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“Just yours?” Sterling, another alpha on the security team, pointed out bluntly. He’d never spoken to me before now, but I could easily read the sarcasm in his tone.
I shrugged. “You have to put in time to keep up momentum. We want our campaign to gain traction, don’t we?”
“The campaign isn’t my place to worry about,” Sterling said casually. My jaw would have dropped if I hadn’t been so in control of every facial expression, reaction, and statement from my mouth for weeks.
“We’ve been instructed to keep an eye onyou.” Cyrus’ words had me breaking character.
My eyebrows rose with surprise. “What? Me? I’m nobody…”
“To the senator you’re someone worth protecting,” he said simply. “We’ll be around until the last staff member leaves.”
Security had been around until the end of the day but they usually left when the senator did.
What made me important enough to protect?
My answer came the moment I sat down in front of my computer to get started. There was a company-wide memo at the top of my email list.
In light of the campaign gaining popularity and the recent threats, I have extended security to protect those who work outside of our normal hours. If you wish to come in on weekends or outside of those times, you must call ahead.
Forgoing work, I started down a rabbit hole of political speculation and conspiracies to try to stay ahead of whatever projected attacks they were worried about. There were a few social media hashtags and blogs that always stuck out, so I combed through the thousands of posts for any planned protests or events.
Each new post was more terrifying than the last. Politics was so much more than a status game. The laws these people put out there could change the trajectory of our future, and those fighting against them were willing to stop at nothing to make sure they didn’t come to fruition.
And if the Omega Syndicate was this involved, then we all had something to worry about.
“Should you be looking at that?”
I jumped at the stark change to my previous silence. Hayes was glaring down at me, but I shrugged. “Knowing what our opponents are saying is key to taking them down, is it not?”
“Then why do you seem nervous?” He stared down at me without a hint of any emotion on his face. A mask like that must have taken years to perfect. Clearly, I wasn’t the only one here with things to hide.
“I don’t know, maybe because I’m reading about all these threats against the campaign,” I said, pointing at the screen. The site I was on outlined what an anonymous group wanted to do to the “traitorous omegas” working this campaign for betraying our own kind.
He leaned in a little too close for the first time. Until today, they’d kept their distance. My entire world froze when the scent of basil and honey hit me. It was sweet and earthy and had my head swimming. Even if the scent itself was calming and natural, there was nothing normal about how strong it was.
His hazel eyes widened before he took a stride backward. He had to have noticed the same thing I did but was keeping it under wraps.
Hayes cleared his throat before turning away, only stopping to offer reassurance. “You’ll be safe here, Bailey.” There was something more behind those words that hadn’t been there before. He was studiously avoiding eye contact, but it was pretty obvious that neither of us were going to say anything about what we’d just discovered. I knew my own reasons for that choice, but was his silence for his gain or mine?
If only he knew how wrong he was about my safety...
I was an omega living on the edge of destruction. One wrong move, a single bad decision, anything outside of what they expected, and I could lose everything I’d worked for these last few weeks.
And to make matters worse, mymatewas part of the security team protecting the very man I needed to destroy. He had the power to ruin me if I let him get any closer than he’d been tonight. Fuck, he could ruin everything if he so much as breathed a word about the connection between us.
What good would I be to the senator if I wasn’t the innocent omega he thought I was?
It had to stay a secret… even if I lost my mate in the process.
My stomach rolled, and I had to rush to the bathroom. The cold water I splashed on my face did little to quell my rising panic.
A few moments later, the slam of the now open door had me gasping, then choking, with surprise. Water was still dripping down my face, likely along with my makeup.
I couldn’t even say anything before the beta moved forward, pulling me in and crushing his lips to mine. Any kiss I’d ever had paled in comparison to this moment, and a rush of warmth slammed into me.
I surprised us both by breaking the kiss and shoving him back. It physically hurt to pull away, but I somehow managed it. I stood there, staring at him, my lungs straining and breath coming and going in quick pants.
“We can’t.Ican’t. You don’t understand,” I said. He stepped back and held up his hands, hazel eyes wide. “I want to, but we can’t.”
