Chapter 18
Chapter
Eighteen
CASEY
T he moment I reach the bathroom, it hits me. The burning starts deep in my gut, spreading south like wildfire through my veins. My fingers fumble with the door handle as I stumble inside.
“No, no, no...” I press my forehead against the cool tile wall. “You were supposed to be done. I had hoped you were done.”
Now, the damn thing builds rapidly, worse than before. My skin feels too tight, every nerve ending raw and screaming. Nash’s claiming helped yesterday, but now... now it’s like my body’s making up for lost time and demands even more.
I drag myself to the massive clawfoot tub, turning the cold water on full blast. My clothes stick to my skin, but I can’t bear to remove them, so once the tub is full, I’ll go in fully clothed. Everything hurts. Everything burns.
“Get it together,” I mutter, sliding down to sit on the cool floor. “You’re stronger than this. You’re not some weak little Omega who can’t control herself.”
My body disagrees. The need pulses through me in waves, each one stronger than the last. And now Axel’s downstairs, probably already smelling the change in me. Axel, who made me pancakes and talked about Hawaii like we had a future.
I crawl into the tub, not bothering to undress. The cold water helps, barely. I close my eyes, trying to focus on anything else. The sound of water. The distant chirp of birds. The?—
A crash echoes from downstairs.
My head snaps up, my heart suddenly pounding for a different reason. That wasn’t the normal sound of someone moving around the house. That was something breaking.
Heavy footsteps. Multiple sets. Angry voices I don’t recognize.
“Search every room,” a deep voice commands. “She has to be here somewhere.”
Ice replaces fire in my veins. Where’s Axel? He would never let strangers in. Unless...
Another crash, closer now. By the growing sounds, they’re coming up the stairs.
Move . Hide. Run. Do something.
But the heat makes everything fuzzy and my limbs uncoordinated. I drag myself out of the tub, water streaming onto the floor. The bathroom connects to my walk-in closet.
I stumble into the closet. My wet clothes leave a trail, but I can’t think about that now. Can’t think about anything except finding somewhere to hide.
The back corner has a built-in dresser. I squeeze behind it, making myself as small as possible. The space is tight, dark, and familiar in the worst way.
Stay quiet, baby. Mom’s voice shakes as she pushes me into the cupboard. Don’t make a sound. No matter what you hear, don’t come out until it’s safe.
I’m ten years old again, knees pulled to my chest, listening to heavy boots and angry voices. Then Mom’s screaming starts. Then silence, worse than the screams.
No. Not now. I can’t fall apart now.
Noises in the bedroom. Getting closer.
“Bathroom’s wet,” a man’s voice says real close.
“She’s here somewhere. Spread out. Check every closet, every corner,” another guy responds.
Where is Axel? Did they hurt him? Kill him? The thought sends a fresh wave of panic through me. This is my fault. They’re here for me.
Special , Dad used to say. You’re my little girl, Casey. That’s why we have to be careful. Why we have to hide.
I miss them terribly.
The closet door suddenly opens. Light spills in. I hold my breath, pressing deeper into the shadows.
“Check behind everything,” someone says. “Boss says she’s crafty.”
Boss . Julian. Of course, it’s Julian. That asshole!
Footsteps move closer to my hiding spot. The dresser creaks as someone leans against it.
I’m going to die here. Or worse. They’re going to take me back to him.
The dresser moves suddenly, scraping against the floor. Light hits my face, and I look up into the cold blue eyes of someone I don’t recognize.
“Well, well.” The taller man’s smile is as icy as winter. “The little runaway, all wrapped up like a present.”
I back away, water dripping from my clothes onto the hardwood floor.
“Imagine our surprise,” the first one continues, stalking closer. “Following those two idiots from the restaurant the other night. They were in such a rush, they never even noticed us.” He reaches for me, and I slap his hand away.
“Don’t touch me!”
His laugh turns my blood to ice. “Feisty. Julian said you would be.”
“Fuck Julian!”
The second man grabs my arms and yanks me to my feet in a second flat, and a scream rips from my throat, the sound echoing through the house.
“Go ahead,” the blue-eyed man sneers against my ear. “Scream all you want. No one can hear you. Your loverboy certainly won’t be coming to the rescue.”
My heart stops. “What did you do to Axel?”
“Let’s just say he won’t be playing guard dog for you.” The guy grabs my chin. “Julian’s going to be very happy to see you. He’s been waiting so patiently.”
