Hadeon snorted, then tapped the last name on the list:Lilac.“This is their omega. We’ve looked into him. They registered him out of nowhere. No courtship, no nothing. Weird for a pack of their status, but I’ve seen weirder, so I didn’t think too much about it.”
“Is there anything I need to know about him?” Sidian asked, already flipping through thick stacks of paper to find anything the Mambas might have had on the omega.
He couldn’t tell Hadeon that he already suspected therealreason Lilac Kincaid had been chosen for the pack; if the timelines matched up, they might have needed someone to watch Amey when they were away from the house. That was of course presuming they kept her. Might they have traded away an infant omega girl for a male omega? The thought made him faint. They'd better not have—
“I don’t think he’s with them willingly,” Hadeon said, tapping the picture.
The male omega peered up at the camera through long dark lashes, his expression guarded and his eyes empty, almost lifeless. Lank black hair hung dull and frizzy around a pale, oval-shaped face. Sidian had seen his own reflection at the center once before they had opted to remove all reflective surfaces from his immediate vicinity, but he recognized the expression on that face all too well. That hopelessness. That certainty that life would never get better, but it could always get worse.
What turned Sidian’s stomach the most though was the color of those eyes. Lilac’s eyes matched his name, a delicate shade of violet with a warm, almost pinkish tone. But they were purple, like Sidian’s own, and he could almost feel Dax’s lips pressed up against his ear during that first heat.
“Your eyes are marvelous. Perhaps I’ll keep them in a jar on my bedside table.”
“He was seventeen when he was registered as their pack omega, though it’s not like the law much gives a shit once the mating bond is in place.” Hadeon’s finger traced down the omega’s face to the side of his throat; the bite still looked new, a bruising violence against fair skin. “His family wasn’t notableeither. We found no evidence of them trying to get him back, though.”
Sidian nodded, swallowing the bile that burned up the back of his throat. “I’ll keep all that in mind. Do you guys even know if he’s still alive? Maybe they just… Killed him.”
“We try not to get too close to them,” Hadeon admitted after a moment. “The Vipers are lucky; they get in, kill everyone, get out. Traffickers are primed to pay close attention to anyone or anything suspicious, so we have to work from the darkest shadows we can find.”
“I don’t get something,” Sidian said, flipping through the files, his eyes scanning each page. Much of it was just basic information that he didn’t need. “Why bother me if they had an omega?”
Hadeon tugged the file closer and flipped back to Lilac’s profile, carding through a couple of pages before pointing out a bold word near the top of the page:Infertile.“If I had to guess, that would be why. Guess they thought they’d get a kid or two out of you since their omega couldn’t have any.”
“Too bad for them,” Sidian muttered, his chest tightening when he felt the telltale flutter of slight movement inside of him. The baby had been quiet, but he seemed to sense the moment his mother started thinking about him again. “I don’t know what to do about their omega. If he gets in our way, there’s nothing wecando about it. We can’t risk their catching us. They’d kill Roe in a heartbeat.”
“And do worse to you,” Hadeon said, and Sidian felt goosebumps break out even beneath the layers he wore. “If you have to kill him, it’s not like anyone will be there to judge you for it.”
But Sidian would remember doing it for the rest of his life, no matter what his reasoning was. “What do we do if we don’t have to kill him? Do we call you? How do we handle any of this?”
“The captain doesn’t want us involved any more than we already are,” Hadeon said, and Sidian nodded even as the unease slinking below his flesh prickled the hairs on the nape of his neck.
He understood that. Of course, he did. If the Mambas needed to creep about with as little influence as possible to avoid their targets growing suspicious, then getting involved was out of the question. Pack Kincaid was tied to the trafficking rings, even if only through a minor role, but it made sense that the Mambas didn’t want to risk even that much. It was only fair.
And they weren’t the Mambas’ problem to deal with. They were Sidian’s. Sidian’s alone.
“We can supply you with weapons. They won’t be traced back to us, but it’s gonna depend on how you want to do this.” Hadeon shut the file and slid it over to Sidian, who scooped it up into his arms and cradled it against his chest. “You know the best chance you’ve got is to walk in there and shoot ‘em.”
Of course, it was. “I know that, but they didn’t let me off easy. They made me fucking suffer, and I want them to know what that felt like. They’ll never get it, but still.”
“I thought as much.” Hadeon combed a hand through his face, his expression torn. “Kane will tell you he wants to case the place before you go in. You need to listen to him. You need to use a strategy.”
That was fine, but the thought of Roman noticing Amethyst through a window or something sent Sidian’s heart up into his throat. Though maybe… Maybe he could pass her off as Lilac’s daughter or something until he could tell Roman the truth. “I’ll do that. I want them dead, but I don’t want both of us dead. Kinda defeats the purpose of everything.”
“Good deal.” Hadeon looked uncomfortable. “Are you like… Okay, dude?”
No, Sidian wasn’t okay. He wouldn’t be okay until Pack Kincaid was dead, until Roman knew the truth about Amethyst and the baby still inside of him, until all of this was over and they could decide to do what theywantedto do with their lives. Then, and only then, would he allow himself the chance to breathe, to think about what it might look like to heal on the other side of all of this.
He was holding it together because he had to. His daughter was in the hands of the most brutal men he knew, and the only way to retrieve her from them was to kill them. That was more important than just getting revenge; if Sidian didn’t kill them, they could always come back. They could drag him into court where he would be no one and have nothing to show that he could care for Amey, and they would take her away from him all over again because they could.
But how could he explain that to someone like Hadeon? “I will be.”
Hadeon escorted him back upstairs to the dorm floor where Roman was waiting, pacing back and forth between the dining room, living room, and kitchen with his arms folded over his chest. In nothing but a tank top with his hair still damp from his shower, he looked intense, and Sidian bit the inside of his cheek. His alpha was upset about something, which did not bode well. Was he angry that Sidian wasn’t waiting somewhere for him? Because that shit would not fly.
“Sorry for stealing your mate away,” Hadeon said in a bored voice, and Roman spun toward them. “I was just giving him the information he wanted. All our shit’s downstairs.”
Roman’s face softened, though the tightness around his mouth did not ease. “That’s fine. Sid, do you want to stay here tonight, or do you want to find a motel?”
“Here’s fine. We need weapons anyway. We’d just have to drive back.” And there was no use in going to find a place to stay when the Pit had nice, cozy beds already close at hand.
