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An incessant buzzing wormed its way into my dreams as I struggled to wake from the deep sleep I’d fallen into. Tilting my head toward the only light coming into the room, I could see that it was the earliest part of the evening when the sun was just starting to dip. We’d been asleep for several hours, not quite enough to make up for the sleep that Theo and I had missed the night before, but it was definitely the rest we all needed.
The buzzing of my phone started again. This time, the vibrations from a second phone somewhere in the room went off as well. Trevor’s breath puffed against my stomach, where my shirt had ridden up, while his arms were wrapped around Ethan’s hips, hugging him like a body pillow.
Our Omega rubbed his eyes and tried to shift when he was met with a muffled, “nuh uh” as Trevor gripped Ethan tighter and tried to burrow his face into my stomach. Ethan’s smile was fond as he looked down at our burly, tattooed Alpha then around to the rest of us. When he met my eyes, his smile grew until it was the breathtaking boyish one that only appeared when he was completely at ease. The chorus of buzzing added another phone with the next round and Ethan and I both stretched to reach ours.
I saw Gia’s name on my screen and Ethan turned towards me to show that it was his sister, blowing his phone up with texts. I extracted myself from the puppy pile, but Trevor still wouldn’t release Ethan, so he had to go through his messages from the nest. Grumbling, Theo reached for his phone as it began buzzing as well but he just silenced it and chucked it across the nest. Ethan directed a scolding noise at him but he just pointed a finger at me and rolled into Ethan’s side. Pressing accept, I lifted my phone to my ear.
“Gia?”
“Jade, I say this respectfully, but, bitch, where have you been for the last hour? I’ve been trying to call you!”
“Respectfully, I was taking a fucking nap with my pack because my mates have been traumatized and I had been awake for more than twenty-four hours. Tell me what the fuck is going on.”
“Glad you got some rest because you’re going to be awake for a while. Are you near a TV?”
“No. Why do I need a TV, Gia?”
Ethan’s voice cut over whatever Gia was about to say.
“Holy shit! Aubs sent me a stream. They’re all being arrested, and it got leaked.”
Gia told me to call her back as soon as I got the pack up and around, then she hung up. The others got up and we stumbled down the short set of stairs to the room Miles and Shae shared. Miles switched on the TV as everyone else piled into the bed to watch the rolling coverage and listen to the announcers.
"—home of Poppy Cabot, heiress to Cabot Pharmaceuticals nearly an hour ago. Cabot, an Omega, caused a bit of a social media frenzy when she re-entered the social scene mated to a pack of relatively unknown entrepreneurs who run a casino and several other establishments.”
The footage being shown was of officers escorting a cuffed Poppy Cabot from the apartment building in the city that Ethan had been monitoring. I was standing at the foot of the bed but from the corner of my eye I saw Trevor and Shae stiffen and lean into one another. Miles wrapped an arm around Shae, Theo put a hand on Trevor’s shoulder, and Ethan climbed into Trevor’s lap, linking his fingers with Shae’s, and purring for them both. Following Poppy in a chain of cuffed individuals was the red-haired Alpha that we suspected Derek had been contacted by, and two others.
“That last one is the one she brought to the fundraiser. He seemed to hate her, barely swung at me when Aubrey decked the bitch, and claimed none of the bites were his.”
“—shocking the city with allegations of running a human trafficking ring that pulled vulnerable Betas and Omegas off the streets with the intent to sell them.”
“Right you are, Sarah. It’s even being reported that these particular people played a role in the recent abduction of one of the members of the Owens pack, the elusive media darlings who run Drake House Securities, whose claims of pack retribution and a subsequent massacre to retrieve their missing packmate have just come to light.”
“Though many have questioned why such laws still stand, calling them barbaric and archaic, I challenge those opponents to find a single Alpha who wouldn’t want to invoke them if their bondmate has been abducted by people as nefarious as these are accused of being.”
That must have been why Gia was calling. Someone sussed out the link between the charges against that pack, Shae’s abduction, and our rescue.
“I need to call Gia. I’m going to use your office, Miles.”
He nodded as he pressed a kiss to Shae’s temple and I felt their eyes on me as I left the room. Closing the door to the room across the hall, I settled into the couch Miles kept in his office for when Shae wanted to lounge around but still be near him while he worked. Gia picked up almost immediately when I called her back.
“See how quickly I answered that call, Jade? Strive for that.”
“Strive to act more like my lawyer and less like an annoyed friend when the news is using words like ‘massacre’ to talk about my actions.”
“Fair. Look, I’m not worried about that. It was sanctioned and we covered all our bases the other night with the local cops. The media can try to spin it all they want but no one is going to lose sleep over human traffickers who got what was coming to them. It’s about your current retribution claim.”
My body stilled and my blood ran cold.
“Explain.”
“Don’t go all psycho killer Domme on me. It’s not my kink and you don’t intimidate me. Anyway, the claim isn’t challenged, but Jade, the police can’t find him. He wasn’t found at any of the known properties.”
“The police are claiming that they will not pursue him with your claim intact. You need to find him before he runs, if he hasn’t already.”
“They won’t look for him at all?”
“No.”
