“Tell me how you know Ayden. Please, William,” I whisper, physically reaching for the man who has always acted with Verdune, and my welfare, as his top priority. “Please, someone, anyone tell me how you know my boyfriend.”
William becomes impassive; his usual warmth evaporates, and I feel sicker and sicker the longer he refuses to answer.
“Please!” my voice blurts out, a lot louder than I anticipated, and the four Alphas who still refuse to look at me brace themselves.
William takes a deep breath before he brings his eyes to mine. And instantly, I know whatever he says it is not going to be good, but I hold his eyes with mine as I wait for an explanation.
His eyebrows flick up. “Ayden is a member of your personal security team, Heidi.”
“He’s not my bodyguard,” I argue back. I swing around to look at Ayden, waiting for him to step forward and say something. “Tell them, Ayden, tell them who you are.”
But Ayden refuses to look at me. I go to step closer, but he reaches out instead. His hand hovers in front of me like people do when they tell someone terrible news. I take a step away from all of them, needing to understand, not needing comfort.
William’s posture straightens, his demeanour shifts again, like he’s regretful but also mildly exasperated by me. “You know we have been handling an influx of threats on your life during the past few years, Heidi. The last few months those threats have become more of a concern to us.”
“What threats? You can’t tell me it was a security risk for me to get coffee,” I say coolly, somehow swallowing my emotion so I don’t sound like a dramatic Omega. Because that is what they will say.
“The threats against you are complex and interwoven. We sought advice outside of Verdune, from experts in the field, and they presented several options as to how we could protect you better. Having Ayden befriend you was the surest, quickest way to protect you in our mind. Ayden joined us approximately two months ago. His background is military, and he can kill a person with his bare hands ten different ways. He comes with an exemplary record and impeccable references. Having him as your friend meant you were protected to the best of our ability.”
I swear all the air in the room gets sucked out. My vision wavers as I listen to his explanation. I swear I feel like I’m having a heart attack as my pulse hammers, my body shakes in shock. I shake my head abruptly to stave off a calamity of emotions building inside me. I can’t and I won’t afford tears right now.
William takes another step towards me, both his hands outstretched as he crouches down so I can’t avoid seeing the concern on his face.
He talks softly and slowly, passively almost making me more anxious than before. “Heidi, I’m deeply sorry if Ayden made you think he was more than a friend, but I can assure you, his only role has been as your bodyguard. Just like Bradley and Charles. Each of them has been paid very well by Verdune to protect you, all of them are aware of the increasing risks. It was a necessary outcome, you having three bodyguards,” William offers, his voice dropping low as he explains.
“It was necessary?” I ask, surprising myself at still being able to maintain a lack of emotion.
Leigh inserts himself into the conversation, his voice calm but unwavering. “The threats we received against your life meant we had to take drastic measures, Heidi. And our role as the Executive includes being tasked with your safety. I don’t need to explain…”
It is exactly at that point I discover how the human body and brain deals with tremendous shock. Everything gets vacuumed out of the room. All the sounds, smells, and pressing concern of the Alphas disappears as I plunge into a deep abyss of nothing while I literally stand in front of them and splinter into a million bleeding pieces athisdeceit.Theirswas bad enough, but Ayden being in on it ruins me.
My head feels suddenly too heavy on my shoulders, I barely get air in my lungs, and my vision waverers. And while I get what William is saying, like a masochist I twist around to look for confirmation. The other three Alphas look put out by their ploy being blown.
The second Ayden moves, I feel it, because he is my goddamn scented alpha. And when I swing around to look at him and see very little remorse in his eyes, I’m thunderstruck at how stupid I am. They set me up. But he played me.
“I can explain,” Ayden says.
I want to say I hear regret in the tone he uses, but who the fuck knows. I mean, I thought he was my Alpha, and clearly I got that fucking wrong.
I throw my hand up to keep him and his explanation away. I think we’re well past that, considering how long we’ve been fake fucking. And then I reign in my heartbreak and anger, my humiliation, and every goddamn other emotion I’m currently feeling as I realise that every person I have worked with or spoken with at Verdune has been aware of who Adyen is. I lock it all away because I refuse to break in front of them.
The people in this room intentionally made me the stupid unaware Omega they’d been schooling me not to become by omitting information and facts I should have been aware of.
I jolt when someone reaches out for me from behind. Their touch is firm and stays under my arm, in readiness for me to drop to the ground in a faint. And without a doubt, I will be a mess of emotion later, but instead of my tears they get my anger.
I shake off William’s touch before glaring at him in challenge. He steps away and drops his eyes guiltily. I look at the other members, and none of them are brave enough to look at me. It is in that moment their deception cuts the deepest.
It literally takes all my focus not to break down. Instead, I take my seat and pick up the menu in front of me.
As I sit, Ayden uses his Alpha presence to reach out from across the room. It’s not full of concern or love—his touching presence is done out of guilt.
I squeeze my eyes tight, as I sit a little straighter before I speak so loudly my voice echoes through the room. “If any of you try to infuse one spark of your Alpha dominance or presence on me, I will use Bradley’s gun to blow your brains out. Put all your powers of persuasion away and try not acting like the animals you are.” I fight through my genetic makeup that has me needing cuddles, and in my hurt and fury, I discover my backbone is stronger than the one any of these assholes have.
There’s not a sound behind me, and I take my time drinking my water. Without turning around to look at Ayden, I speak. “You’re apparently needed to check on bullshit threats, Ayden. Off you go.”
And then I turn my cold fury on the Executive team. “Arrange a new security person to be assigned to my personal team. I refuse to havehimacting as my security detail, considering I don’t trust a thing about him. I’d never know if the threat was real if the warning came from him.”
“Heidi,” William counters, his own Alpha having to work hard to right himself through a weird mix of guilt, normal empathetic responses, and frustration at being outed.
