Chapter Twenty-One

Reese spread the map on the table, which had large Xs on each spot they’d searched. “This is pointless.”

Damon shook his head and tapped the paper. “It’s not.”

A sound in the hotel hallway had them both pausing, listening intently. When nothing else came, they exhaled in unison.

“She won’t be happy when she finds out.”

“So she won’t find out,” Reese said, even though he knew that was a stupid plan. Kara was hard-headed and far too smart. There was no way they could keep something from her if she wanted to find out. Their best hope was to try and make it so she didn’t realize she needed to find anything out.

Reese’s phone had died days before and it hadn’t given them anything solid. The car ran the normal errands, stayed in the same apartment building parking garage every night. They’d considered trying to tail the car, but given the people they’d already dealt with, Reese was sure they’d be spotted. They weren’t amateurs, and if they were followed, it would only tip the hand they had.

The car took the same route every morning, parking in a large lot outside one of the lab’s other storage buildings. From what they’d found, the building was a warehouse used to store the various medical equipment to be sent to whatever lab needed it. He’d even sat on it for a few hours at night and seen no movement, nothing to indicate anything else was done there.

Besides, it was too public for them to want to do anything illegal there. Wherever they kept the alpha, it wasn’t going to be on the books. The person who drove the SUV—probably the one Reese had knocked out—had to work security there when he wasn’t doing the less reputable parts of his job. Good way to keep things looking legit. Still, since he never showed up at wherever they kept the alpha, it left them exactly nowhere.

“She’ll realize we’re keeping something from her,” Damon pressed, “and when she does, she isn’t going to be happy.”

“She’s already gotten attacked, has Thompson after her and was nearly killed by that car. She’s injured. Do you really think she should be doing any of this?” Reese jammed a finger down on the map. “Because she won’t just help us plan. She’ll want to be in the thick of it.”

Damon growled softly but lowered his gaze to the map.

He was young and easily swayed by Kara. While Reese didn’t love the idea of keeping the omega in the dark, it seemed the only real choice. The more time they spent with her, the more obvious it was that they wanted her.

There were issues. Cullen had been the first willing to bring them up, to mention all the reasons they weren’t a great fit, but at the end?

They could make it work.

The alphas hadn’t fully discussed the matter yet, hadn’t agreed to try it, yet the more time they spent together, the more obvious it was none of them wanted to let her go. All they had to do was get her to change, just a little.

Kara could quit stealing and settle down. She’d be safe because they’d make sure she stayed safe. She wouldn’t need to lie because she wouldn’t have things to keep from them.

“I don’t like it,” Damon repeated.

“I know you don’t, but you agreed just like we did. This is how it has to happen. We’ll solve the case, we’ll get Kara to come back home with us and we’ll make it all work.”

The look on Damon’s face said he didn’t quite believe it could all go so easily, but he said nothing. Funny that Damon had fit in so well at the end. He seemed to offer Kara something no one else did—a safe place she melted into. With the others, Kara competed. She fought. With Damon, however, she relaxed, curling around him like a body pillow. He’d admitted that his plans had never included sharing an omega, but he’d said it in the way that implied maybe his original plans weren’t what he’d ever really wanted.

And Reese got that.

He’d wanted children. Or maybe he’d just expected to have them? He wasn’t sure if there was a difference anymore.

Though they’d spoken to Marshall about that. Kara still had one working ovary. She couldn’t carry a child, given they’d removed her uterus, but she could use a surrogate.

They could still have that life they’d wanted, with children of their own blood.

“Have you looked here?” A neon-green-painted nail tapped against a warehouse on the northern side they hadn’t checked. Kara’s voice was deceptively sweet, like poison covered in sugar. It screamed to tread carefully.

“Not yet,” Reese said, voice slow. She reminded him of a coiled rattlesnake right then, and he sure as shit didn’t want to get bitten.

“I’ve been thinking,” she said, voice tight. “The GPS on the phone had the car stopping right here every morning and again on the way home.”

“A stop light,” Reese offered.

“No stop light or stop sign there. And the route is odd, not direct.”

Damon frowned as he stared at the map, as though he were working out the issue in his head. “He’s dropping someone off there.”

“And picking them up. I’d guess he lives with a coworker, one who works at the actual lab we’re looking for. Perfect out-of-the-way spot for staying off the radar there, and big enough for whatever they needed.”

“For fuck’s sake,” Cullen muttered as he came in through the front door, telling them Kara had slipped his watch. They’d walked down to the coffee shop in the lobby for an ‘outing’, or so Kara had said.

It seemed she’d played them all, which shouldn’t have shocked him nearly as much as it did. Why did he keep underestimating her?

Kara rose and crossed her arms, the action obscuring whatever smart-ass quip was printed across her shirt. “Why am I actually surprised that you all would pull this?”

