Chapter 22
No Toes Lost
I shouldn’t let it bother me. I know that.
But the idea of the Calloway pack conducting business with my father while enslaved omegas rubbed all over them really fucking does. I try telling myself I don’t care what they do and who they do it with. Not after what they’ve done to me, but it’s a lie.
I’m self-aware enough to recognize that.
When we get back to the pack house, Jude pulls into the garage and we all stumble out of the car. I pause midway into the house to take off the stupid heels cutting off circulation to my toes, letting out a relieved breath when my toes curl into floor. So much better. But I’m still cold as fuck. Why does this keep happening to me?
“Sauna?” Tic asks.
I don’t know if it’s directed at me or everyone else, but I shake my head in answer. “I’m going to take a bath.”
I don’t say that I feel gross after stepping into that place, after realizing just how bad some omegas have it. Sure, my father kept me under lock and key and alpha bark, but at least he never sold me to a sex club to be used by countless alphas and betas. Hell, he didn’t even let Brian get too handsy with me.
All of my sexual experiences have been ones I chose, even if I didn’t have all the information about the people I was fucking at the time. I still chose to be with them. The omegas at Shock and Awe don’t have a choice. They have to fuck the clients or be stuck there forever.
It’s really messed up. And even more fucked that the pack I considered as my forever pack, didn’t realize that might be the case. Have they been so focused on revenge, on their own pain, that they haven’t realized other people are hurting too?
I don’t mind that they’ve had sex with other betas or omegas. Obviously, they deserve to have the release sex brings, but I would have preferred it if they’d gone to a bar like a normal human, rather than where they went.
I don’t even want to contemplate that they went with my father, that they’ve likely witnessed him having sex, seen his ‘O’ face. Gross. Even worse, my father probably learned what they look like when they come before I did.
Yuck to the tenth degree. So much yuck.
In a blur, I make my way upstairs and into the bathroom attached to my bedroom. I’m vaguely aware that something looks out of place, but don’t bother trying to figure it out. There’s a headache forming behind my eyes, and my nose is stuffed up. My fingers and toes are tingling painfully. I just want to get warm.
I spend too long in the bath to avoid the conversation that I know is coming and because even after scrubbing three times from head to toe, I still don’t feel clean.
I can’t keep doing this, can’t hang on to the idea that the Calloways might figure out the one thing that will make all of this better. I can’t hold on to the idea of them being my pack.
I know they think I have already let go, but if I’m honest with myself, I very much have still hoped that they’d magically be able to make this okay. That they’ll figure out how to wipe away the memory of all those videos, of the spreadsheet, of the comments to each other that I didn’t understand at the time, but that make sense now.
You aren’t even on the board.
I’m on the board now, motherfucker.
It’s why I was resistant to Ren’s suggestion that I reach out to scent clinics. Hope.
But hope is a dangerous thing.
It’s not ‘the thing with feathers, that perches in the soul.’ That makes it sound harmless. Soft. It’s not. The longer I let this go on, the longer I let them fool me into thinking they might not be such bad guys…
How many more times am I going to have moments like this?
Where I find out some action they’ve taken in the past that makes my skin crawl, all while my stupid omega is begging me to just let them do whatever they want. To let them take care of me.
This life is better than the one I had with my father. There’s no doubt about that, but it isn’t the life I deserve. I deserve stability. To know the pack I’m with hasn’t manipulated me into getting their way. I need to find a pack that is safe and bland and would never dream of hurting an omega. I need a pack that doesn’t have a dead fated mate that I will never live up to.
The Calloway pack might want to keep me, but they won’t ever be able to love me the way I need. It’s not possible for fated mates who have lost the other half of their soul.
As I dry off and get dressed, I make my decision. It’s time to move on, to take steps for my life after all this is over. Belinda will help us take down my father, finally. She didn’t say as much, but I fully intend on asking her for all the information she has that might hurt my father.
I’ll need a place to go once he’s been taken care of. I can stay with Ren for the short term, but depending on the form my father’s demise takes, I might be left with nothing to my name. For example, if he “disappears” it can be years before he’s legally deemed dead. I’m not on any of his bank accounts. Hell, I don’t even know if his body shows up if I’m in his will. I might not be. It seems like something he’d do. Leave everything to one of his awful programs for the demise of the designations. Or maybe Brian. Why would he leave anything to me, when he never intended me to be anything but weak, beaten down, dependent entirely on him or Brian for everything?
