A female voice in the background has my ears perking up. “Declan? Who was that?” Pack Gallagher has been putting off finding an omega since I’ve known them, and I know for a fact that they’ve sworn to each other to not mess around with any women—omegasorbetas—in the meantime.
“Um…nobody?” I canhearthe wince in Declan’s voice. The female voice in the background sounds again.
“Declan, you son of a bitch. I told you to stay away until I could talk to her!” West gives me a look of surprise, and at the shake of my head, he frowns, but then motions like he wants me to know he’s giving me privacy. He disappears out of the room, and all my attention goes back to my hard-headed older brother.
“Dammit, Jo, listen. It’s not what it sounds like. Maeve called because the security system started acting up—”
“You let me talk to her right fucking now, Declan James Gallagher!”
Declan grumbles, then his voice is muffled like the phone is away from his face. “Maeve, pass this to Mabel, would you?”
A hesitant voice comes on the line. “...Jo?”
Tears sting my eyes at the sound of her voice, and my hand flies up to cover my mouth. “Mabel-cakes.”
“Oh, Jo, it really is you!” She’s crying now, a choked laugh leaving her as I find myself sitting on the bed. And then we’re talking over each other in a high-pitched tangle of apologies.
“I’m so sorry Mabel, I wish I was there—”
“Don’t you dare apologize, Jojo, you got me out—”
“I took too long to get there—”
“You didn’t even hafta come—”
“That’s ridiculous, of course I did!”
She sniffles, her voice growing more serious. “Why? I did it, Jo. I slit their throats in their sleep, just like I said before. I belong there—I’m a killer.”
Huffing, I wipe my eyes. “Did you kill them in cold blood, or did you carry out a deserved death sentence? If they were good alphas, Mabel, then sure, maybe you do belong there. But if they raised a single hand against you? If they hurt you, or beat you, bonded you against your will or…” my voice chokes, “rapedyou? Then they had it comin’, and all you did was defend yourself.” There’s so much I want to ask her. How they treated her, what they did. The exact story behind all the scars on her arms. What made her reach her breaking point after two years with them.
But that’ll have to be a story for later.
I continue, trepidation filling my veins as I admit my crimes to the one person who always saw the best in me. “I killed thirteen alphas to get admitted to that asylum. I made sure to pick targets that deserved their fates…” I swallow, trying to summon the courage to tell her the one murder that might make her hate me. “Like…like Daddy. So, if you belong there, then so do I.”
She’s quiet for a moment as she processes the fact that I killed the man who raised us, and in that brief flash of time where neither of us says a word, I’m worried that I’ve finally done it. That I’ve officiallycrossed the line with her, and she won’t want anything to do with me anymore.
But instead of condemning me, she surprises me. “He had it comin’, Jojo, with the way he was. But…how? We’re just omegas, and you don’t have the patience for waitin’ until someone is asleep.”
“He was the first,” I admit. “It happened right after he sold you. He wouldn’t tell me where you went, then said he was sendin’ me away. It all happened in sort of a blur after that. But the rest of them… well, Declan helped me.” I find myself shrugging.
“Him?” The surprise is clear in her voice, then her voice grows quieter, like she doesn’t want anyone else to hear her. “The ginger? How do you know you can trust him?”
“Well…” I sigh. I don’t know how much to tell her. If I simply say that he’s my brother, she’ll assume that means he’s also her brother, which could get complicated if my hunch about them is correct. But…I don’t want to tell her about us not really being twins over the phone. That seems more like an “in-person” conversation. Though, considering I have no idea when I’ll actually see her in person again, perhaps it’s time to bite the bullet. “Mabel, I got somethin’ to tell you. Somethin’ that Dec and I discovered shortly after I killed Daddy.”
“I know, Jo.” She sighs, her voice full of sorrow.
“...What do you know?” It would be impossible for her to know that Declan is my brother, right?
“That we’re not blood.” Oh. “Daddy told me when I was fightin’ him on leavin’ with the pack he sold me to. I told him I wanted to stay with my sister, and he told me that we…well, that I didn’t come from Mama. That you weren’t really my sister. He didn’t know where I came from, but Mama told him I wasn’t related. I thought maybe he was just sayin’ it to get me to stop fightin’, but a whole lotta things make sense now.”
“You’re still my sister, Mabel,” I say fiercely. “I don’t care if we came outta the same womb or not—if we don’t have a single shred of DNA in common. You’re my sister, through and through.”
Mabel sniffs, and her voice is choked up when she answers. “I feel the same way, Jojo. But…how does that mean we can trust…him?”
Right. The other half of that secret. “As it turns out, Mama was married before she met Daddy. Got pregnant with me. The man she was married to already had a son from someone else. That son…is Declan. So, Declan is my…”
“Half-brother?” she gasps. “How…how did you find him?”
