Trent rested his back against the wall outside the bathroom. “Do you think she’s sick?”
Kyle paced the hallway, being the type to move when nervous. “Just hormones and adrenaline, I bet.”
Anne’s body still rested in the room, Marshall waiting to see if she wanted to see it once more before they moved it.
The shit luck of it all wore on Trent. Alison had risked so much to try to save the girl, and it had all been in vain. According to the doctor, the girl’s wounds hadn’t all been recent. He doubted she’d have lived much longer regardless, meaning that even if Alison had managed to find her a little quicker, she might not have been able to save her.
Not that it would ease Alison’s mind. The women blamed herself for everything, as if she needed to be perfect to hold the entire world together.
He’d seen it in the way the other omegas had looked at Alison, like some guardian of theirs that they were always in awe of. Alison took that to heart, put too much on her shoulders.
It was impossible to save everyone. That was a lesson Trent knew all too well, one of the reasons he’d gotten out of his work with the FBI. He’d seen too many people he couldn’t save, had grown tired of seeing them die pointless deaths.
That ground a person down, and watching Alison rush to the bathroom made Trent fear she’d reached her limit.
He rubbed his hands over his eyes, the water still running.
Was she crying? Using the sink as a way to mask the sounds? That seemed a lot like her stubborn ass to do. She didn’t care for anyone to see her weakness, even if they wanted to help her with that weight.
“How long are we going to wait?” Trent asked.
Daniel twisted his head, as if he could see through the door. “It’s been a while, I guess. She’s probably hiding.”
Kyle snorted before stopping his pacing and walking over to shove open the door.
Inside, the bathroom was empty.
Terror swamped Trent. Not anger, not frustration, just sheer terror. Had she run? Was she going to target the slavers on her own? He didn’t want to be back here to identify her body next.
“I swear, if she ran—” Daniel’s threat was cut off when they spied a white cloth on the floor.
Kyle knelt and picked it up. He brought it to his face and inhaled, his expression hardening. “Chloroform.”
Trent swallowed as he spied the other door, the one they hadn’t realized was there, that opened to the emergency exit staircase.
Alison had been abducted, this time for real…
* * * *
Alison rolled, her head pounding and her stomach revolting. She heaved, gagging, a horrible taste in her mouth and down her throat she couldn’t get rid of.
Nothing came up, but that didn’t stop the heaving.
It took a while for her to catch her breath, and when she did, when she sat up, she found herself on a bed she didn’t recognize.
The bathroom. The chloroform. It took another moment for her to realize what had happened, even she didn’t know exactly where she was.
On the desk, across from the bed, sat a silver letter opener. She bolted from the bed, wanting to wrap her fingers around the make-shift weapon.
Something yanked her back, the bed groaning. A cuff around her left wrist had been connected to the bed frame. She clawed at it, but a lock kept it in place. They weren’t the same ones the alphas had put on her.
“You’re awake. Good.” That voice.
Alison turned her head to find her father walking into the room, his hands folded behind his back, his chest out. It was as if no time had passed. “Let me go,” she snapped.
He sighed, as though her reaction were disappointing and expected. “I can’t believe you really thought I wouldn’t recognize my own daughter.”
Well, that answers if he knows or not…
He grabbed the chair from the desk and pulled it over until he could sit just outside her reach. “Even twenty years isn’t enough time to forget those eyes. Besides, you’ve grown into a near-identical replica of your mother. When I saw you, for a moment, I almost thought you were her.”
Alison yanked the chain again but made no progress. Anger was no match for steel. “Is that what this is? Some creepy replacing-mom thing?”
He lifted his lip in disgust. “I am not some pervert, even if you wish to paint me that way so you can sleep at night knowing your father was a monster. No. You may look like your mother, but you are my daughter, and I have no such inclinations toward you.”
“So why am I here?” She sat on the bed when it became clear she wasn’t going to get free by pulling. Conserve your energy. Look for an opportunity.
“I suspected someone would try to infiltrate my auction, but I didn’t suspect it was them, not at first. They came highly recommended, and perhaps I was naïve due to liking what they said.”
“Are we doing father-daughter catch up time?”
He lifted his dark eyebrow, a look so similar to when she’d been a kid. Why had it terrified her then? Why had she cared so much back then? “I’d hoped you would have settled over the years. In fact, seeing you behaving yourself yesterday gave me hope for the first time in your life that you had learned your place. I see it was part of the ploy, however.”
“I guess neither of us is all that happy with the family we have left.”
