‘Oh, hey Mom! Yeah, it’s been a while, hasn’t it? By the way, your no-good alcoholic excuse for a man tracked me down in Chicago, barged into my home and tried to rape me again! Yeah, funny how that works, isn’t it? Ha, ha. So... a friend of mine bashed his head in and another friend of mine got rid of the body afterward! No, sorry, I don’t know where he is now. I guess the cops never found his corpse. Honestly, though? I didn’t ask.’
Yeah... no.
I pressed my lips together and let myself into the apartment, trying not to think about that fateful night a couple of weeks ago when Heath and I had fucked on my cramped, sagging mattress.
Had he been thinking about the dead body he’d smuggled out of here while I’d been choking on his cock? I shook my head violently, trying to derail that train of thought. Of course he hadn’t been. Hell, he probably hadother peopleto do the actual hands-on corpse removal. Knox’s pack had people for everything.
I should know. I was one of them.
Angrily, I threw my keys on the side table by the couch. They clattered up against the base of the lamp that had replaced the one Jez used to kill my stepfather.
The box of THC gummies I’d intended to use to get to sleep was fucking empty, because ofcourseit was. I paced restlessly around the living area, pissed off at myself for being pissed off at Heath.
Christ, this was ridiculous.
What the hell did I even have to be angry about? I wasn’t the one who’d been kidnapped. I wasn’t the one who’d been injected with drugs and ended up bonded to someone I despised.
You’re angry because now you have to accept the fact that there’s nothing between you and him, said a little voice that I wanted to hit.
“There wasneveranything between me and Heath,” I said aloud. “It was a fucking one-night stand—it didn’t mean anything!”
Jesus. I was losing it—talking to myself in an empty apartment. And now my hands were shaking again.
Was this, like, delayed PTSD or something? Because, in my defense, Ihadbeen traipsing around in a pedophile camp with armed alphas a few days ago. Maybe I was allowed to be a psychological basket case afterward?
I flopped down on the sofa, forgetting to avoid the place where more springs had broken a couple of weeks ago. And... to be honest, the feeling of being half-swallowed by the cushions wasn’t the worst thing I’d felt today. I let the decrepit couch embrace me, since there was no one else here to do it.
Once again, my thoughts drifted to St. Louis... to the only people I’d ever really known in my life who seemed to have their shit completely together. I hadn’t feltsafeback then, exactly. I hadn’tbeensafe back then. But for the first time, I’d gotten a glimpse of what emotional security was supposed to look like.
Extracting my phone from my pocket was more difficult than it might have been, because of the couch cushion situation. I stared at the screen, debating between calling and texting. But I needed to hear a sympathetic voice, as stupid as that sounded.
It was late, but notthatlate. I called up the contact number for the guy who’d whisked me off to relative safety as a fifteen-year-old runaway fleeing my abusive family.
On first meeting, Byron Harper came across as a vain, narcissistic alpha asshole. Which... okay. The ‘vain’ part and the ‘asshole’ part weren’t too far off the mark. Beneath that, though, he was the other side of my coin.
I’d had a terrible childhood, but I’d avoided getting sucked in to the ever-present gangs that dominated St. Louis’ east side. He’d had a terrible childhood, anddidn’tavoid the gangs. But he’d survived when so many others hadn’t, and then he’d spent the next several years of his life trying to keep other kids from making the same mistakes he had.
The phone rang. I chewed the inside of my cheek, waiting to see if anyone would pick up.
“Tony?” The alpha’s rich voice rolled across the connection. “Hello. Haven’t heard from you in a while. Is everything okay?”
I winced, hating the fact that he assumed any call from me would be because something was wrong. Hating even more the fact that he was one-hundred percent correct about that assumption. In the background of the call, I could make out the sound of a baby wailing.
“Hey, Byron,” I said, forcing my tone to stay casual as I lied through my teeth. “Nah, everything’s fine. I just realized I hadn’t checked in lately. How are things with you guys?”
Byron’s pack had started with two other alphas and a male omega. All four of them worked together at an inner-city youth center founded by the pack leader, Zalen Price. Somehow, they’d picked up a second omega and a male beta along the way—a married couple who’d owned some kind of fancy restaurant in Soulard. Since then, they’d added so many kids—or rather,pups—that I was embarrassed to admit I’d lost count.
Another angry shriek pierced the background crackle.
“Funny you should ask,” Byron said. “As it happens, we have pinkeye in the house, and I’m on toddler duty tonight.” He paused. “Tell me something truthfully, Tony. Think back to thedebonaire, roguishly handsome alpha you met five years ago. Did you ever think you’d find me changing baby diapers and administering antibiotic eyedrops to a squirming three-year-old?”
I smiled despite myself. “Hmm... not really. You were definitely more on the ‘ooh, Daddy’ end of the spectrum than the ‘dad’ one.”
“Can I record that, so I can play it for the others the next time they ask me to take point on something that involves eyelid crusts?” he grumbled, as the unhappy wailing grew closer to the phone.
“Nope,” I told him, feeling unaccountably better after only a few sentences exchanged. “You were clearly born for this. You were just hiding it before.” I hesitated, still painfully aware of the emotions roiling inside my chest. “You know, I hadsucha massive crush on you back then.”
Silence settled over the connection, broken only by the toddler’s cries.
