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“I wish I had an answer. Keeping you safe has turned into a challenge,” he said before backtracking. “We don’t mind, of course. I just mean…”
He was getting frustrated with himself, but for once I didn’t want to push him. “It’s fine. I get what you mean,” I reassured him quickly.
We both let it drop then. I was content to let him massage my scalp while I enjoyed the hot shower.
“We still have another week, right? Before the senator comes back?” I asked as I washed out the conditioner.
“Half a week,” he corrected. “Your heat took a full week and a half, including the days of recovery. At least it wasn’t quite as bad as that first day. I’ve never felt that out of control in my life.”
“Imagine how I felt,” I said heavily. “That’s why I wondered if someone had drugged me. This definitely wasn’t normal, but I realized too late to do anything about it. I don’t even want to think about what could’ve happened if I was around any other alphas.”
“Wait,” he said. His face paled like he had seen a ghost. “Didn’t you say one of the additions to the bill was ensuring alphas didn’t face consequences for rutting?”
“I did,” I said slowly, going over everything I could remember. It felt like so long ago at this point. “You don’t think they just randomly tested this out on people, right?”
“I don’t trust him to do anything moral,” he said with a dark chuckle. “These people traffic omegas and children, so I have no doubts that they would be willing to test out some random new drug that could help them kidnap omegas easier. You can’t exactly fight back when you’re in a fog like that. Not to mention, imagine how much some alphas would pay for the luxury of an omega in a heat. Defenseless, fueled by lust.”
Bile rose in my throat, so I took a few deep breaths to keep from throwing up.
Had he planned to add me to his collection? With how easily Burke could explain away my absence, no one in that office would question it. The Syndicate likely wouldn’t even care enough to save me. To them, I was a means to an end, a tool they could use, not a person.
“Imagine if they tried this on a bigger scale,” he continued. “Hit a couple omegas in a crowded place, and the closest alphas would go feral. I could barely stop myself. Bailey, Ibrokethe bed. It would have been easy to hurt you if I wasn’t so practiced at keeping my cool under pressure.”
“God, I have to…” I stopped myself before I could admit that I needed to call the Syndicate. “I have to make a phone call.”
Sterling didn’t protest as I hurried out of the shower and wrapped the towel around myself. I waited until he walked out behind me, leaving the room and closing the door.
When I had my Syndicate phone in hand, I froze. How could I put this all in text?
Me: Something happened that you need to know about. It involves the public. I need a phone call. Too much for this method.
Syndicate: Stand by, your handler will call.
I started pacing the floor, my hand clutching the phone, waiting for the damn thing to ring. If they had the resources that I thought they did, then they were the only ones that could truly do anything about this. My job was to end Burke’s career, not handle mass drugging.
The phone buzzed in my hand, and I pressed into my ear.
“Hello.” My voice was barely more than a whisper.
“Explain,” the voice ordered. It was a female’s voice, but it was slightly distorted as if they were trying to keep me from being able to identify it.
The woman stayed quiet as I detailed what had happened, including a few intimate details of my heat and the cleaning crew that wasnotsupposed to be there. I didn’t mention the other attacks. They likely knew about them already.
“If you go through the screenshots that I sent you of the bill, you’ll notice that rutting is part of it. I may be wrong, but I’m putting two and two together, and this needed to be shared. Someone else has to look into this. I already have a mission here.” I kept my voice calm and firm as if I had any legs to stand on here.
“Contact us if you find more. We’ll handle it on our end. Good work, Bailey.”
The line went dead, and I sank down onto the edge of my mattress. The vise that had been clawing my chest started to loosen. Maybe I wasn’t as alone in this as I thought. She’d listened to every detail, ending the call with a promise to take action. I didn’t know if that was true or not, but I’d have to trust them.
Voices drifted in from the other room, and I realized that I had to go face them. Whatever small bubble of peace that Sterling and I had created around ourselves was likely ruined. He knew I was keeping him out of the loop.
Telling them about the Syndicate could put them in danger, just as much as they thought telling me about their own jobs could. We were on an ever-revolving door, and I was going to put an end to it soon.
Part of me wanted to walk out there and admit everything, let them in, but the other side was afraid. What if they knew someone in the Syndicate or they found out? All of this would be for nothing. I would be dead.
Honestly, I didn’t know who to trust and felt more alone than ever even though I knew I was partially to blame.
I trusted my mates to keep me safe. Sterling and I had had our moments, but after they’d cared for me through that heat, had kept me safe from attacks, how could I not? I’d never had that level of intimacy and care, and I craved it with them.