“Axel!” I stumble backward. “AXEL!” I cry out.
Only silence answers.
I tear from their grip and bolt out of the bathroom, into the bedroom, and out into the hallway, eyeing the stairs. Taking them two at a time, my wet feet slip on the steps.
“Axel, please!”
Heavy footsteps thunder down the stairs right behind me. I slip on the bottom one, my wet feet betraying me, but desperation drives me forward.
“Get back here!” One of them snarls.
I go down hard, falling face first, my legs kicking out from under me. I hit the floor hard. The world spins as the bastards grab my feet by the ankles and drag me backward toward the front door, my nails scraping uselessly against the wood.
“Please,” I sob, my voice breaking as they drag me across the floor. “Please, I don't want to go to him. You don’t know what he’ll do.” Tears blur my vision, terror closing my throat.
One of them laughs. “Oh, we know exactly what he’ll do. That’s why he’s paying us so well.”
“I’ll give you anything. More money, whatever you want.”
“Shut the fuck up.” The dragging stops. A hand grabs my shoulder, flipping me onto my back. I stare up at cold eyes and a demented smile. “Your begging’s pathetic.”
“Bitch, don’t make this harder than it needs to be.” The second man leans down, his fist tangling in my hair, wrenching my head back as they haul me to my feet.
A cry tears from my throat at the burning pain in my scalp.
Axel . Where are you? The silence in the house screams of violence.
Logan and Nash need to be back now. They have to be. They just went to run errands, right? It’s what Axel said. Please, please let them come back...
They haul me outside into the blinding sunlight. A black van idles in the driveway, its side door already open.
“No, please…” Terror rips up my throat. “You don’t understand what he’s like.”
“Don’t really care.” The first man shoves me forward. “Julian pays well. That’s all we need to know.”
They throw me into the darkness of the van. I slam into something metal, pain exploding through my shoulder. The engine roars as two bodies jump in after me, the door slamming shut as we peel out of the driveway.
I curl into myself in the darkness, tears streaming down my face. He found me. After everything, he found me. And Axel... oh God, Axel. If he’s hurt, or dead, because of me, I’ll die.
As the van takes a sharp turn, sending me rolling across the floor, one terrible thought crystallizes.
This time, Julian won’t let me live long enough to run again.
M etal scrapes against metal as the van doors wrench open. The sudden flood of daylight sends daggers through my skull. I squint against tears, disoriented after what feels like hours in darkness. Rough hands grab my upper arms, hauling me out onto sunbaked concrete. My legs betray me, half-asleep from being curled up during the drive, but I manage to stay upright through sheer stubbornness.
“What the actual fuck?” The words escape in a breathless whisper as I take in my surroundings. We’re in some kind of suburban nightmare—cookie-cutter houses with their matching driveways, but something’s deeply wrong. The neighboring homes look abandoned, windows dark and vacant like dead eyes. Lawns have gone feral, trash tumbles across cracked sidewalks, and somewhere in the distance, I can make out a chain-link fence around what might be a sports field, rust eating away at its edges. The whole place feels like someone took the American Dream and let it rot.
Except for this house. This one’s different—fresh paint, trimmed bushes, a carefully maintained facade. Like putting lipstick on a corpse. My stomach lurches as realization hits. A safe house. Julian’s safe house. The kind of place where people disappear.
“Where’s Axel?” I demand, struggling against the iron grip of the two giants flanking me. They’re both built like brick walls. The driver gets out and leads the way to the back door, and I notice with savage satisfaction that he’s limping. “What did you do to him? If you hurt Axel, I swear to God?—”
“Shut your mouth and walk,” the one on my right growls, shoving me forward hard enough to make me stumble.
Just as quickly, a meaty hand clamps over my mouth, covering half my face as they drag me through the back door into darkness. There’s a long hallway with several doors, all shut. I’m definitely not the first person they’ve brought here.
From somewhere around us, a faint sound carries that turns my insides to ice—muffled crying. Oh God.
“Help!” I scream the instant the hand leaves my mouth. “Someone help—” The words cut off in a grunt of pain as one of them strikes me across the back, and I wince, tears hitting my eyes.
They use the opportunity to shove me forward, down a hallway that seems to stretch forever in the gloom. My feet tangle, and I nearly faceplant, but they just shove me along until we pause at a closed door.
