But my brother doesn’t smile; his stony expression is enough to ignite fear in anyone other than me.
“Rodgers,” my brother snaps.
A fresh-faced, wide-eyed cadet rushes to his side with a quick‘sir’.
“Read him his rights, arrest him, and get him out of my sight.Now.”
Poor Rodgers nods, almost tripping to escape my brother, whose alpha is scowling right at me.
I scowl right back. “What? It was self-defence, Rowan.”
He huffs.
“You don’t believe me? Fine, I’ll send you the CCTV footage—”
“I don’t give a fuck about him, Revea.” His voice drops to a hiss as he ushers me behind the reception desk. “This could have been so much worse, and you know it. We’ve been begging you to get security for months—”
“I don’t need it—”
“Maybe you don’t,” he cuts in, “but most people don’t have the training orbarkto incapacitate an alpha.”
I take the compliment with a smug smirk.
Most omegas can’t bark the way I can, not on demand. Some can’t do it at all. I know because I tried to teach Serena once. She couldn’t.
I’m not special. I know it’s probably because I grew up surrounded by loud military alphas who treated barking like punctuation. I still remember the first time I did it, and Ro dropped to the kitchen floor like one of those screaming goats.
“Re, what if you weren’t here?” Rowan’s soft tone breaks the memory.
I frown, not liking that suggestion. “But I was.”
“But what if youweren’t?” He leans in. “What if there were more? Or if it was a beta you couldn’t bark into submission? This was one random alpha, Re. Today, the circumstances were in your favour. But what if they weren’t? What would have happened to Serena? Your staff?”
With each question, I lose more and more of my confidence, and the final scenario beats me into silence.
Rowan’s expression softens. “I’m not trying to be an asshole. If you weren’t my sister, I’d be saying the same thing, and you know it. Today, you protected them, but what about tomorrow? Or the next? You need security. You need other people looking out for them. You can’t always do everything on your own, Revea.”
I go silent, teeth grinding, because I can’t refute anything he’s said.
But I’m not going to tell him that.
I’m so stubborn you could tell me it’s raining in a thunderstorm and I’d argue otherwise. Probably drag a sun lounger outside and lie there in my bikini just to prove a point.
Which is why I’m standing here now, arms crossed tight over my chest, silent.
Rowan isn’t wrong.
We’ve had this conversation before.
It came up the moment I told my family I wanted to open a salon that centred around omegas. Not exactly the safest business model in an alpha world. They’d supported the idea anyway, right up until the practical questions started.
Security being the biggest one.
I’d told them I’d look into it. Later. Once I knew the salon was actually going to happen. Once the loan was approved. Once the building was finished. Once I had staff and clients.
Excuses layered neatly on top of each other.
All of which happened nearly a year ago.