No, I can’t bank on anything from his estate. So I need to look after myself and my future.
Decided, I weave my hair into a French braid, pull on the clothes someone left on the bed for me, and go to search for my laptop.
I find it downstairs in the empty living room. I don’t have to check that it’s mine, like I did before. When I got back, Jude bought so many laptop cases for me that I could swap them out every day of the month and I still wouldn’t use the same one twice.
Jude’s computer is now covered in a satin touch navy case. So we can be sure we’ll never mistake them.
I make my way downstairs. The pack seems to have disappeared into the house, or maybe they’re off planning Frederick’s demise without me. Which is fine. Just fine. I’m going to make a cup of tea and make plans of my own.
I settle on a stool at the island and open my laptop—antique jewel toned flowers with gold accents—and spend the next few minutes pulling up the three scent clinics in Granton and their intake forms.
A little thrill runs down my spine as the thud of footsteps reaches my ears, making their way toward the kitchen, toward me. I straighten in my chair and keep my eyes focused on the screen, ignoring when Jude saunters in, pausing at the sight of me.
“Okay, button?”
Pursing my lips, I nod. I’m not really okay, but I’m sure what he means is ‘physically am I okay?’ Which I am. “Yep, no toes lost.” I lift a foot and wiggle the little appendages at him.
I don’t have to look at him to know his mouth hooks into a smile at that. “You sure? Maybe I should check.”
“I know how to count to ten, Jude,” I say drily, opening the first of the scent clinic intake forms, and clicking into the first box.
He moves closer to me until he’s hovering just over my shoulder. “You sure you don’t want me to check? I can give your arches a rub while I’m at it.”
That’s tempting. Those stupid heels made my feet hurt something fierce, even after not wearing them for at least an hour. “I’m kind of busy at the moment.”
Shit, I shouldn’t have said that, because now he’s going to wonder what I’m doing. Sure enough, he leans closer, over my shoulder until his cheek is right next to mine, reading what on the screen.
“What the hell are you doing?” Jude growls at me. I ignore him and continue to fill out the form, typing in my omega ID number and then my birthday. “Bellybutton, what the fuck do you think you’re doing?”
I move onto the section of the form where I talk about my experiences with other packs, and briefly consider if I should mention what the Calloway pack did to me, what they’re still doing to me.
“You’re wasting your time,” Jude hisses into my temple. “If you think for one second that I’m going to let you go to a scent clinic and find another fucking pack-”
“What are you going to do to stop me, Jude??” I ask, my voice harder than I’ve ever heard it. “Huh? What are you going to do? Tie me up? Bark at me?”
With a curse he spins me on the stool until I’m facing him, staring up at those green eyes of his, saturated with hurt, with jealousy of some unknown pack I haven’t even met yet. His hands grip the counter on either side of me again, caging me against the island. “Of course I’m not going to bark at you, button. And I’ll only tie you up if you ask me to. But I have absolutely no problem with hacking into every scent clinic database and erasing every application you submit. It won’t even be that hard. I can just build a program, a virus that keeps your applications from ever reaching them.”
I stare up at him in shock. He has the skills to do that. I’m sure he does. “Then I’ll go in and fill out a paper form.”
“Scheduling is still done on computers. You’ll never get an appointment. Not to submit your scent and certainly not to sniff pack scents.”
“You can’t do this!” I cry, throwing my hands up in the small space between our bodies. “You can’t keep me from finding a pack.”
“You have a pack!” he snarls at me. “ We’re your pack. Frankly, I think you already know this. You want me—us—to keep you from going to a scent clinic.”
“Oh, yeah? How do you figure?”
Jude takes a deep breath and some of the anger drains from him. He lifts one hand from the counter and runs it over the length of my braid, tugging the end gently. “Because if you actually wanted to go, to find a different pack than the one you already have, button, I have to think you’d be wise enough to submit an application from the privacy of your bedroom.” His thumb brushes against my bottom lip. His gaze focuses on the movement. “Instead you came here, to the kitchen where any of us could see what you’re doing. You wanted us to stop you.”
