“Ellis misspoke,” Charles said slowly, as though speaking to a dangerous animal. “We know that we’ve made mistakes.”
Genesis had suddenly had enough. She needed to get away from this table, away from her fathers and their bullshit excuses. She pushed her chair back, standing abruptly.
“The mistake was me coming here tonight thinking anything had changed,” Genesis spat, tossing her napkin on the table. “Orlando, Gabriel, Luke, I’d like to go home. I’m tired.”
Pack Rossi was at her side in an instant, Orlando and Gabriel on either side and Luke close behind her. They didn’t bother saying goodbye to her fathers, just tossed a few large bills on the table and led Genesis from the restaurant to the car that one of them must’ve summoned. Orlando was holding her door open, Gabriel helping her into the backseat when Ellis Valentine burst from the restaurant, calling his daughter’s name.
He hurried toward them, but when he reached the car, Luke put his big body in his path. Genesis couldn’t see Luke’s face, but the set of his shoulders and his tense stance told her all sheneeded to know. Ellis obviously understood the danger because he stopped, holding his hands up placatingly.
“Genesis, I’m sorry. We all are,” her father said, running both hands through his hair, his face twisted in something like pain. “This wasn’t how we meant for this evening to go. After seeing you at your brother’s mating ceremony, we wanted to try and make amends. To reconnect.”
Genesis stepped to Luke’s side, placing a hand on his arm. He relaxed a little under her touch, but didn’t take his glare off her father. Behind Ellis, the restaurant doors opened again, and her other fathers emerged, coming to stand beside their pack leader.
“Why?” Genesis asked, her voice hollow now that the rage had drained away with the adrenaline of the moment. “Why do you care all of a sudden?”
“We’ve always cared!” Ellis exclaimed, his voice rising with frustration. He caught himself, lifting his hands again and lowering his voice. “Genesis, we had to keep you safe after we failed your mother so spectacularly. Josie gave up everything for us. She believed in us before we made something of ourselves, and her family disowned her for it. They cut her off completely, and she never spoke to them again. We were all she had, and we failed her.”
“She got sick,” Genesis said, rolling her eyes. “Don’t be melodramatic.”
Charles sighed. “After having you, your mother was really tired for a while. She complained of being lightheaded, stuff like that. We thought it was normal after having a baby and then being sleep-deprived from nursing at all hours of the night. The doctors thought so too.”
“That was a misdiagnosis,” Ellis explained, his expression more miserable than Genesis had ever seen it. “In actuality, she had something called peripartum cardiomyopathy. It weakened her left ventricle, putting her at risk for heart failure, blood clots,thrombosis. It improved over time but returned when she got pregnant again.”
Genesis took a step back, literally staggered by this information. “Pregnant again? What are you talking about?”
Ellis hung his head. “We wanted a son so badly. We were so excited. And then her heart failed, and we lost them both.”
“You look just like her, Gennie,” Charles said softly. “You always have.”
“We wanted to keep you safe. We didn’t want to lose you too,” Henry added, one hand extended as if to touch her. “We couldn’t.”
Genesis took another step back, her mind spinning, and heart breaking anew. This was too much. She shook her head sharply. “You lost me anyway. You lost me when you decided it was easier to send me away than to look at me—when you decided to brush me under the rug and start again with an omega who gave you the son you always wanted.”
Her eyes pricked with tears she refused to let her dads see. Without another word or a backward glance, she turned back to the car, letting Gabriel and Orlando help her inside. They climbed in after her, taking seats on either side of her, comforting her with their closeness. Luke was the last to walk away.
“You’re going to give her some space. She’ll call you when and if she wants to. You upset her again, and you’ll answer to me,” he growled, before stalking to the car, and slamming the door behind him.
Chapter fifteen
Genesis
Genesis did not call her fathers. She ignored their messages inviting her to lunch but sent a thumbs up when they texted that they’d made it back to London. They would have to be satisfied with that for a while. She wasn’t ready to deal with her conflicted feelings toward them, not when she had far more interesting things to do.
Josephine Valentine had a story to tell, and Gen V was going to tell it.
Genesis threw herself into her work over the next couple of weeks. Pack Rossi gave her space, seeming to understand that this was something she needed to do. They made her take breaks to eat, despite her dwindling appetite, and occasionally dragged her outside to get fresh air, but otherwise left her to it. They seemed content just to have her around. When she chose not to work in the main house, the alphas spent hours at the cottage,looking perfectly comfortable despite how large they seemed in the small space.
“We’ve never spent much time out here. The other omegas came to the main house for tending, but other than that, we mostly left them to their own devices,” Gabriel told her one afternoon. “We didn’t spend this much time with our other temporary omegas. Everything with you has been different, even before we started fake courting.”
Genesis’s stomach had fluttered with butterflies that she tried to ignore, reminding herself whatfakemeant for the millionth time. Still, she found it easier to think when Pack Rossi was around. They kept her from wallowing in the sad places. They entertained themselves quietly—Orlando usually reading, Gabe sketching or daydreaming, and Luke (whenever he gave in and graced them with his grumpy presence) inspecting and oiling lengths of rope Genesis hoped he’d use on her someday soon.
She liked having them there, sharing her space.
Genesis might not be good at emotions, but she was great at research. Soon, she had a reasonably detailed file on Josephine Valentine. She wasn’t sure why she’d never done it before. Regardless, she felt an intense compulsion to learn more about the mother who was now just a distant memory seen through a child’s eyes. Genesis knew nothing about her, really, and she suddenly needed to. She’d let her mother be forgotten, buried, silenced. But not anymore.
It wasn’t long before her mother’s story began to take shape. Genesis found the wealthy family that had disowned Josephine for mating with the upstarts of Pack Valentine instead of letting them sell her off to the highest bidder. It was common practice among prestigious old families to arrange matings like they were living in a regency drama, determined to make the most advantageous matches for their net worth and reputations. Omegas were still a rare prize, and traditionalists used themas chess pieces in their never-ending quests for wealth and power. It wasn’t trafficking, but it was trafficking’s well-dressed, botoxed cousin.
Serenity Rhodes!Genesis had connected with the famous fashion designer through Greyson’s new mate, popstar Destiny Duvalle. Serenity had a harrowing survival story she’d agreed to share with Genesis. She’d escaped an omega trafficking ring before finding her mates in Smyrna City’s Pack Rhodes. Juxtaposing her mother’s story with Serenity’s would drive home how dangerous life was for omegas of all backgrounds.
