Malachi Kovac.
Kovac.
The surname echoed in his head. Once. Twice. Three times.
Kovac.
Brody Kovac.
He spun around so fast that the chair screeched against the floor.
“Kovac,” he said, looking directly at Brody. At those gray eyes watching him with what might have been caution. “Your father? No, your uncle.”
It wasn’t a question. But Brody answered as if it were.
“Yes.”
A single syllable. No excuses. No beating around the bush. Not the slightest hint of regret in his voice.
“Malachi Kovac is your uncle.”
“Yes, Ren.”
The air in the room turned solid. Thick. Unbreathable. Ren stood up from the chair so abruptly that he knocked it backward, and the thud echoed like a gunshot.
“The man who auctioned me off. The man who locked me in that casino. The man who let them dress me up like a fucking doll andparade me in front of fifty predators.” Each sentence was a step he climbed, his voice cracking at the edges. “The man who’s now put a price on my head. He’s. Your. Uncle.”
Brody didn’t move.
“Did you know that the day Rocco pulled me out of there? Did you know who he was snatching me away from?”
“I knew.”
“And you didn’t think it was worth telling me?”
“It wasn’t the right time.”
“It wasn’t the right time?” Ren let out a laugh that tore at his throat. “When was it supposed to be the right time, Brody? Before or after we fucked?”
Zev straightened up against the bookshelf. A subtle, almost imperceptible movement, but Ren caught it. As if he were preparing to intervene. Ren glared at him.
“You knew too?”
“We all know,” Zev replied without flinching. “It’s the reason we exist.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means Brody’s been working for five years to dismantle his uncle’s network from the inside.” Zev didn’t raise his voice a single decibel. “It means every omega we’ve pulled from those auctions is a blow against Malachi. It means you’re not the first, though you are the one we’ve had the hardest time keeping hidden.”
Ren processed those words as slowly as someone trying to read underwater. Brody against his uncle. Brody infiltrating Rocco. Brody hiding rescued Omegas.
And Brody lying to him.
“You were going to tell me,” Ren said, and he didn’t know if he was asking or stating a fact.
“I was going to tell you today.” Brody crossed his arms. His forearms tensed beneath the rolled-up sleeves of his black shirt. “Before you arrived, I was already figuring out how to explain it to you.”
“How convenient.”