“Indeed. Still, it wasn’t easy to catch you alone.”
Alison lowered her gaze as she worked through it. The realization hurt down to her bones. “Anne? You used her?”
“The scouts who took her were not careful. She would have brought almost nothing to the auction, assuming she survived to that point. I didn’t put it all together, not at first. I had heard some blonde woman had been asking questions about her. Once I realized it had to be you, the trap was only too simple to bait.”
The anger inside Alison burned through her. Anne had ended up dying because Alison had asked questions, because she’d been a target?
Geoffrey was either unaware or uncaring of Alison’s internal struggle, because he waved over someone from outside the doorway. Galen approached, a pair of bolt cutters in his hands.
Dread settled inside her. She wasn’t an idiot. She knew that people holding bolt cutters around prisoners was a bad thing. She drew her hands into fists out of instinct.
Galen came closer, and when he reached for Alison, she moved.
Being one-handed made her struggle weak, but she adapted. She swung her elbow out and caught him in the jaw, then reached for the cutters. He was stronger, larger, and he had use of both his hands.
The fight didn’t last long, though the blood leaking from his mouth still pleased her, especially when she thought back to the things he’d said about her before. He pinned her to the bed, his weight enough to keep her still, his body above her chest to keep her arms locked to her sides.
“Careful, now. He could cut something on accident if you struggle too much.”
“Wouldn’t want to mar the goods,” she choked out, Galen’s weight enough to make taking full breaths hard. Still, she settled.
Escape was more important than pointless fighting.
The bolt cutters neared her throat, but it wasn’t until they closed over the small padlock there that she realized the plan.
And it set her off, again. The snap as he cut through the lock, as the collar Trent had put on her was pulled free, ran through her. She felt truly naked without it, the skin below cold in a way that sank into her.
“I can’t have you wearing a collar with the wrong name, or one I lack a key to,” he explained.
The collar was tossed to Geoffrey, who caught and examined it. “The odd thing is, I would have believed them. You weren’t faking, not entirely. I can tell, of course, the difference between a woman who submits and one who pretends. It is a valuable skill that has helped protect me from being stabbed by women biding their time.”
Galen got off her, and she managed a hard kick to his ribs before he could quite get away. He snarled back at her, but Geoffrey waved him gone. “I think the funniest part is that all I ever really wanted for you was to find your place.”
“No, you wanted to put me in the place you liked. Not the same thing.” She sat up, drawing deep breaths now that she didn’t have a heavy man sitting on her chest.
“You have always been stubborn, always too quick to suffer needlessly to prove some foolish point. Let’s not pretend, Corrine.”
Her old name grated, something she hadn’t been called since she’d escaped.
“You are my daughter, my flesh and blood, my legacy, and the last part of my mate. You do not belong out there doing whatever you have been for the last twenty years.”
“So you’ll sell me, like I’m just a used car you found?”
“You aren’t livestock, not like the others being sold. Will money exchange hands? Of course. That is the best way to ensure you end up somewhere where you will be properly taken care of. People who pay a great deal for their things tend to take better care of them. I will choose the correct alpha who can handle your…” He hesitated, as though trying not to insult her. “Your spirited ways.”
“If you think I’m going to just give in and be a good little omega for you or any asshole who thinks he can own me, you really don’t know me.”
He waved off her argument. “Everyone says that at first. I saw you, Corrine, and even if you don’t want it to be true, you were made to submit. Even when it was supposed to be a ploy, even when you were supposed to be acting, I watch you react on instinct. You were born to kneel, and the sooner you accept that, the better your life will be. Fight it, if you must, because it won’t change a thing. This is who you are, and it is who you will always be.” He rose, and even when she lunged at him, even when she tried to grab him, nothing worked.
He walked out as though her fight were a temper tantrum, one he would accept because she couldn’t help herself.
Too quickly, the energy ran out, and she sat on the bed. The collar sat on the table like a dead thing, forgotten, used up and tossed away.
And for the first time, a real tear ran down her cheek.
* * * *
Kyle couldn’t stop pacing. Everything inside him was on edge, frustration eating away at him.
The auction was today, and they still had no damn idea where it was. Clearly, they’d been found out, so it wasn’t as though Geoffrey would be sending them an invite with the details.
And Alison was out there, somewhere, alone, and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it.
“Sit down,” Kieran snapped from his computer, them having all gathered at Tracy, Sam, Mason and Dylan’s place.
“When your mate is missing, you can sit down. Until then, shut the fuck up,” Kyle snarled back.
