"What about Dad?" Leo asked. "He's going to want an update."
I thought about my father. David Harper—the man who'd taken me in when I was eight years old, a feral child with nothing but rage and survival instincts. The man who'd shaped me, molded me, turned me into the Alpha I was today. The man who'd given me everything, including the Omega sleeping on the screen in front of me. He'd known what Ava was before she did. Had arranged to marry her mother specifically because genetic testing suggested her daughter would present as Omega. Had let her into our house, our pack, our hearts, knowing that one day she would belong to us in every way that mattered.
"Tell him his little bird is finally coming home," I said as the room went quiet after that. The others drifted out eventually, Caleb to the gym to burn off some of his restless energy, Ethan to finalize the travel arrangements, Leo to handle the last few details of Ava's old life that needed to be erased.
Her lease had been terminated last week. Her resignation letter, forged with Ethan's usual precision, had been submitted yesterday. Her belongings were ready to be packed and in storage, waiting to be transported to the estate the day she leaves.
By the time she got to the cabin, she would have nothing to go back to. The thought should have bothered me. Some part of me knew it should have bothered me. We were destroying her life, piece by piece, leaving her with no choice but to accept us. I couldn't bring myself to feel guilty. Not when I'd spent threeyears watching her suffer through a freedom that was slowly killing her.
She didn't sleep well. I knew because I watched her every night, cataloging her restless movements, her nightmares, the way she woke up gasping for air with tears on her cheeks. She didn't eat enough. I knew because I had access to her credit card statements, and the amount she spent on groceries was barely enough to feed a child, let alone a grown woman working twelve-hour shifts.
She didn't live. She existed. Survived. Endured.
That wasn't freedom. That was prison. A prison of her own making, built out of fear and stubbornness and the misguided belief that she could outrun what she was.
What she wasmeantto be.
I stayed in the surveillance room until dawn crept across the sky, watching her sleep, watching her nest, watching every unconscious movement her body made toward the pack she didn't know was waiting for her.
At six in the morning, her alarm went off. I watched her wake up, watched the confusion cross her face as she took in the elaborate nest she'd built in her sleep, watched the fear and shame andwantwar in her expression. She looked like hell. Dark circles under her eyes. Skin too pale. Lips bitten raw. She looked like a woman on the edge of collapse.
Good, I thought again.Fall apart, Red. Fall apart so I can put you back together.
She stumbled to the bathroom, and I switched to the camera hidden in her medicine cabinet. I watched her stare at herself in the mirror. Her eyes—those beautiful green eyes that had haunted me for seven years—widen with horror as she cataloged the signs of impending heat.
She knew. Some part of her knew what was happening. What was coming. She just didn't know that it wasn't an accident. Thather body's rebellion had been carefully orchestrated by men who knew her better than she knew herself.
I watched her take her suppressant—the one that would do nothing but accelerate her inevitable crash—and felt a surge of anticipation so strong it made me dizzy.
Seven days. In seven days, she would walk into our trap. In seven days, she would finally be ours. I could wait seven more days.
I'd waited seven years.
What was one more week? I took a deep breath and continued to watch her as she walked around her apartment. My phone buzzed just as Ava was leaving for work. I glanced at the screen.
Dad.
I answered on the second ring. "She's confirmed. Carol called last night. She'll be at the cabin in a week."
A long pause. Then David's voice, warm and satisfied: "My little bird is finally coming home."
"Yes sir." I told him and could feel the tension on the other side of the phone leave.
"You've done well, Mason. All of you. I know how hard this has been." Hard. That was one word for it. Three years of blue balls and sleepless nights and wanting something so badly it felt like dying.
"She's worth it," I said simply.
"She is." Another pause. "Your mother would be proud. If she'd lived to see this?—"
He stopped, and I didn't push. My biological mother had died when I was six, leaving me to a father who found me more inconvenient than anything else. David was the only real father I'd ever known.
"Bring her home safe," David continued. "And Mason?"
"Yes sir?" I asked
"Take care of my little bird. She's going to be scared. She's going to fight. But underneath all that fear, she loves you. She always has. Help her remember that." He told me and I couldn’t help but smile at his words
"I will." I told him, cause we would take care of her no matter what. She was ours after all.
