Chapter 10
Excuse Me, Sir?
I’m exhausted.
This is more activity, more peopling than I’ve had to do for weeks and it’s weighing down on me. My cheeks ache from the fake smile I’ve been wearing all night, and my feet are screaming at me from the heels I’m wearing. I’ve been standing all night. There are chairs around the room, but I haven’t sat in one. No, my father and Brian made it clear that as the guest of honor at this party, I was to remain on my feet and charming all night.
There’s the briefest flicker of… annoyance? Anger? Frustration? Maybe all of the above—before the chemicals in my veins smooth it all out. Whatever cocktail they give me every night does that dulls my emotions and makes me extra pliable. Not a compulsion like when I’m under an alpha command. It’s more like I can’t find it in myself to care enough to do otherwise. They tell me to do something I do it, because… why not?
It will keep Ren safe, and that’s the only thing that matters to me.
A hand latches around my elbow. “Come, Haven. We’re going.”
I have the thought that I should say goodbye to the guests. It’s what a good hostess would do, isn’t it? But my father is already dragging me out of the room and to the car. I don’t have the energy or the inclination to fight him, so I let him do it.
“Brian?” I ask as I slip into the back seat, and then immediately hate myself for doing so. I don’t care, beyond that I’m glad to be rid of his wandering hands and smug smirks. Oh, and the whispers. All of the horrible things he murmured into my ear all night, all the things he vowed to do to me, things that, if I were myself, would have made me shudder.
But I’m not myself. I haven’t been for weeks and so I’d just smiled though all of it, because that is what he told me to do. Even after Hale barked at me to ignore his commands, I did it. I’ll continue to do it, I don’t have any other choice. I will not risk Florence or her family.
It’s not like I was destined for some great romance, my perfect pack. That was never in the cards for me. If marrying Brian and smiling through his slimy, groping hands gives Ren the chance to find her happily ever after, I’ll do it. Of course I will.
My father laughs as he slides into the seat next to me. “Have you grown fond of your fiancé, Haven?”
I shrug and look out the window as the car pulls forward. “Not really.”
I should be prepared for the slap, but I’m not. My head slams into the window from the force of it, making it throb, along with the sting from his open palm on my cheek. It’s not the hardest he’s ever hit me, but it still makes my head swim.
I suppose he’s not worried about people seeing it now. The engagement party is over and I’ll stay holed up in my bedroom until the wedding in a month. Plenty of time for a bruised cheek to heal.
He sniffs when I don’t react beyond lifting my hand to press my cool fingers against my stinging skin. “He’s handling the guests.”
By ‘handling’, I guess he means ‘saying goodbye’ like I’d briefly thought maybe I should do.
“You did well tonight,” he eventually says, almost as an afterthought. I frown and press my throbbing head to the cold window. I should say something, anything else, some acknowledgement. But saying ‘thank you’ seems… weird, since the only reason I behaved well was first because of Brian’s commands and the drugs, and then because of the ever present unspoken threat to Ren.
So eventually I say, “I’m glad you were pleased.”
Which I am. Very glad. If he was upset, if he thought I embarrassed him, I would be worried about Florence, but as it is, I can bask in the knowledge that she’s safe for now at least, and I’ll never have to follow one of Brian Coogan’s barks ever again. Not by compulsion, at least. But I’ll still do what he says.
It’s for Florence. For Ginny. For Moira.
I can do this for them. To keep them safe.
My father’s cell buzzes and I hear him pull it out of his pocket, but don’t look away from the buildings streaming by. After a moment, he lowers the partition between us and the driver and leans forward to demand. “Take me to my office.”
I don’t ask what’s going on, or why we need to go there. I know I won’t be setting foot inside. Not with a bruise forming on my cheek and a goose egg on my forehead. Honestly, I don’t really care why he needs to go. I’m just grateful that I’ll apparently have the rest of the evening alone. Not that I’ll do much with it. Just curl up in bed and nurse the few flickers of my broken heart I can still feel.
Or maybe if I’m lucky, I can spend some time in the living room watching Alpha Love Getaway.
I have so much to catch up on, almost an entire season.
The idea of vegging out for a while, of shutting off my brain because I want to, sounds quite nice. I need to escape my reality and what better way to do that than to immerse myself in trashy reality television?