Kane responded from his spot in a chair that he balanced on two legs. “Don’t mind him. Trust me, he was a bitch when Tiffany went missing.”
Kyle shook his head and resumed his pacing. They needed to do something.
The FBI had promised to help, but so far hadn’t come up with anything. They were at the same dead stop they’d been at before Alison had agreed to join.
And now Alison was gone. What if the auction went on as normal? What if they sold her? What if he never saw her again, never even knew what happened to her?
He drew his hands into fists, the tension inside him making him want someone to do something to let him lose his temper. Blowing off a little steam would be perfect right about then.
Instead, he kept pacing and let everyone work. Sam was at the police station trying to find anything he could, especially since the murder was local, and he was on the special division for omega crimes. Kieran and Joshua were working tirelessly on their computers. Kane, Kara, Torrin, Liam and Erik had gone after every contact they could, trying to discover anything.
It had led to fuck-all.
The only people who knew about the auction were those attending, and those people wouldn’t be breathing a word of it.
The front door opened, and a moment of stupid, baseless hope made Kyle turn toward it.
Sam.
He was breathless, as if he’d run all the way there. “I’ve got something.” He held up a small bag, then pulled the folded paper from it.
Kyle snatched it from him, unfolding the page and frowning at the messy, sprawling handwriting. “What’s this?”
“Anne wrote it before she passed out, when the clerk was calling nine-one-one. He didn’t find it until after everyone left.”
Red splotches over it could only be blood, but he ignored that as he made out the words. An address?
And a time.
He lifted his gaze to Sam as Daniel snatched the paper from him. “She knew where the auction would be?”
Sam nodded. “It has to be. I bet they didn’t expect her to wake up, let alone be able to tell anyone. She must have wanted to get out one last message.”
Daniel was on his phone a moment later, stepping away from the group, no doubt contacting the FBI for backup.
Suddenly, Kyle wished he’d gotten to know her. He wished he’d had the chance to meet her, because right then, she might have been the only thing that stood between his mate and the same fate that Anne had suffered.
Daniel walked back in, his lips twisted into a grimace. “They won’t do anything.”
“What?” Trent was the one to rise that time, his voice nothing but fury. It was one of those times Kyle had to remember that Trent wasn’t one to push too far.
“They said they would set up outside the auction and wait, picking up people as they left so they could get as many as possible.”
“What if they miss her? What if they miss grabbing the person who has her?”
Daniel ran his tongue along his teeth, his voice calm even though his face wasn’t. “They don’t consider Alison a high priority. She doesn’t have any special information and she isn’t an agent. They see her as an acceptable casualty.”
Kyle bared his teeth at that. Acceptable casualty? It was a good thing no one had said that to his face, or he’d have decked the fucker. “They really expect us to just sit outside and hope they find our mate? That we’re going to leave her there for one fucking second longer than she has to be?”
“They’ve taken us off the case officially. We were ordered to fly back home and let them finish it.”
“Well, fuck that.” Trent’s voice left no room for debate. “There’s no way I’m sitting this out. She’d never do that if it were any of us.”
Kane rose and walked out of the room, silent, which was rare for the man.
Kyle narrowed his eyes, thinking about what Alison would have done if it were Tiffany who was missing.
“I’m not waiting to see if this turns out okay,” Kyle said. “I don’t give a shit about what they want. I’m damn well going to get my mate.”
Trent nodded. “Me too.”
Daniel didn’t move at first, as though it was the hardest choice for him. It was, though., He’d been devoted to his job forever, and now he had to actually pick between it and her. If they went, if they disobeyed the order, they were done as FBI agents. That life was over.
And they had no idea if Alison even wanted them.
Daniel shook his head. “Fuck it. Let’s go.”
Kane walked back in, a bulletproof vest over his black shirt, a gun strapped to his hip. At Kyle’s stare, he lifted an eyebrow. “What? She’s annoying as fuck, and I am constantly afraid she’ll castrate me for funsies, but she’s family.”
It was then that Kyle really looked around. He’d been so focused on his conversation with Trent and Daniel that he’d stopped paying attention to the others. The commotion was quick, but steady.
Anyone able-bodied was already preparing, with the few who were less able to fight helping to pack and prepare.
As he gazed across the room, the alphas and omegas willing to ignore any risk in order to protect one of their own, Kyle sucked in a deep breath.
This was what Alison had created, even if she never realized it, and anyone who dared to hurt her had just called hell down on themselves.