“Before we tell you, I want to ask you if you’d accept our offer to court you? Because if we’re being honest, I know Sloane and I won’t be able to just walk away. We want you, both of you. Even if we weren't scent-matched, we would still want you.”
“But why? We’re strangers,” Lexi asks.
“And we’re not making any promises until you’re honest with us. Then we’ll see,” I add in.
“We might be strangers to you, but you’re not a stranger to us. At least you’re not, Lexi.” Aiden clears his throat, shifting in his seat, looking hesitant and uncomfortable.
“What does that mean?” I ask, narrowing my eyes.
Aiden looks at Sloane. Sloane nods, and Aiden looks back over to Lexi. “Thirteen years ago, I was working for the FBI. When you and your sister's missing persons case was given to my brother and me. From the moment I saw your photo, and Harlan saw Silva’s, we felt a very strong urge to find you. Like it was our life’s mission.”
“It was crazy,” Sloane chimes in. “Like some crazy, voodoo magic, if you ask me. Once Aiden filled me in and showed me your photo, I felt the pull too. Now I get why. We were always meant to be.” Sloane grins.
“Wait. So, you were meant to find me and Silva? Why? We were eighteen. Why was there even a missing persons case? We had aged out of the system already.”
“It’s mandatory for foster parents to file a report if any of their placements go missing without notice, if they want to keep accepting kids in from the system. But you’re right, you were already an adult at that time. They chalked it up to a runaway situation, just two girls who aged out and were free to do as they pleased. But something tells me that wasn’t what it was.”
Lexi’s body goes stiff, and I press a kiss to her neck. “You’re safe,” I whisper, and her body relaxes into mine.
“No,” Lexi says stiffly. “It’s not.”
Aiden nods.
“We assumed as much when we couldn’t find you. No matter what we did, we couldn’t find any evidence that you even existed anymore. Nothing came up on camera feeds, no leads on the internet. Nothing. It was too suspicious, and it became our obsession to the point that we left the job and formed our own task force. We never gave up on finding you both, but in the meantime, we used our talents to help out other Omegas. Then, just a few weeks ago, we got a hit. One of our people told us about a little town nestled in the middle of nowhere in the mountains of Colorado. A town where Omegas could be free andsafe to start over. It was a long shot, but we took it. And well, it’s like the universe was intervening.” Aiden smiles fondly at Lexi. “We were always meant to find you, Siren.”
Oh, we’re at the pet name stage already. I don’t like it. She’s my Peaches. Not Kitten, not Siren. Peaches.
Lexi looks away, and I know she’s trying to hold it together. This is a lot for her to take in. Knowing what she’s been through, fuck, she must be so overwhelmed.
“I don’t know what to say,” Lexi whispers.
“You don’t have to say anything. I just wanted to let you know why we’re here. I’m sorry about how we found you and that I came on so strong. I’ve been looking for you nearly half my life, Lexi. I hope you can understand why I might have gotten a little overly excited.”
“Why me?” Lexi turns her attention to him. “I’m just some random Omega. Back then, I was some nobody kid. Why not just do what your boss told you to and let the case die?”
“Because we knew. Deep down in our bones, we knew you were out there and that we needed to find you.”
“You’re thirteen years too late for that.” Lexi leans her head against my shoulder. “We didn’t need you to save us because we saved ourselves. After years of living in constant fear of what our lives were going to become, we got out, we fought, we survived, and we built this town.”
“What do you mean?” Aiden’s brows furrow. “You fought to survive? Built this town? You’re telling me you haven’t been here this whole time?”
She snorts. “No. God, I wish, but no.”
“Where were you?” Sloane asks.
“You wanna know why I hate Alphas so much?” Lexi asks. “When my sister and I were eighteen, we ran from our foster home because it wasn’t safe. We took what little money we had and tried to start over, but it wasn’t good enough. We weresnatched away in the middle of the night from an abandoned house we were held up in. Turns out people were watching us, getting information on us.”
“Who?” Aiden growls, leaning forward in his seat.
“I can’t tell you,” Lexi says strongly. “But they took us and brought us to a place that became our own personal hell. Sure, it seemed like a nice place at first glance. Beats living on the streets, right?Wrong. Because we might have lived in a nice place, been given three meals a day, and slept in our own fancy rooms, but it came at a price.”
“What was the price?” Sloane’s eyes have grown hard with each word I spoke. He’s angry. Not at Lexi, but at what Lexi had to endure.
“The goal was to be sold off to rich, disgusting pieces of shit Alphas. We were forced to take lessons on how to become the perfect Omega.” She laughs, shaking her head. “More like a glorified sex doll they could use and abuse however they wanted. A breeding mare to give them offspring that would carry on their bullshit legacy. We didn’t choose it, and we didn’t want it. We’d rather live on the streets, eating out of the trash, than to be sold off like cattle. So, we came up with a plan and got ourselves out of there.”
“How?” Aiden’s brows furrow. “Even if you got out, how did they not come looking for you?”
“They did.” Lexi looks away. I know she hates herself for this part, and she will never forgive herself. But they were victims. Young female Omegas who were just trying to survive. “One of the girls who escaped with us is good at hacking. She set it up so that she had a drive with everything we needed to put the ringleader behind bars for life, and then gave it to someone she knew. We made them a deal. Leave us alone to start over, and we’d keep our mouths shut. He knew we weren’t bluffing, and backed away.”
