My breath hitches as I see who’s sitting across the table, and the woman standing behind him.
It’s Lenny, one of my mom’s Alphas, and there she stands right behind him. I know this isn’t a professional game. Anyone who wanted to buy in could, but I wouldn’t have suspected them to be here.
“We can go,” Hayes leans in, whispering in my ear.
I look over at Nate, his arms are crossed over his chest. He’s glaring at Lenny, not even paying attention to my mother. We could leave, walk away, be the bigger person. But…what if I don’t want to take the high road? What if I want these people to feel as insignificant as they’ve made me feel?
With all the confidence I can muster, I grab the back of Nate’s neck, bringing his lips to mine, kissing him in front of all these people. He kisses me back with just as much passion as I’m giving, before our lips part and I give him a smile.
It’s mischievous down the bond, my cue that maybe sweet Nate doesn’t feel like being so sweet either.
I place a hand on Hayes’ shoulder, indicating for him to sit, before I plop down on his lap.
My moms eyes lock onto mine, her eyebrow raising.
“Does he still taste like me after all these months?” she asks.
Thankfully, I don’t have access to any weapons right now, because I very likely would be going to jail over the comment. In my peripheral and down the bond, I can tell Sterling is barely holding it together. Nate seems unphased, used to my mom’s lethal tongue.
“Does he taste like washed up Omega snatch? No. Last I tasted, his cock was drenched in the sweetest of cherries,” Hayes says so effortlessly beneath me.
His years of playing poker making him a hard to beat opponent for my mom.
“You could have had everything. Instead, look at you, working at that station still, fucking around with this low life Beta and my disgrace of a daughter,” Erin seethes.
I’m not sure when the term for who she was switched in my head, but she isn’t a mom, she never was. Maybe she gave birth to me, did the minimum of keeping me alive, but she wasn’t a mom. Even now her focus is on Nate, how his betrayal hurts, not anything to do with me.
“That’s enough, Erin,” Lenny says, and it’s obvious that Erin’s persona is cracking in the most embarrassing way in public.
She’s there to look pretty, to tie all these prestigious men together in one pack, not throw insults across a poker table.
“I’m very content where I am,” Nate says, a hand squeezing my shoulder, his thumb dragging along my bond mark.
Erin’s eyes gaze over the spot where he’s marked me. I watch in delight as her face turns red when she realizes that we’re bonded. That this is more than some petty scheme to get back at her. This is real, and she fucking hates it.
“You…you bonded with her?” she asks incredulously.
Hayes adds his thumb to the mix. Sterling stands behind us, like our protector. If anything escalates, he’s ready to pick me up and run the hell out of here. I just know it.
“That’s right. We’re official. Pack Thomas is all here,” I say, happy as hell I don’t share her last name anymore.
“Keep the buy in, we’re leaving,” Lenny says, tossing a glare at all of us. I guess it’s fine to make a scene at a strip club, but somewhere that elite packs might be watching is too far.
She doesn’t like that answer, not as she rounds the table and stands before me. I don’t get up from my seat, and when she lifts her hand to strike me, Sterling is there to grab her wrist. Painfully, if the grimace on her face is anything to go by.
She was going to hit me, in public, in front of everyone, because she thought I took something that was hers.
I stand, Lenny grabbing Erin by the waist, ripping her out of Sterling’s grasp.
“He was never yours. He’s my Alpha, we’re bonded. I don’t care if you ever accept it, I don’t care what you do with your life, because we’re no longer family,” I say, finally getting the words out.
I wasn’t sure how a confrontation with her would go, but I feel like I need to say my piece, make it real.
“You were a terrible, selfish, absent mother and your Alphas weren’t father figures at all, not a single one of them. Nate was the only good man you ever tried to lure into your web, but he sees you for what you really are. A narcissistic, selfish bitch. He chose me as an Omega, and I’m choosing to never see you again.”
Her eyes turn into slits. Lenny is trying to pull her away. He’s pissed at the scene she’s caused.
“You think this is over? Your pack is nothing, mine is powerful, it would take nothing to ruin you,” she says, and I gulp.
