"She’s not keen. She doesn’t know about Carter so she doesn’t know why I need a clean break, but there are practical options. If I do that, I can’t put my face on it or do interviews.” I push a cherry tomato around my plate. "I don't know if it'll work. But I need to try something. I can't just keep doing background research for other people forever."
For the past six months, I've been the invisible hand behind other people's bylines. I’ve been doing research that someone else gets credit for and fact-checking that keeps stories accurate but never bears my name. Source cultivation that I hand off when the story gets too big for me to touch without drawing attention.
It's useful work. Important work, even. Laura reminds me of that whenever I get frustrated. "You're keeping journalism honest," she says. "That matters."
She's not wrong. But it's hard to feel like you matter when no one knows you exist.
The big story I’m investigating is different. That one's mine from the ground up. It’s a state-level housing scandal, developers bribing officials to ignore code violations. The buildings are literally falling apart while families live inside them.
It's the kind of story that could win awards, if anyone knew I'd written it.
But putting my real name on it means putting myself back in the spotlight.
"You know I'll support whatever you decide," Akari says. "But Jamie—you can't hide forever."
"I know."
"At some point, you're going to have a baby. And that baby is going to grow up and want to know who both her parents are."
"I'm working on it."
"I know you are." She reaches across the table and squeezes my hand. "I just worry about you. You’re hiding away in the apartment, working from home, never going anywhere without checking three times that no one's watching. That's not sustainable."
"It's necessary."
"Is it, though? It's been six months. The press has moved on. No one's paying attention to you anymore."
She's right, probably.
But I can't shake the fear. I don't just want to hide from the press. I want to hide from Carter.
Because if Carter finds out about the baby—if he decides he wants to be involved—I don't have the resources to fight him.
Alpha fathers have automatic custodial rights unless an omega can prove them unfit. It's one of the most fucked up parts of our legal system.
The laws have been challenged, reformed, softened around the edges. But the core assumption remains: alphas are presumed competent, omegas are presumed to need oversight.
And when the alpha in question is a Crane...
If Carter decided to pursue custody, he'd win. And that's assuming he doesn't decide I'm an unfit parent and get me cut out of my daughter’s life completely.
I can't take that risk. I won't. I haven’t told Akari yet, but as soon as the baby is born, I’m going to leave. I can’t risk staying here in the same job and at the same apartment. I’ll move across to the coast, a couple of timezones away and start using my mother’s name. The harder it is for Carter to find me, the harder it will be for him to take my baby away.
18. Carter
For the first time in my life, I break a promise. I wait three days before confronting my father, even though I promised my mother that I wouldn’t.
It feels like a bomb has just been detonated in the middle of my life. I need to understand why.
IknowKate. She’s my baby sister. She’s contrary and argumentative and outspoken. It’s why she’s always clashed with our father. She feels so strongly about everything.
But she’s also the most honest person I’ve ever met. There is no way that she would have shared anything that she knew to be untrue or anything ambiguous. She wouldn’t have done it lightly.
She kept saying Jamie Dean didn’t know the half of it. That’s the part that keeps echoing in my head. What half of it? What could else could there be?
Emails openly discussing sale of votes? Surely, Dad wouldn’t be so stupid to put anything in writing. It bothers me that the thing I’m struggling to believe is that Dad wouldn’t have put it in writing, and not that he did it.
What is worse than outright fraud? Blackmail? Theft? Murder? My imagination is running away with me. It can’t be that bad. It can’t be.