So, it seemed they were past her being helpful.

Cullen panted as he walked up to the dining table with the map over it, which meant he’d run all the way there. His words were broken as he answered. “It’s nothing.”

Kara lifted an eyebrow but remained silent, as if daring him to try that again.

Reese tried next. “You aren’t even fully healed. You didn’t need to be back on this case already.”

“And you were just hoping, what? You’d solve it before I realized you all were plotting behind my back? Because let me tell you something, you idiots aren’t nearly as sneaky as you seem to think. I knew from that first day you all were up to something. I just thought you’d come clean when Marshall cleared me. Exactly how long did you plan to keep this from me?”

No one answered.

A tic appeared in her jaw, and that mildly amused face she normally wore was nowhere to be seen. “So you weren’t going to tell me at all?”

“You didn’t need to know,” Cullen gritted out. “We’ll handle it.”

“I don’t need you handling my problems.”

“What was the other choice? Let you get hurt again?”

Reese winced at the words, which were far too harsh even if they were accurate. “What he means—” Reese cut Cullen a hard look to get him to shut up. “Is that we wanted to deal with this so we could start over. You were hurt, and this whole mess was something we dropped on you. We thought if we could just finish the case, it all goes away.”

“What do you mean ‘goes away’?”

Again, no one spoke, and the answer seemed to dawn on Kara slowly.

She let out a quiet, hollow chuckle. “You think that as soon as this is finished, I’m going to, what? Sit home and behave and listen to you all the time?”

“You don’t need to steal anymore,” Damon said. “We make more than enough so you wouldn’t have to do this anymore, wouldn’t have to take jobs.”

“You could have a good, safe life. You could live with us, travel with us on the safer cases, at least until we have kids—” Reese pressed.

“Kids?” Kara nearly choked the word out. “Have you forgotten my deficiencies in that area?”

Cullen spoke up, having regained his breath from chasing her. “We already spoke to Marshall. We can use a surrogate.”

“I never even said I wanted kids.”

Reese reached for her hand, but she jerked away before he could make contact. Still, he tried to explain, to make her understand. “We can talk about that later. The point is, you don’t have to be this person anymore.”

Kara went silent, her lips pressed together, her body strung so tight it might snap beneath the mounting tension. “I’m going to take a shower,” she said, voice tight and carefully blank. It wasn’t the easy humor in which she lied, but rather a rough and difficult cadence that said she was trying to hold it all together. Still, the emotions bled out at the seams of the words, in the glistening of her eyes.

And Reese, who hated when she lied, found none of his usual anger at the lie. She wasn’t laughing, didn’t have that glint she normally wore. No, it was worse. She looked hurt.

“Wait,” Damon said, which surprised the fuck out of Reese for him to be the toughest. Reese was not anywhere near willing to tangle with Kara, not when her eyes had that steely set to them, but Damon stepped forward as though all her keep your fucking distance attitude meant nothing.

Kara leveled a finger at him, though she cast her gaze toward each of them when she repeated herself in a tone that left no room for arguments. “I’m taking a shower.”

The click of her door was solid, just short of a slam, and it had Reese gulping.

This isn’t how this is supposed to go.

Kara knew her eyes were rimmed in red, but she didn’t fucking care. She was beyond caring.

Or maybe that wasn’t true. She cared a hell of a lot, but not about that. It was like getting a splinter when her fucking arm had been cut off. Who cared about looking tough? Who cared about anything but the hollow space in her chest, so empty it felt as though it were imploding, as though it were dragging in everything around it?

She slung her pack over her shoulder, ignoring the subtle ache in her side that said she was likely over the ten-pound limit Marshall had given her for lifting.

Fuck it. I need to get out of here.

In the main living area of the suite, all three alphas stood uneasy and awkward, as though none of them knew what to do. The table sat clear, their little planning papers tucked away somewhere.

She wasn’t stupid. They hadn’t put them away because they were done with cutting her out. They’d put them away so they didn’t have to argue about it.

“Look, Kara,” Cullen started to say before his gaze landed on the strap over her shoulder. His eyes narrowed. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

“Leaving.”

“Like hell,” Reese said, the same absoluteness there as in Cullen’s. Yeah, the two of them always thought they controlled everything.

They didn’t control her.

“Yeah, actually, I am.”

“Just stay,” Damon tried, that sweet voice of his almost enough to coax her into listening. Except, if anything, he’d hurt her the worst. Reese and Cullen, they might be those sorts of alphas who beat their chests and expected an omega to obey. Damon had never been that sort, and so, for some stupid reason, Kara had really thought he respected her.

She’d thought he understood her, that he’d trusted her. Instead, he’d turned out like the rest, and that betrayal was enough to make her eyes burn again even if she cursed the foolish tears. She should have known better.