The car ride to my father’s office is silent. I barely listen when he tells the driver to take me home and then come back to get him. I suppose I should be glad he’s not just making me wait, which he has done before.
We slow to a stop. The driver climbs out to open his door, and my father steps out without a word. Not that I’d expect one. We linger at the curb for longer than is normal. Car running, with just me inside it.
I don’t look up when the door opens again and the driver slides behind the wheel. As we pull away from the curb, I slump into my seat, my head lolling on the headrest as I continue to watch the buildings pass by in a blur. My brain wanders, flits from one thought to the next until it settles on the Calloway pack, as it does so often these days.
I’ve gotten pretty good at shutting those thoughts down. The pills my father makes me take help quite a bit, if I’m honest. Not feeling anything when I think of them makes it easier to disregard them entirely. But now, tonight, it’s hard to push them from my mind. Probably because once again Hale Calloway freed me from the shackles of an alpha’s command.
But he didn’t free you entirely, did he? He could have barked at me to ignore all alpha commands, any but his own, and I would have been truly free from that threat. But he didn’t. Maybe that’s not how alpha commands work. Maybe he can’t make such an all-encompassing command and expect it to stay in place.
Maybe it works better when there're specifics involved.
I don’t know. All I know is that thanks to Hale Calloway, I’m free of the commands of the two alphas who have hurt me the most.
And I’m not really sure what to do with that information.
Does he actually care? Is that actually for my own safety? Because he wants me to be free to make my own decisions and choices?
Or is it just another manipulation? Another way to make me trust them? To pull me back into their orbit? Their game?
The more I think about it, the more my mind and my heart ache. Like the hurt I feel from them, the confusion is just too great to be contained by the chemicals in my veins.
I blink when I realize that while I’ve been lost in my thoughts, we’ve been driving in the wrong direction. I pull my eyes from the unfamiliar buildings and look at the back of the driver’s head.
I don’t recognize him. My father’s normal driver, Klaus, has light hair with gray streaks, a beard and wrinkles. This man has dark hair, faint stubble and, from the little I can see of him, doesn’t look much older than me.
Still, my father climbed into the car with him, ordered him to this office like he knew him. So he must actually work for him. “Excuse me?” I say, leaning forward to be heard over the rush of the engine. “I believe you’re going in the wrong direction. We need to go to 102 Crestline drive.”
I offer the information as straightforward as I can. Hoping he maybe just got turned around. But when there’s no response, not even a flicker of acknowledgement, the first creepy of unease filters through me. That only grows when he reaches down to the seat next to him and picks up a mask, which he slides over his face.
Fuck.
I need to call someone, alert them that I’m being taken. Where? I have no idea. And by whom? I am equally in the dark about. Only that this man is not the person who should be behind the wheel of my father’s car.
I need to call someone. Florence. The police. Hale. Jude. Creed. Tic. Hell, I’d even call Brian or my father. The devil you know, and all that.
I don’t have a phone.
I haven’t had one since I left mine at the Calloway pack house. My father didn’t see the point of getting me a new one, when I wouldn’t be contacting anyone ever again. Not even Florence.
And he has enough hubris that he assumed no one would dare go against him, kidnap his only daughter only weeks after he got me back. This is what happens when you assume things, folks.
I should do something. But I’m extremely limited in my abilities. Not only am I an omega, but I’m a drugged omega, drugged by something that makes me… not care, more pliable, biddable. More susceptible to the will of alphas. Hell, maybe even betas. It’s not like we’ve tested that. Though, I behaved extremely well when Caroline came to fit me for my dresses, standing with a closed mouth, following her every order. Was that because I just couldn’t bring myself to care? Or because I have to follow any orders given to me by anyone?
I scoot forward in my seat. “Excuse me, sir? I—are you kidnapping me?”
A choked laugh comes from the front seat and he very carefully doesn’t look at me or say anything. I settle back with a nod. “I suppose that’s answer enough.”
Because he would deny it if he wasn’t kidnapping me, right? He’d reassure me I wouldn’t be harmed or something, right? Unless this is some kind of punishment from my father? Maybe he wants me to be scared?