I breathe in through my nose, taking in his sea salt and driftwood scent, hating that it smells like home. That he smells like home. But he’s right, isn’t he? If I actually wanted to go to a scent clinic, I should never have been so obvious about it.
“Maybe I thought you’d respect my decision. Should have known better.”
“Or maybe you wanted us to hurt, button.” I swallow thickly and look away from him, down to my knees. “Hit the nail on the head, huh?” He pinches my chin gently and lifts it until I’m looking at him again. “You want to hurt us? Make us feel like we made you feel? That’s okay, baby. We deserve it. We deserve every ounce of your rage and vengeance. We’ll take anything you have to throw at us, and we’ll keep coming back for more. But we will not stand by and watch you throw yourself at another pack. Do you hear me? You’re ours. We’re yours. End of story.”
The backs of my eyes sting as I look up at him. My throat tightens. “I don’t know how else to hurt you,” I whisper. “I don’t really want to.”
He blows out a breath and presses his forehead to mine. “That’s okay, too. We’re doing a pretty damn good job of hurting ourselves on your behalf.”
“I can’t do this anymore, Jude,” I whisper, curling my fingers around his wrists, holding him in place when what I should do is push him away. “I can’t keep finding shit out about you that makes me…” I choke on the words and then force it back. “I have to look out for me. You understand that, right? I have to take care of myself. No one else ever has and I can’t trust…”
“You can’t trust that we’ll keep you safe and protected,” He finishes for me when I trail off. “But we will, Haven. That’s what we’re trying to do here. Show you that with us you are safe and cared for. You don’t have to shoulder the burden of protection anymore, button. You’ve been so strong, so damn determined to thrive, and I am in awe of you. But now you can give us the burden, baby. We want to carry it for you. Want to see you bloom and grow and fucking relax. Please, let us do that for you.”
I’m crying full on tears now. Streaming down my face, and Jude does nothing more than press his forehead to mine and carefully wipe the moisture away with his thumbs. God, I want to believe him. I want to just give in so badly. My omega is howling at me to do it, to let them, let him, just carry the weight I’ve been holding onto my whole life, since the moment my mother left.
“What happened?” Creed's voice breaks into the little cocoon wrapped around me and Jude. “Did you make her cry?”
Jude smiles softly, pulling back enough to let me see it. “She made herself cry.”
I snort at that, but he’s not wrong.
“Really?” Tic asks, drawing my attention to the entrance of the kitchen where the other three alphas stand. “How’d she do that?”
“Contemplated a life with another pack. The horror of it sent her sobbing.”
A reluctant laugh pulls from my chest. Hale moves closer, eyes flitting from me to the laptop behind me. Neither Jude nor I are fast enough to close it before he realizes what it is. His eyes widen in alarm, and I expect him to get angry to shout, but he just reaches out and thumbs my bottom lip softly. “You checking out scent clinics?”
“ What ?” Creed growls.
“I thought I might… just see what it’s like. You know. For the future,” I duck my head, not wanting to see the hurt in their gazes. Because Jude’s right, this will hurt them. I knew it would. He’s also right that I wanted them to know about it. Though I’m not sure if it was to have them stop me from going or not. Some part of me suspects he was right, and I wanted them to stop me.
“I informed her that her application would never make it to them if she tried,” Jude cheerfully tells them.
Hale huffs. “Weren’t you the one who convinced us to let our little mouse go?”
Betrayal hits out of nowhere. I don’t know why. I supposed based on what Jude just finished asking of me, I would have assumed he’d be the last person to get them to let me go.
“You did?” God. I’m on the verge of crying again.
“Don’t look at me like that, button.” He runs a hand through his golden locks. “It was more of a give you the illusion of letting you go. But I’m certainly not going to let you date anyone else right away. That would probably kill me.”
“ Us ,” Tic adds. “It would kill us to watch you date another pack, angel.”
“But that’s crazy.” I throw up my hands in frustration. “You can’t expect me to just… not look for a pack! To be alone for the rest of my life.”
