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I’ve belonged to an alpha already. I don’t intend to belong to another ever again, no matter that these alphas are slowly making me doubt they’re made of the same stuff as Lawrence.
And even if I wanted to stay, if Lawrence learned I was here, he’d destroy Pack Ashe. Destroy Nancy and Hali too, out of spite, because that’s the sort of man he is. Vengeful and cruel.
“You don’t cross a man like Lawrence,” I say. “Which is exactly what I’m asking you to do.”
“You’re not asking us to do anything,” Kylian says.
“We want to help you. To do that, we might need a little more information,” Cian adds softly. “Just for context. But it’s a request, not a demand.”
I twist my fingers together and dart a rapid glance at the doorway, nervous about all I’m sharing with them. “Information like what?”
“Information like how Lawrence could have known you if Anna Jackson never let you go anywhere?” Cian says. “Especially since he spent three years partying in Europe before he returned to the city.”
I stare at him.
What he’s suggesting feels like someone took a baseball bat to the side of my head. “You think he bought Mom the house in return for raising me?”
“Maybe not him,” Rune says slowly. “He’d have been too young to do it if he’s only twenty-nine now. But his father? The great Byron Wentworth who sits on almost every board in the city? I could see him doing something like that.”
So could I.
“Do you think she’s alive?” I ask quietly. “My real mom?”
Because more and more, I’m convinced I was never Anna Jackson’s daughter. I was merely a duty to her, a way to get paid, and if she was dealing with the Wentworths, she’d have had a big payday.
My eyes widen.
Rune frowns. “Everleigh, what is it?”
“You’ll get the rest of your money when I’m sure I’ve gotten what my father paid for,” I whisper the words that have haunted me for the last year. “That was what Lawrence said to my mom—to Anna—when he came to get me.”
They stare at me with varying degrees of horror or outright fury.
“What else did he say?” Rune’s voice is clipped, angry.
I look away. “If he said anything else, I was too out of it to hear. It doesn’t really matter, I guess. I know what he meant.”
“What did he mean?” Kylian asks.
“An omega in heat,” I whisper. “A new omega to do exactly what he wanted to and with. If this is how they treated me, what did they do to my mother?”
He could have gotten an omega from Haven Academy. As if the girls wouldn’t have crawled over each other to get to him. So why me? His father demanded it? Or some other sick need to control me?
None of the alphas has a response for me.
My smile is bitter. Alphas like Lawrence don’t want an omega at all. They just want someone to control. Someone to own.
“Sorry for interrupting your dinner. I’ll let you get back to it now.” I turn and walk away.
“If she’s out there, wewillfind her.” Cian’s voice is determined.
I keep walking. “She’s dead. There’s no way she would still be alive. But thank you.”
Chapter20
Everleigh
“Cher?”
