Page 188 of Knot So Social

Willow shudders, her thin shoulders heaving.

“I called my pack for days after, begging them to end our relationship properly. They laughed me off. The final time I called, they . . .” Her head falls back and she stares up.

I don’t want to hear what those motherfuckers did, but I grit my teeth and wait for the knife plunge.

“. . . they jerked off to my pleas.”

Those no good, mother-fucking bastards! I jump up with my hands balled, knocking the camera right over in my haste.

“Fuck,” I mutter, diving for it and setting it upright. It’s still running so I wave both hands toward Willow in apology, along with a thumbs up to show it’s still recording. I sit gingerly, glancing around. Tears flow freely down Alessandro’s face, but somehow, he doesn’t make a single sniffling noise.

Our bond aches with the combined agony.

We all knew, from her hesitancy and the way she asked for permission for the most ordinary things, she’d been treated badly. But the truth shakes me to my core.

Willow blinks hard, fighting her own tears. “I learned, with great difficulty, to shut that bonded part of myself down, to move through my day like it wasn’t screaming in my head.”

She looks down, playing her fingers across her lap for a moment. “I worked cash jobs, washing dishes and picking fruit. Moved my way across the country from Ohio to Texas. Got arrested for sleeping in my car. Kept doing it anyway until I could afford a place to live.

“When I got the keys to my first rental, I vowed that I’d never again put myself in such a vulnerable position. The first seeds of Boss Omega had been planted. I researched how people get wealthy without family money. Read three hundred books on self-improvement.”

Wow. I nod to myself, thoroughly impressed. Alessandro moves for the first time, turning to meet my gaze with raised brows. I bet we haven’t read three hundred books in all our lifetimes combined.

Willow pauses for a drink of water, but her silence brings me no joy. She’s steeling herself in the bond for more difficult territory, and it makes my knees weak to think there could be something worse.

“I started taking action. But every day, I lived with those alpha voices in my head telling me I was worthless, that I should stay in the kitchen. With the bond screaming at every moment that I was replaceable. That all I was good for was spreading my legs.”

She looks up, straight into the camera. “The same thing so many of you have told me in the comments.

“I secured a full-time job, doing administration for a local orchard. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to build a routine. I put savings aside and invested those in the stock exchange. In the evenings, I worked on digital templates which I sold online. I put that money into affiliate funnels. The proceeds got invested into income-producing shares.

“And then my life ended for the second time.”

Chapter fifty-nine

Jeremy

Willow chokes up, and fuck if I don’t wish I could travel back in time to save her.

“Summer, five years ago. I rushed home from work when a storm broke. All I worried about was getting wet, but the storm had other plans.”

She pauses to breathe deep, and a chilling calmness rides through the bond. As if she’s resigned to so much horror, it’s normal for her.

“Did you know the odds of being hit by lightning are one in one million? And the odds are even lower for women. That day, lightning struck a tree, and a side flash broke off to hit me. I was two feet away from getting into my car.

“I thought I was dying. The burns, the scarring inside my throat. Hearing loss, I even broke two ribs. I cannot describe to you what a billion volts feels like coursing through the body . . . but it shattered my life.”

A shiver runs through my own bones, leaving a trail of agony. I’ve always loved storms, never once worried about being hit by the lightning. But I’m not sure I’ll be able to look at them the same again. And for Willow? Now her meltdown during the last storm makes so much sense.

She sucks in a shaky breath. “I spent the next five months recovering. My hospital costs spiraled, wiping out all my savings and plunging me into half a million dollars of debt. I was back to sleeping in my car.”

Tears blur my vision. Even though I sprained my groin, I had a brother to drive me around and a workplace to cover my expenses. Being alone in hospital, with no one to bring her real food or entertain her, must have been unimaginably lonely.

My courageous omega grazes her hand along her lifted leg. “Maybe you’re wondering about these marks on my thigh, but no, they didn’t come from that moment. Twenty months after I walked out of the hospital, my life ended for the third time.”

I can hardly breathe now from the swelling in my throat, and our shared bonds are just as congested.

Willow’s gaze flicks from the camera to me. Her eyes glisten, her throat flexing with the work of keeping her own tears on lockdown. I form my fingers into a heart shape and breathe deep to wrangle my runaway pain into the back of my mind. She needs our strength right now.