“Hmm?” I dragged myself out of my thoughts, and the picture of Quincy I had saved on my phone from our RV adventure, and questioned her with a sound.
Imogen responded with a sigh and a sad look. “Hang in there, kiddo,” she said. “There’s bound to be brighter days ahead.”
“Thanks, Imogen,” I said, reaching for the files. “If you say so.”
Imogen gave me the files, but instead of walking out, she glanced over her shoulder to make certain no one was lingering near the door, then helped herself to one of the chairs on the other side of my desk.
“Hey,” she said, leaning her forearms on the desk and looking intently at me. “It’s going to be okay, I swear.”
I gave Imogen a weary smile in return for her support, but I liked her too much to pretend.
“I don’t think it is going to be okay,” I said, wishing I didn’t sound so much like a moony teenager.
But no, I wasn’t a moony teenager. That’s what my dad wanted me to believe. I was an alpha who had had his omega, his soulmate, snatched away from him by a cruel tyrant who now held my life hostage.
Imogen reached out, and I gave her my hand. “I swear, you’re going to get through this, Jack, okay?”
It was probably some level of ridiculous that currently, my closest friend was my admin. But I’d quickly learned in the last six weeks that I couldn’t trust a single damn person of my acquaintance who also knew my dad. Friends who I thought were loyal to me had come out in favor of everything my dad had laid out in his plan for me.
A plan which, I might add, he actually had written down and had briefed me about on the Monday after the Tech Expo.
Sure, I’d tried to argue with him during that meeting, which Mom attended, too, and Chester fucking Monk, for some reason, but there was no point. Daddidknow about my new bank account. That wasn’t a bluff. He’d had Chester hack into thebank to add my dad’s name as co-account holder. Dad had promptly restricted my access, just like with my other accounts.
I’d been given a list of omegas I would date. Within three months, I was to choose one of them to marry. At Christmas, there would be a lavish, society wedding. By Christmas the following year, there would be a baby or one on the way. I would be given my own law firm to take what my dad called “charity cases”. That was the carrot that was supposed to make everything better.
I was reasonably certain the manager and staff of my apartment building were on my dad’s payroll, and that they were reporting back to him every day if and when I went out and came back. I’d caught men in dark suits following me pretty much everywhere I went, too.
Worst of all, and probably thanks to Chester, I was almost certain my phone had been compromised. Quincy had suddenly stopped calling and texting me. I knew he would never do that, so the only reasonable answer was that someone had gotten into my phone and blocked my ability to contact him. I’d tried buying a burner phone and texting him that way, but I got nothing in return.
I was worried Chester had hacked Quincy’s phone as well. I wanted to warn my omega that we were under tight surveillance, but I had absolutely zero way of reaching him now. The one time I’d tracked down his address and tried to drive to his house to see him in person, there had been a series of bizarre accidents on the roads that made it impossible to reach his neighborhood.
We were utterly fucked.
“Hey, hun,” Imogen said, squeezing my hand to get me back to the present. “Look at me. It’s going to be okay. Really.”
“I don’t see how,” I said, doing something I absolutely never would have done and letting my vulnerability show.
Imogen smiled at me, and even though it was nice, I didn’t want smiles or sympathy, I wanted my omega.
“Did I ever tell you about my nephew?” Imogen asked, sitting back in her chair and looking surprisingly confident for someone watching their boss fall apart.
“Nephew? No,” I said. “I…I’m sorry, but I’ve never asked about your family.”
“Oh, I come from a large family,” she said, as if we were having coffee, not watching my life implode. “And we’re all wily. Grandpa always said we might all look like angels, but we love trouble like the devil.”
I let out a breath that might have been a laugh and smiled. “Sounds fun.”
“We’re a ball of fun,” she said. “Unless you cross us. Then you’ll learn just how clever and petty we all can be.”
I laughed more genuinely at that. “I want to be friends with you all.”
“You already are, Jack,” she said, planting her hands on the arms of her chair and pushing herself to stand. “You already are. And when I tell you everything is going to be okay, you need to believe me.”
“I believe you, Imogen,” I told her as she headed out of the room, even though I didn’t, not really.
Imogen stopped at the door. “Trust me,” she said. “The Schuberts always get their man.”
She winked at me, then disappeared around the corner.