Kara shook her head, her fingers curled around the backpack strap as if it alone could keep her afloat. “This was a mistake.”

Cullen leaned against the table. His green eyes, which she’d stared into so many times in the last weeks, had gone cold. Or maybe she’d gone cold and that was what reflected back out at her? “There’s no reason to go running off because of one fight.”

“This isn’t about one fight. I just realized this was never going to work.”

“Why? Because we tried to take care of you? For fuck’s sake, Kara, learn to accept some help!” Cullen’s voice roared through the suite, angry and frustrated. She’d bet that anger was more about his lack of control than about her.

“You aren’t trying to take care of me. You’re trying to change me.”

“So? No one is perfect. We all could change a bit,” Reese said, his tone softer, as though he were trying to talk some sense into her.

“You aren’t willing to change at all, though.”

“Yes, we are,” Cullen said. “We’re making allowances, learning to accept things about you we might not care for.”

They were willing to accept her shortcomings? Again, the blow at how short she fell of their wants hit her. It was like always—she wasn’t measuring up. Except, for once, she cared. Kara lost control of the thin grip she had on her temper, her voice coming out with the same anger as Cullen’s had. “You don’t want me!”

Damon took a step backward, as though her words had a physical force to them, his lips tipped down. “Of course we do. We already discussed it.”

“You want some vision of a perfect omega you’ve concocted, and you just hope you can shove me into that box. It’s not the same thing.”

It took a moment for an answer to come, as if they all searched for some way to deny it. It was Cullen who took a shot, the brave, stupid asshole. “We want you, Kara. Just because we have certain expectations doesn’t make us wrong, doesn’t mean we don’t want you. Are you really going to tell me that the life you’ve had is one worth giving us up for?”

Kara’s laugh was weak and empty. “I don’t know why I am so surprised. You never thought I was good enough for you—you just finally thought it was worth trying to fix me. You don’t look at me and think ‘that’s the woman I want.’ You think, ‘I can turn her into what I want.’ I’m no one’s fix-it project. I might not be perfect, but damn it, I deserve someone who wants me.”

Cullen’s mouth opened, then snapped shut again. Nothing to say? Of course not. They thought she should just roll over, should accept that she was a shitty person with a worthless life and be happy to become their little plaything. They really thought they were doing her a favor.

Fuck that.

“You might not like my life, but guess what? It’s mine. I’ve worked hard to get my reputation, to build my career, to learn my trade. I’m not about to walk away from it all, and for what? To fit into some picture you all made for yourselves? I’m supposed to change everything about myself so I can give you everything you want? Fuck you all! I like my life. I like what I do. I like who I am, and I’m not about to give it up for what you want.”

Reese dropped his gaze for a moment, and despite all of them shuffling their feet, she knew the truth. They regretted that she was pissed, not what they’d done. They were sorry she’d found out, that she wasn’t going to go along with their little plan, but not that they still looked at her like she wasn’t good enough. “You’re still hurt. You shouldn’t be on your own.”

“I’m not your problem anymore.” The words were bitter on her tongue. “But I’ll be staying with Torrin, so don’t worry.”

A knock had Kara moving past them to open the door. Torrin met her gaze, his green eyes steady. That edge to him, the almost scary side…she didn’t mind it at all right then.

Torrin might frighten her, but he’d never wanted her to be anyone other than who she was.

Still, he moved his gaze past her and to the alphas, his eyes narrowed.

Kara set a hand on his chest, a clear sign of ‘don’t do it.’ She didn’t need Torrin to fight her battles, and as much as she hated the alphas in that moment, she didn’t want them hurt either. Her feeling heartbroken was enough, wasn’t it?

This was exactly what she’d been so afraid of. This had been why she’d fought against letting them close, against them seeing anything deeper than the masks she wore. If they’d walked away before, it would have been fine. It would have been like every other person who had done so, shown the door by her snark and her wild streak before they saw the real her.

But Cullen, Reese and Damon had seen the real her. They’d glimpsed beneath the layers she used to shield herself—and they’d found her lacking.

“Let’s talk about this,” Cullen said, his voice gentler, as if he were making a last-ditch effort to get her to stay.

“There’s nothing to talk about.” Kara turned back toward them once more, ignoring the way the sight of all three alphas together brought up the yearning.

“This could still work,” Reese said. “Don’t throw it away.”

And there went her temper yet again. It seemed she’d earned her reputation as a hothead. “I’m not throwing anything away, because there isn’t anything here. I’m not some piece of clay for you to turn into whatever you want, whatever will be good enough for your perfect little life.”

Damon opened his mouth, but she lifted a hand to silence him.

They needed to damn well listen, and Kara was terrified that if she heard anything else from them, she might forgive them.

“Fuck you all,” she muttered and turned her back to them, sliding past Torrin, moving away from the alphas, and away from the men she was pretty damn sure she loved.