“Who said anything about you being alone?” Creed asks, moving closer. They all are, actually, stalking into the kitchen until they’re surrounding me. “You’ll be with us, and we’ll be with you. That’s how this ends, baby girl. Surely you can see that.”
“Don’t call me Shirley,” I mutter, turning back to my laptop and regretfully closing out of the intake form. I’ll fill it out later when not surrounded by swinging dicks. Maybe Jude will forget to write his little code and it’ll go through. I certainly hope that is the case.
No matter what they say about us being together, about them carry the burden of my safety, I don’t think I can trust it. Really, they only have themselves to blame.
They approached me with nefarious intentions, lied and manipulated me from the beginning. Nevermind that Creed says he didn’t want to be a part of it. He didn’t put a stop to it either, didn’t tell me what was happening. He let me fall deeper in love with them, knowing how it was going to hurt.
“It’s late,” I mutter. “I’m going to bed.”
I should have just done that rather than coming down here on the pretense of making tea. I was filled with righteous anger and the need to take solid steps for my future. But it’s well after midnight now and I just need to sleep.
“Little mouse,” Hale calls after me as I head up the stairs. “We’re still gonna talk about what happened tonight. You will not get out of it.”
“Oh, goody,” I murmur, just loud enough that I know they’ll hear it.
“Wait, Haven,” Tic calls after me, drawing me up short. I watch as all four of them jog toward me, up the stairs, until I’m once again surrounded by them.
I arch my brows, waiting, and I swear all four of them blush a little, looking anywhere but at me. “Did you need something?” I ask when they all just stand there for an unaccountably long time.
Hale winces and grips the back of his neck. “This isn’t really how we planned on doing this.”
When he doesn’t say anything else, I lose patience. “Do what? Keep me from going to bed? Is this punishment for going off on my own? Sleep deprivation?”
Creed growls. “We aren’t punishing you.”
“Let’s just show her,” Jude mumbles, looking downright bashful.
Tic’s hand pressing into the small of my back and urges me up the rest of the stairs. I frown when we bypass my bedroom door and then my heart rate kicks up when I realize where they’re taking me.
I want to dig in my heels and refuse to take another step forward, but I have no doubt if I do, one of them will just pick me up and move me where they want me. So I’ll let them do this. Let them show me a room I have no business stepping foot into.
I swallow thickly when they pause outside the door that leads to the nest. The only room in the house I haven’t been inside. Why would I when it was undoubtedly meant for someone else? For Janie? It’s not my space. It never will be.
Tic nudges me forward, and my hand trembles as I reach out to the handle, my heart cracking just a little more when I curl my fingers and push the door open. I don’t enter. Just stand there on the threshold. Blinking into the dark of the room.
The smell of fresh paint reaches my nose, the clean scent of freshly washed sheets and blankets, and all four alphas of the Calloway pack.
Jude reaches into the room and flicks on the light. Where I’d expected it to be bright, instead a soft glow lights up from the inside, the lights dimmed to keep from being too harsh. There’s a wide hallway leading into a larger space, the walls on either side lined with cabinets.
“Take a look,” Creed murmurs right next to my ear, making me jump forward, my feet feeling clumsy as I make my way down the hall. My heart is thundering and my legs feel like mush, and I don’t want to go in here. I don’t want to see the space they made for their omega, their fated mate.
But with four alphas behind me, I move forward until I can see the beauty that is the nest. Misty forest walls. Cream, grey, greens, and blues everywhere. Shelves lined with books. Soft cushiony rug, beanbag chairs and meditation pillows scattered across the floor. A giant bed takes up one side of the room, draped in a dreamy, creamy canopy and dripping with fairy lights. I want to dive into that mountain of pillows and curl under all those blankets and sleep for days.
My omega urges me to do that, to claim this space as my own… but it’s not. It’s Janie’s. They built this for her, and even though it’s exactly the nest I would have made for myself, I can’t claim it.
I clear my throat, lick my lips and don’t look at any of them as I make myself say, “very pretty.” I can’t bring myself to say more, not when I’m struggling with my omega to keep my feet rooted to the ground.
I’m so focused on my internal battle that I barely notice that the alphas haven’t said anything in response, that they’re all watching me, waiting for me to do something. But what, I don’t know.
