Just not with me.
Quincy wasn’t in the hallway beside the conference room anymore. I walked all the way to the end, where a door opened out into the lobby, then on to the elevators. His boss had told him to go upstairs and to clear out his desk, so that was probably where he was.
Everything felt wrong when I reached the fourteenth floor and The Grand’s offices. The place was mostly silent, which was an eerie contrast to the noise on the floors below. It made sense that most of the hotel’s events staff was working the event, but overall, I was glad that I wouldn’t have to have witnesses to what would probably be the most cowardly act of my life.
Quincy was alone in a shared office, putting stuff from a desk into a standard file box. His face was red, wet, and puffy, and tears continued to stream down his cheeks as he worked. When he looked up as I entered the room, he burst into fresh sobs.
“Sweetheart,” I said, unable to stop myself from crying as well.
I opened my arms, and Quincy abandoned his packing up to run to me. I crushed him against me, breathing in his sweet scent, and burst into sobs of my own as he buried his face against my shoulder.
“It’s all my fault,” Quincy sobbed. “I was too reckless. I shouldn’t have panicked and pushed things.”
“No, baby,” I said, hugging him tighter. “You did what you thought was right.”
“But it wasn’t right,” Quincy said. “Everything blew up. I got fired, and Chester and your dad still came out looking like heroes.”
He inched back and looked hopefully up at me.
“Tell me something happened after I left,” he said. “Tell me that some other reporter jumped in to accuse them of fraud and collusion. Tell me the police showed up to cart them both off to jail and that your dad set you free.”
I shook my head, trying and failing to swallow the lump in my throat.
Quincy burst into a fresh round of tears and threw himself against me again. I stroked his head, then kissed his forehead, his cheek, and finally his mouth.
The kiss was beautiful and sad. I threw all the passion I had into it, but my heart was falling apart. Quincy kissed me back, but I could feel the hopelessness in him.
We both knew it was our last kiss.
I held him close for a few more seconds as we caught our breaths, but the time had come to rip the Band-Aid off and admit we were outmatched.
I pushed Quincy back gently, and with a shuddering breath, I said, “Dad has threatened to ruin every client I’ve worked with for the past few years if I don’t leave you and never contact you again.”
Quincy’s eyes went wide for a moment before he burst into nearly hysterical tears.
“Shh, shh, baby, it’s okay,” I said, clasping the sides of his face and wiping away his tears with my thumbs.
“It’s not okay,” Quincy said. “He’s won. That bastard has won. We never stood a chance.”
I hated knowing that he was right, but I was beyond hopelessness. There wasn’t a damn thing I could do to fight against someone with billions of dollars and unscrupulous power at his disposal.
“Hey, hey, Quincy, there’s some hope in this,” I said, tilting my omega’s head up to look at me.
“There’s no hope,” he said, tears streaming.
“Yeah, there is,” I said. “There’s an exhibit downstairs in the medical room about a new procedure Bangers & Mash Labs has been developing called ReBond. They’re working on a way to repair the damage done to omegas by the severing procedure. I talked to a Dr. Fletcher down there, and he said they’ll be doing human trials soon. You could be fixed.”
Quincy caught his breath and gaped. He was stock still for a moment before his expression crumpled into misery again. “What is the point of having my sever repaired if I don’t have you to bond with?”
It killed me. Even the silver lining in our impossible situation was tainted. If Bangers & Mash Labs did manage to restore Quincy’s ability to bond, chances were he’d find some other alpha to bond with because I wouldn’t be there anymore.
“It’s okay, sweetheart,” I said, pulling him into an embrace again. “This whole thing is terrible, but there isn’t much we can do about it but live on, one day at a time, trying to make the best of our lives that we can.”
“I don’t want to live on without you,” Quincy sobbed against my shoulder.
I didn’t want to go through a single day more without him either, but I wasn’t sure there was a way to win anymore. As long as we were dealing with people like my dad and Chester, therewould always be a dark cloud over us. Some enemies were just too big and too evil to beat.
We stayed there like that as long as we could. Both of us were crying, but once we got over the sobbing part and slipped listlessly into the hopeless defeat part, we were ready to break apart.
