“What a dick,” I grumbled in irritation, though part of me realized Tray was just trying to help me shake off the nerves.
“Shut the fuck up,” Dixon’s sleepy voice grunted from the sectional as he repositioned. He started snoring again almost immediately.
“Sorry, Dix,” I apologized, even though he’d already fallen back asleep. I envied him over that. I wanted to just drift off into la-la land and stop being tortured by my own brain. Of course, with my luck, I’d end up having vivid, Tessa-fueled dreams.
Now that I was facing inward again, my eyes locked onto the medical gown.
Itwasher. It was always going to be her. Every corner of this house now held a shadow of her in the same way my own soul had contained her memory all this time. Sweetest jasmine. Warmest cedar. A rich musky vanilla. She’d been afraid. Dixon had been the first to say it out loud, though we’d all registered the negative emotion in her scent the very second Cat had fully unleashed Tessa’s aroma from the vacuum sealed bag. After we’d battled one another until bruised and bloody, our instinct to protect her had presented almost as strong as our desire to mark and claim her body. We didn’t want to fight over her; we wanted to fightforher. Once she was truly inside our world, no one would ever dare hurt her.
Thank fuck she’d be here soon. I could only imagine how badly we’d fall apart if the wait for her was weeks instead of days. Now...mere hours.She was supposed to arrive tonight.
Tessa Fortune.
I’d searched for my mystery girl for months, finally giving up when the guys had staged an intervention and made me—temporarily—face reality. It hit me now that the Fortune Pack tragedy, the news that had rocked Seattle and was all over media while I'd searched for Tessa, had been her family. She’d lost everyone. That’s why she’d left the concert so abruptly. If only I had known back then, maybe I could have helped. If only I had found her, maybe we’d already be mated. Hell, if there had been even one photo in the news, I would have recognized her immediately.If they hadn’t blurred her face out in the damn pack photo back then. Moreifs. Morecould haves.
I needed to know more. I needed to know everything.
Padding away from the courtyard doors, heart panging when Tessa’s smell began to fade, I went to my bedroom and snagged my laptop, along with the wireless earbuds carelessly tossed on the desk next to it. My room was too far from the gown;she felt too far away. Returning to the living room, I settled on the end of the sectional closest to the kitchen’s arched passage.
Opening a browser, I typed in ‘Fortune Pack Tragedy’. Endless results populated. I began clicking on the articles and videos, one by one, diligently studying. I didn’t want to stumble on an article that actually showed Tessa’s face. If I did, I’d hate myself for missing it, for not caring enough back then about a huge pack tragedy. But, no, the Fortune lawyers had been diligent. Zero pictures of her. If she’d ever had a social media, it was completely scrubbed too. Why had they erased her? The lawyers hadn’t stopped the endless articles though—the speculation about her whereabouts, the bloggers looking for their fame on the back of her pain, the implications that maybe she skipped the trip because she knew what might happen. That made me furious. They’d proven the crash was an accident. Something called fuel starvation happened. The engine seized up. Fucking horrible, and absolutely nothing to do with Tessa.
About half an hour in, Mac appeared from the kitchen with a mile high serving tray of crustless sandwiches. He set the tray down wearily on the coffee table, but then his gaze went to Tessa’s gown. Snagging the sandwiches back up, Mac moved to the sectional next to me, plopped down, and rested the server on his thighs.
“Sandwich?” He offered.
“What kind?” I didn’t look at him, gaze locked on an image of the Fortune mansion. Its gate was chained, a large no trespassing sign mounted above a giant, intimidating lock. She’d lost her damn home. She’d lost everything.
“Smoked salmon, cream cheese, capers.” He pointed to the right of the platter. “Roquefort cheese and grapes.”
“Sounds gross. Give me the salmon.” I held out a hand, still focused on the laptop.
Mac placed one in my open palm. “I believe I irreparably scratched the glass stove. I may have also ruined the nonstick coating on several pans. Apparently, those soapy, metal pads the cleaning service leaves are not meant for appliances or cookware.”
I quirked an eyebrow, finally glancing over. “You know that, Mac.”
“Do I?” He picked up a dainty square stuffed with grapes and cheese. “Why do we have Roquefort? It’s abysmal.” Mac lifted the top of his sandwich, frowning down at the blue-veined, moldy cheese.
“You know Dixon likes that shit,” I shrugged. “Caught him biting into a chunk of Limburger once, and that seriously smells like an armpit.”
“What are you doing?” Mac leaned over, peering down at the screen as he took a large bite of his sandwich. Strange thing to do—make tea sandwiches when our world was being turned upside down—but it was just another odd way my pack brother was coping. A grape escaped, plopping down on the tray.
“Reading up on the Fortune Pack. The articles about Tessa are bullshit. Some try to blame her for the crash, others are morbidly curious how she’s survived after her family assets were seized, and then there are these fuckers who just wanted to get their two minutes of fame off her.” I scrolled lower, skimming all the stuff about possible tax evasion and seized assets.
“No wonder she disappeared,” Mac murmured, picking up another square; this time he lifted the top piece of bread and flicked out the grapes before eating.
“Yeah, no wonder.” I handed Mac one of the earbuds; he popped it into his left ear. “It’s probably good her photo was kept out of the press. They wiped out everything, though. If she ever had socials, they’re gone. It’s like they tried to make her not exist.”
“That either kept her safe, or kept her very isolated.” Mac grabbed one of his discarded grapes and ate it, frowning as he chewed.
Tray walked in as I clicked on a new article. He was wet from a shower, sporting an unzipped hoodie with no shirt beneath and low-slung blue sweatpants. After giving us a sleepy smile, he settled down on the sectional with his head a few inches from Dixon’s. For the next two hours, Mac and I read every article we could find and watched every old television report. Despite our hopes that we’d finally find something about where she’d been staying and what she’d been doing ever since the tragedy, we came up empty. It was just more of the same, over and over.
Any mention of Tessa was always a scripted statement about how the sole Fortune pack survivor had gone off the grid and no one could find her. Everyone wanted a fucking exclusive interview. That was all they cared about. Not her wellbeing. I logged into my email so Mac could go over the Eros communications Catalina forwarded per my request. I hoped he’d see something I hadn’t, but the information The Institute gave was vague too. There was nothing hidden in the subtext. I fucking hated how Tessa was always referred to as the ‘Omega product’. The reporters had seen her that way too. A product to be exploited. Mac’s face had grown stern, and his Alpha scent smelled faintly of cognac. His hand no longer reached repeatedly towards the sandwich tray. His body vibrated gently as he fought down rising emotions. I knew he felt the same. Our Omega was no one’s product. She was no one’s career opportunity.
She was our mate.
She must have been so fucking lonely. She’d had no one authentic to turn to for help.
Closing the laptop abruptly, I placed it on the floor and shoved it beneath the coffee table so no one would trip on it. I got up from the sofa too fast, making my head swim for a moment. Like Mac, the need to protect Tessa was racing through my veins. My body felt shaky.