“That’s it?” Hale prompts after a moment.
I glance at him, but the hurt confusion on his face is hard to take, so I look away quickly, back to the bed that is big enough to fit five or six people. “I-um-I’m not sure what else you want me to say?”
“Fuck,” Jude curses. “I told you we should have let her pick out what she wanted.”
“That would have ruined the surprise,” Tic says, sounding distressed as hell.
“We can redo it, baby girl. Whatever is wrong with it. We can fix.”
“What don’t you like about it, mouse?”
I blink, my tired mind trying to make sense of what they’re saying. “I’m sorry,” I say quietly, and their bickering cuts off at the sound of my voice. “Is this… Did you do this for me?”
They all look at each other in confusion. “Who else would we have done it for, button?”
My mouth opens and then closes and when I finally make a sound, it comes out squeezed. “ Janie .”
“Oh, angel, no.” Tic sounds heartbroken and all of them look it. “ No .”
“You thought we brought you in here to show you a nest we designed for another omega?” Hale asks, horrified by the idea.
“She was… She was your fated mate. Of course, your nest is for her.”
They all just stare at me until I shift uncomfortably. But the Creed lets out a humorless laugh and shakes his head. “This is our fault. We never… We didn’t tell you much about our history, but baby girl, we bought this house long after Janie passed away. This room never belonged to her.”
“If I’m being completely honest,” Tic adds. “I kind of assumed it would be empty for the rest of our lives.”
Jude nods. “Yeah, big houses these days, houses meant for packs, they all have a nest. We couldn’t avoid buying one.”
“But you left it empty,” I say, looking around. “A nesting room doesn’t have to be a nest. It’s just a room until you assign a purpose to it. And you left it empty.”
Hale shrugs. “Maybe some part of us hoped that when we finished with your father, we’d feel ready to find an omega.”
“Or maybe you were holding space for Janie without realizing it,” I say softly, looking around again. “Maybe you still thought of this room as hers.”
“No, Haven. No, that’s not what happened,” Hale says fiercely. “We aren’t giving you Janie’s nest. We’re giving you your nest. It’s yours. It has only been yours.”
I want to believe him. I want to trust that this is my room that they never even remotely thought of it as Janie’s. But that’s a dangerous line of thinking too, isn’t it?
If I start to think of this room as mine, then I’ll start to think of this house as mine, this pack, these alphas as mine. But that’s just not the case.
They are Janie’s pack, Janie’s alphas. That’s what being fated means.
“It’s so pretty,” I repeat. “Perfect. Exactly the nest I would design for myself.” Jude grins and his shoulders slump, while Tic pats Hale on the back and they all seem to congratulate themselves. All of them but Creed, who is watching me warily.
“It’s perfect, but,” he prompts.
I shake my head. “I don’t think I can accept it.” Another shake. “No. I know I can’t accept it. I can’t sleep in here. I can’t… this can’t be my room.”
I’m sure they can read between the lines. They have to know what I’m really saying. The guest room is fine for me to be in, because my stay with them is temporary. If I take this nest that they designed for me, claim it as my own, it’ll be like admitting I’m staying.
And as much as my omega wants me to stay, wants to burrow into this nest and never come out, my more logical side knows I can’t do that until I’m sure. I’m not there yet.
Hale’s brows furrow. “Whether or not you sleep in here, mouse, this is your room. Your nest. No one else’s. You understand?”
I give a jerky nod as tears fill my eyes. He’s saying it’s not Janie’s or some other omega who might come along after me.
“Good. Then we can move your things back to the guest room, if that’s what you want.”
“What? No!” Jude protests loudly.
“If she’s not ready to claim her nest, then she’s not ready,” Tic says softly, unable to hide his disappointment. “We can’t force it, Jude.”
The blond alpha looks appropriately chastened, his straight white teeth biting into his lower lip as he looks at me. “I’m not trying to force it, I promise, bellybutton.”
My lips twitch into an unbidden smile. “I know, Jude.”
He blows out a breath. “Good.” After an assessing look, he holds out his hand to me. “Come on, omega. You look dead on your feet. Let’s get you into bed.”
