AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Denise turns at the harsh sound of his voice, releasing a tiny gasp. “Quinn?” She pushes around the alphas and stares at me and then my stepbrothers. “Brady, right?” she asks the oldest brother. “I remember meeting you boys...” She trails off when she spots Austin’s arm around my shoulder. She steps closer and sniffs, and then her eyes shoot to my neck and my exposed marks.
I recoil.
“Oh, dear. That’s...expected, honestly.” She looks at Reggie and wrinkles her nose. “Your daughter mated with her brothers.”
“Ew,” one of her spawn shouts.
“Stepbrothers,” Dylan growls. “We’re her stepbrothers.”
Tom grabs Denise and tugs her toward him, like he’s worried we’ll taint her. “Is that true?”
“Look at her neck.” Denise stabs her finger toward my marks.
I cover them with my hand, protecting them from her judgment. “It’s complicated,” I whisper. I’m not ashamed, but her reaction makes me feel dirty.
All three of my dads recoil. Tom wrinkles his nose in disgust. Kevin’s upper lip curls. And Reggie looks at me like he wishes I’d never been born.
“Does your mother know about this?” Kevin demands, then shakes his head. “You know what? I don’t even care. We made the right decision when we cut you off.”
“She was always troubled,” Denise tells him with an understanding nod.
“Troubled?” I growl. “I was a straight-A student.”
“Oh, honey,” Denise says with a sad sigh. “You don’t remember how you showed up at our house unannounced or how you practically stalked your poor fathers’ phones? I finally convinced them to change their numbers. It’s like you were obsessed with them.”
“I wanted to see my dads,” I say, tearing my watering eyes from her and looking at my dads. “I missed you.”
“Quinn, youwerea little much. Always calling and leaving messages. Crying.” Reggie grimaces, and I know in that very instant that the memories of them loving and caring for me were all just a show. They were always biding their time. If not for their scent match, they would have eventually left us for someone else.
My legs threaten to give out, and my chest shudders as I struggle to breathe. Even after all these years, their rejection cuts so deep. Throat burning, I scowl at him and then my other dads. Denise is petting Tom’s chest, and her vile children are giving me smug little looks, like they’re relishing my pain.
Fuck them.
Fuck all of them.
“Forgive me for being a child who loved you,” I snap, then glance at Austin. “Can we go?”
I don’t think I can bear much more of this without falling apart.
“Of course.” He slides his arm off me, and the brothers share a look. He directs me around my dads, his fingers slipping off my shoulder as I take a step away.
“Hey, Tom?” I hear Brady ask.
“What, son?”
The solid sound of fist hitting flesh comes from behind me. I whirl and see my alphas standing over my dads.
Kevin, Tom, and Reggie are sprawled across the ground, clutching their faces. Denise screeches and clutches her kids to her body, screaming about lawsuits and charges.
Brady laughs. “You can try,” he says, stepping onto Reggie’s groin.
My dad blanches and gasps in pain.
“Here’s what you’re going to do. You’re going to pretend like you never saw us. You’re going to take your pathetic alphas home and nurse their wounds, and if anyone so much as breathespoliceorlawsuit, I want you to look at your house and your cars, really look at them, because that’ll be the last time you ever get to enjoy them.”
“You can’t?—”
“He can,” Dylan cuts Denise off. “We might be found guilty, but by the time we’re done with you, you won’t have anythingleft. A developer might take an interest in your property, they might see that you haven’t been paying your taxes for the last two years?—”
