“We’ve suspected the government was stealing omegas, but we haven’t been able to get any intel about the facilities until now,” Terrance said, gesturing at the papers spread across the table and giving me an approving nod. My lips twitched when I imagined the headache Glen must be sporting today. My omega was feeling particularly bloodthirsty.
“These show the location of all the facilities, along with paper files on every omega they’ve taken,” Terrance continued. “We can use this to free the omegas and expose the horrors of these facilities. All the senators and other government officials who’ve been going along with Glen and the rest of them because their omegas were in danger will come to our side, and the rest of them will be forced to follow once the media gets ahold of what they’ve done.”
“And once the Designation Government is out, we’ll get your alphas out of jail,” Donovan added.
I took a closer look at the sea of papers, noticing that many of them had small, grainy black-and-white photographs of women.Omegas. The enormity of what I found stunned me.
Jackson swept back into the room, joined by another alpha. This one was the tallest of all of them and looked like he could be Italian with his dark waves and strong jawline.
“This is Nico,” Jackson said, nodding at the alpha while placing a large mug of tea and several plates of food in front of me. “I wasn’t sure what you liked, so there’s some homemade pizza, salad, and fruit. But if you want something different, just let me know.”
“This is perfect, thank you,” I said. “How many are in your pack?”
“This is all of us,” Donovan said, smiling as Nico pulled him to his side. It was fascinating to see this older pack together. All the packs I’d seen growing up were so cold with each other. Jericho or Richard would never touch my mother in such a casual way.
I bit my lip, thinking about what my mom had done. Did she intentionally leave the door unlocked? Was she glad I got away? I wanted to believe she cared enough for me to do it on purpose. Maybe it was wishful thinking.
“Nice to meet you, Josie,” Nico said from across the table.
“Her name is Badass Superspy,” Jackson whispered out of the side of his mouth as he leaned towards Nico.
“No teasing,” Terrance said, winking at me.
I covered my heated cheeks with my hands in disbelief that I had called myself that. I could only imagine how my guys would tease me if they found out. I felt on the verge of tears again as I picked up a piece of pizza, half-heartedly taking a bite. I would happily accept teasing for the rest of my life if it meant being back with them.
“Why would they keep all this on paper?” I asked, wanting something to distract myself. It seemed a stupid choice for Glen to have these documents in his office.
“About a year and a half ago, one of our Alliance hackers, Charlie, broke into Glen’s home server,” Donovan said, accepting a cup of tea from Nico.
“Charlie Jang?” I asked.
“Yeah,” Terrance said. “You know her?”
“She works with Ben and I know Luc,” I said with a smile, remembering the reverence in Luc’s voice whenever he spoke of his omega.
“We suspected Glen was keeping documents on his personal computer that he wanted to keep hidden from the government,” Donovan continued. “We got a shit ton of intel, but Glen realized what happened, and it made him paranoid. He must have switched to all paper files around that time because we couldn’t get anything else useful off his computer. He would come on the news and go on and on about how people were after him, presenting all these wild conspiracies. His interviews and media appearances slowed down considerably after that, but anytime he was spotted, he seemed to be less and less connected with reality.”
I nodded. Towards the end of my time at the DA, Glen seemed more on edge, but this past week at his house had been something completely different. I’d never seen him like that before.
“We think it’s around that time that your fathers decided he needed to be removed from his position as governor,” Terrance said.
“Really?” I asked.
“Yeah. We were never sure why they chose him to be the front-alpha anyway,” Jackson said, his face scrunched in confusion. “Probably because he’s a bit of an idiot, and Jericho thought he’d be easier to control. And he was until he wasn’t.”
“True,” Donovan said. “That’s how it always was at school.”
“School?” I asked.
“We were all at university with them,” he continued. “Those three havehistory. We could never figure out what made them break up, but by the end of university, Jericho and Richard were a pack, and Glen was on his own. Even back then, it was clear Jericho ran the show and Richard and Glen just followed whatever he said.”
“Wait… when you say break up?”
“Oh, they were definitely fu—I mean, umm, romantically involved,” Jackson said.
I stared at him wide-eyed. I knew my pack fathers were close with Glen, but I had never imagined they had a history likethis. I thought of all the meetings they had together while I was growing up.Oh my god.Was there more to those meetings than I imagined?
“But growing up, they went on and on about how disgusting it is for men to be together…” I said, trailing off as I took in Jackson’s smirk.