With one last look at the giant sumptuous confection that is the bed in the nest, I slip my hand into Jude’s and let him tug me out of the room and down the hall.
“It was dangerous and irresponsible,” Hale says, arms folded sternly across his chest. “Anything could have happened to you.”
Shrugging, I slide my coffee cup back and forth on the island next to my empty plate. I suppose I should be glad he waited until I’d eaten before he started on his tirade. “I didn’t exactly know what I was walking into, Hale. If I’d had some idea-”
“That doesn’t make it any better, mouse!” He shouts, exasperated. “Not having a clue- Jesus, do you understand that walking in there dressed like you were looking like you do, they would have thought they could buy you, that they have a right to your body because you’re an omega? Do you understand what that means?”
I swallow and look away from him. “I watched some of the security videos, Hale, so yeah, I have some idea of what might have happened. But it didn’t. I’m fine. Everything is fine. In fact, we’re in a better position than we were because I went there.”
He runs a hand over his face like he just can’t with me.
“I wouldn’t bank on Belinda helping us, angel,” Tic says, shifting on his stool next to me, until his knees press into my outer thigh. “She’s a businesswoman first and foremost.”
“I’d honestly be surprised if you even hear from her,” Jude adds, apologetically.
I frown, disappointment sinking in. “But she said she knew my mother. It seemed like she cared for her. Maybe they were friends. If that’s the case-”
“If that’s the case, wouldn’t she have helped take down your father before this?” Creed suggests gently. “You wouldn’t stand by for fifteen years if someone hurt Ren, would you?”
“Well, Ren and I are soulmates, and not everyone has that.” I don’t know why that makes all four of them growl at me, though they’re quick to smother the sound. “She’s going to call,” I say confidently. “Even if she won’t help. She’s going to call.” But she’s going to help. And she’ll answer my questions about my mother, too.
So close to knowing what happened to her, why she left me with my father. If I think about it for too long, I might start crying.
Creed slides his big palm onto my knee and gives it a gentle squeeze. “We just don’t want you to be disappointed if she doesn’t, baby girl.”
“Fair enough. If that’s the case, why don’t you tell me what you have planned for my father without her help?”
They all look at each other, probably having some pack bond conversation, weighing the pros and cons of telling me.
I hope like hell they actually do, because… well, if they don’t, I might have to do something else reckless and irresponsible. While they’re busy looking at each other, I say as much, making Jude tip his head back and groan. “Please, button, don’t. We can’t handle it.”
“Then I guess you better tell me your plans.”
Hale pins me with a hard look. “You know most of it already. We’ve been meeting with him, recording our conversations, getting him to talk about how he wants to make the drug he commissioned mandatory. How anyone that checks into any of the low income clinics he’s sponsored will be injected whether they want it or not.”
I nod. It’s not the first time I’ve heard this. He told me plenty of times that was his plan and I’d had to swallow back bile at the thought. “I can give an interview or something,” I say. “An exclusive expose on all the shit he said in front of me he never thought I’d be able to tell anyone. If you have the video evidence to back it up…”
“It’d be pretty damning,” Tic nods, like he agrees with me.
“And I can tell them how he’s been using his alpha bark on me for years. How the man who proclaimed to be against the designations so emphatically couldn’t get through one day without using an inherently alpha trait to bend me to his will.”
“It would be your word against his,” Creed points out, sliding his hand up and down my spine in a long, soothing motion. “His supporters might go after you.”
I shrug. “They might, but the people who oppose him go after me now. I can’t imagine it’ll be much worse than that.”
Hale’s forehead furrows. “Before they saw you as a dutiful daughter, blindly following your father. That could be considered a byproduct of the environment you were raised in. But if you do this, Haven, they’ll say much, much worse.”
“Liar. Omega whore. Instinct driven animal. Manipulator.” I list them off like none of that bothers me. It doesn’t, really. I’m not a fan of the attention of the limelight, but I’m certainly no stranger to it. Not in the slightest. “I’ve heard it all before. It doesn’t bother me.”
“It should.”
“It bothers the hell out of me,” Jude grunts.