I think back over the night and the orders given to me by Frederick Bell and my unfortunate fiancé. Did I give away that I don’t have to follow them anymore? Did they figure it out? Are they whisking me away for the next thirty days to keep me locked up even tighter than I am in the house I grew up in?
Not my home.
It hasn’t been my home since my mother left.
I don’t have one of those anymore. The closest I get is Florence. I thought maybe the Calloway pack would be my home, but no…
I push away thoughts of them. I don’t have the time or the inclination to think about them, think about how much they hurt me. Even if I don’t feel much of it right now, I have more important things to worry about… like getting out of this car. Getting away. Getting help.
Only the very thought of that is… exhausting.
I was already tired, already dragged down by the long hours of being around people and the chemicals in my veins.
Fight, Haven, demands a voice that sounds suspiciously like Creed. You have to fight.
But I don’t really want to. What’s the point?
I escape and go back to my father’s house? Marry Brian? Become a shell of a woman who has no control over anything? Not even my own body?
This is something different, a different path from that.
You’ll end up dead, Jude says.
That knowledge settles over me, and I nod once. Probably.
Better that than to just exist in my father’s world. In Brian’s.
Linger on in a drugged up haze.
Death would be better than that.
We’ll come for you, Hale’s voice promises in my head.
No, you won’t. Why would you?
Because you’re ours, Tic vows.
My eyes tingle and my nose stings, but a moment later, the urge to cry fades and reality settles. Tricky of my brain to get me to have a modicum of self-preservation using what I want most in the world. To believe that they want me. To belong to them, to belong to anyone who would keep me safe and healthy and whole. Who would take care of me.
The car slows to a stop and I will my hand to reach for the door handle. Will my body to move, to try …. But that urge fades, too. As soon as the car stops, before the driver has even gotten out, the passenger door yanks open.
I blink up at the man standing over me. Or I assume it’s a man based on body size alone. I can’t be certain though because he’s wearing a mask, one that looks like a sheep. He tilts his head and holds out a hand to me. “Come along, little omega.” I don’t recognize the voice and that faint flicker of hope I felt that maybe this was the Calloway pack coming to save me sputters and dies.
I watch as my hand lifts of its own accord and slides into his gloved palm. His grip tightens around mine as he pulls me to my unsteady feet. He guides me over to a new car, this one black and nondescript. There are thousands of this exact car on the streets of Granton. It’ll blend in much better than my father’s limo.
“Hands together behind your back,” he demands when we stop next to the trunk. My wrists press together and he tsks, like he’s disappointed in me. “Really? That’s it? You got no fight in you at all?”
I shrug. “They gave me something.”
“Who? Not me.” A thick zip tie wraps around my wrists and tightens.
“No,” I agree easily as he kneels next to me. I have the brief thought I should run for it, but movement draws my attention and I realize we’re not alone. I might outrun the kneeling man, but not the one now leaning casually against the car with his arms crossed and a bunny mask on. “My father and my fiancé,” I explain as he nudges my feet together. “Don’t know what it is, but its… it makes me more compliant.”
Oh, shut your stupid mouth, Haven. Do not tell these men that you’re on something that makes you take orders better.
Too late now. Much too late now.
The man leaning on the car straightens. “No shit?”
“No shit.”
The trunk next to me pops open and the kneeling man straightens, my ankles now bound tightly. “In you go,” He mutters, nudging me toward the trunk, one hand wrapped around my upper arm to keep me steady.
“Hold up,” the bunny mask says, coming over to us. He brushes my hair back from my face, taking in the bump on my forehead and the bruise on my cheek. “Which one of them gave you those?”
I note he doesn’t ask if his friend did it, like he already knows he didn’t. “My father,” I say, as I’m lowered into the trunk almost gently.
Bunny mask tilts his head, humming. “Well, I must say I’m relieved to get you away from him.”
That makes me frown as I settle into the cold trunk. It’s pretty big and I’m pretty small, so it’s not a tight fit, but it’s not exactly comfortable. Of course it’s not, Haven. You’re being kidnapped.
“He won’t pay a ransom for me,” I tell him as I settle into the space.
A soft huff of laughter. “That’s okay, omega. We aren’t asking for one.”
With that chilling statement, he closes the hood of the trunk and I’m wrapped in complete and utter darkness.