her, so death would be a mercy as far as I was concerned.
“Keep tailing them. It sounds like we have a job, boys. We’re getting closer to digging up this whole fucking operation. I want to watch it burn to the ground,” I told them, tapping a finger on the senator’s face.
“Saving these omegas won’t bring her back,” Weston said bluntly, my beta son telling the truth in the only way he knew how.
“I know it won’t, but I promised her I’d take them down, and I won’t rest until we have. I’m a patient man,” I said. “We’ve got time to settle in, listen, observe, and hunt down any leads we can.”
“Dorian wants to see you,” Hayes said, swiping away a notification on his phone. He was rarely seen without some form of technology in hand. He was amazing at his job, and a beta who knew how to keep his head, but it affected his ability to connect with people outside of us. “I’ll make up dossiers on the staff at his office.”
I stalked from the data room Hayes generally occupied to search out my brother, the acting head of our Family.
Dorian looked up and sighed with exasperation when I slammed open the door.
“I hear you’ve got a lead. Should I assume I won’t be seeing you or the boys for a bit?”
“Obviously,” I answered, knowing that was the path I’d take no matter what he thought about it. My brother only sat in that chair because I’d declined the role. Stepping down to focus on the trafficking ring that had broken my wife was something I’d never regretted. The only thing I hated was that it had taken this long to make the progress we had. She’d been gone for over ten years, and I felt like I was still scurrying in the dark for real leads.
“You have to give up on this at some point. I’m telling you, us putting our foot into the ring would get us ahead faster,” he said. “You can eventually take it down from the inside, and in the meantime, we’ll make connections that will only strengthen our Family and line our pockets. Where’s the harm in that?”
We’d had this fight far too many times over the years. We didn’t dabble in the flesh trade, nor did we deal in children like they did. I’d burn this Family to the ground before I allowed him to tarnish our name, and I most definitely wouldn’t let him lead us down that damned path under the guise of avenging my wife. He might be standing in as head, but I had more power here than he realized. My brother had always been more focused on getting himself ahead than thinking about the bigger picture like his precarious seat upon the Family throne.
“We’re going into the senator’s campaign office as security. Our contacts will ensure we’re the ones chosen. We’ll play our part to get our information. That will be my focus, as well as my boys’, for the foreseeable future. We’re closing in.”
“You’re wasting our time,” he said with a hint of ice in his tone. The man was so out of shape he could barely get around, yet he thought he could talk to me this way?
“Let me remind you, little brother, that I do not need your approval,” I said, matching his energy. He narrowed his eyes and thinned his lips, but he didn’t say anything else. It was a smart move. “I will not rest until I’ve dug out every fucking rat involved and ended their pathetic lives. You can have your reservations all you want, but they mean nothing to me. I won’t back down, and we’ll do thismyway.”
“Then so be it,” he bit out, throwing a stack of papers off of his desk. I simply turned my back on him and walked back to the data room to see what Hayes had found. He looked up when I entered.
“We’re in.”
ChapterOne
Bailey
The clothes on my body were not the ones I’d gone to bed in. In fact, this wasn’t my apartment at all. I wasn’t a drinker, so I knew it wasn’t because of some rough night that I just hadn’t pieced together yet.
Something waswrong.
Fear filled me, cold and strong, as I studied the fancy bedroom I’d found myself in. The walls were a soft cream with a damask pattern, and the sleek black furniture was adorned with pops of gold. Even the mattress I was now sitting on felt like a cloud and reeked of money.
My heart pounded in my chest as I slid out of bed, half expecting shackles to be around my ankles. An omega waking up unaware was not exactly a good omen.
The floor-length mirror in the corner revealed a much more put together persona than I expected. My hair was straight and shiny, makeup immaculate, and the black satin nightgown fit me like a glove.
What the fuck is going on?
Who the fuck changed my clothes?
The fact that someone took the time to change me and do my makeup was a whole other level of fucked up. Unease settled in my stomach, and I felt violated.