“It’s not true,” I say, shaking my head. “None of it matters. The opinions of others don’t matter. I know who I am. My friends know who I am. Once all of this is over, well, no one will even remember I exist. It’ll be worth a few name calling trolls, if it means I get to be free of my father for good.”
They all stare at me for a moment like I’ve said something profound, but really, it’s just… now that I don’t have to worry about embarrassing my father, now that I don’t have his countless commands to behave and be quiet and small forcing me to care, it’s a relief to just let it all go.
It’s strange to realize that without his commands forcing me to worry about the opinion of others, I likely wouldn’t have.
He stifled so much of my personality, of who I am..
“What else do you have planned?”
Tic tilts his head. “Well, we’ve been slowly draining his bank accounts.”
“Where are the funds going?” I ask, sharper than I intend to, but I swear if they’re lining their own pockets, I’m done.
“Omega crisis centers,” Creed tells me, cupping the back of my neck and squeezing, like he knows I what I was thinking.
I let out a relieved breath and nod. “That’s good.”
“We also opened a bank account for you,” Jude adds. “And a portion of what we take has been funneled into it for you.”
I blink at that. “What?”
The smile Hale gives me is soft. “He’s put you through hell, mouse. The least he can do is pay some restitution to you.”
My mouth falls open. “Really?”
Jude pulls out his phone and a few clicks later he’s showing me a banking app with an account with my name on it. Mine. It’s got well over a hundred thousand dollars in it.
“I’ve never had my own account before. My own money.” I scroll to the top and click around to see if there is anyone else on the account, but there’s not. It’s just mine. All mine.
“When did you do this?”
Tic shrugs like it’s no big deal. “Since the week you came to stay with us.”
“The first time?”
“Yes,” Creed answers.
“We all knew you were going to hate us, hate what we’d done, and we thought… well, we thought it might be a good way to make it up to you, soften the blow, so to speak.” Jude sounds repentant as hell about it.
“Technically,” Hale adds. “I didn’t know about it. These three did it behind my back. I guess they thought I’d have a problem with it.”
“It’s been months,” I mutter. “You’ve had this set up for months, and I’m just now finding out about it. Why?”
“Can’t blame us for not giving you ‘fuck off’ money when we’re trying to convince you to stay with us,” Creed mutters. That makes me laugh. A lot.
I don’t even know why. Maybe it’s just the giddy high of having, as he put it, ‘fuck off’ money. Maybe it’s having any money at all. Maybe it’s the realization that with this action, the Calloway pack has made it so that I don’t have to jump into finding a new pack—any pack—right away. I can just live. Find a pack that truly wants me. Maybe it’s the realization that even back when they were still planning to use me against my father, they wanted to ease the hurt, the pain, the confusion. They wanted to give me something to make it better.
Money isn’t always the answer. But to someone who’s never had any money, well, it goes a long way.
While I’m busy laughing, Hale retreats to his office, then returns with two shiny plastic cards in his hand. One is navy blue and emblazoned with the name of the bank my account is with, the other is black and mysterious looking. Both have my name on them.
“Your money.” He slides the blue card over to me. “Our money. Pack money.” The black card follows. I stare down at them, feeling unaccountably choked up about this.
“How do you know I will not bankrupt you?”
He laughs. “We wouldn’t care if you did. So long as it makes you happy.”
So long as it makes you happy.
I doubt I’ll ever use it, but that they trust me with it, that they already had the card ready? Well, that speaks to the part of me that never had the trust of the men in my life. My father barked at me constantly because he couldn’t trust me to behave the way he wanted.
But here they are telling me to drain their accounts if that’s what makes me happy.
I doubt I’ll ever buy anything with their money. Why would I when I have my own money, stolen from my father and gifted to me by this pack?
I think up at all of them feeling entirely too emotional. “Thank you. Thank you for trusting me with this.”
Hale scoffs and shakes his head. “We trust you with a lot more than this, mouse. This is nothing.”
I open my mouth to tell him it’s not nothing, to explain what this means to me, but at that moment my phone rings. I frown at it. It never rings. No one calls me. Jude’s made sure that I’m on every do not call list ever, and Ren basically only texts me. The other people who might call are in this room with me.
But then I see the name on the screen and my heart lurches into my throat.
“Belinda.”