They throw it open and drive a palm into my back, pushing me inside so roughly, I stumble, barely catching myself. The room is dim, Venetian blinds casting prison-bar shadows across worn floorboards. The furniture is sparse except for an incongruously expensive leather couch that looks like it was stolen from a CEO’s office.
And there he sits. Fucking Julian.
My heart slams against my ribs so hard, I wonder if he can hear it. He looks exactly the same as the last time I saw him, yet somehow worse—perfectly tailored charcoal suit, golden hair styled just so, that obscene Rolex glinting on his wrist that he plays with. But his eyes... those pale blue irises have always reminded me of a shark’s, but now there’s something else there. Something fractured.
“Kneel.” His voice is soft, almost gentle. That’s always been the most terrifying thing about Julian—how quiet he gets when he’s at his most dangerous. “It’s the least you can do for all you’ve put me through.”
I plant my feet wider, lifting my chin even as my pulse races.
“I put you through? That’s rich coming from the psycho who hired people to kidnap me. Who caused the Nexus bus crash and probably killed innocent people just to?—”
“I said. Kneel.” Each word drops like a stone into still water.
“Yeah, no. Not happening.” I force my voice steady, channeling every ounce of sass I can muster because it’s better than showing fear. “You want to talk? Fine. But we do it like actual humans.”
He doesn’t move, doesn’t raise his voice. Just flicks those long, thin fingers.
Suddenly, pain explodes through the backs of my knees as one of the guards kicks them out from under me. I crash to the floor with a cry I can’t quite swallow, the impact jarring up through my bones.
“You sadistic asshole,” I gasp out, blinking back tears. “If you actually gave a shit about me, you wouldn’t?—”
“Language, precious.” Julian leans forward, elbows on his knees. In the striped shadows, his smile looks painted on, like a psychotic clown who used a knife to have it carved on. “We’ve discussed this, Casey. Proper Omegas don’t use such vulgar terms.”
“Good thing I’m not your proper damn anything then,” I spit back, still on my knees and hating it, knowing he will hurt me to keep me down. “And newsflash… it’s not the 1950s anymore. The whole submissive Omega thing is seriously played out.”
His nostrils flare as he inhales deeply, and my stomach turns.
“Your body disagrees. I can smell your scent—sweet and ripe, ready for fucking.” He runs his tongue over his teeth, and it covers me in shivers. “Your heat is near, isn’t it? Your body knows who you belong to, even if your mind remains... rebellious. You’re going to beg for me, spreading those legs, aren’t you?”
He’s right about one thing—my heat is coming, my traitorous body betraying me with every passing moment. The ache is building deep inside, crying out for Alpha touch, Alpha comfort. But not from him. Never him. The mere thought of Julian touching me makes my skin want to crawl right off my bones.
I should have seen the warning signs sooner. The way he tried to isolate me from my brother and always had some reason why I should move out. The expensive gifts that felt more like marking his territory. How he’d grip my arm just a little too tight in public, laughing it off as protective instincts when people noticed. The first time he pulled a knife, calling it foreplay while I lay there frozen in terror...
“You’re completely delusional.” My mind races through escape scenarios. The window seems impossibly far away, and the guards are between me and any exit. God, I wish I had Logan’s blade right now. I can almost feel its weight in my hand and hear his calm voice during training. Here, just below the ribs. Angle up for maximum damage.
Julian rises in one fluid motion and crosses to me. He towers over me, and I loathe that I’m face level with his fucking groin. I try not to shrink back as he lingers over me, but my body remembers all too well the pain those elegant hands can inflict.
“Delusional?” He muses, reaching down to stroke my cheek. I jerk away, and his fingers turn to claws, digging into my jaw. “After everything I’ve invested in you? All those gifts, all that time, preparing you to be perfect?”
I try to twist free, but he just tightens his grip until I feel my teeth grinding together.
“The only true thing about this is how perfectly fucked up you are,” I manage to spit out.
“Such a mouth on you.” His eyes glitter dangerously. “But we both know the truth, don’t we? You saved yourself for me. Refused to let me fuck you until your heat came.” He leans in closer, inhaling deeply. “The way you said no, how you made me wait... such a perfect, traditional Omega. Saving yourself for marriage, for your true Alpha...”
“You’re insane,” I choke out, my stomach turning, my knees smarting from kneeling on them. “I didn’t let you fuck me because you’re a psychopath.”
His grip tightens, that shark smile returning. “Lie to yourself all you want, precious. But we’ll have time to discuss all that later. Right now...”
He inhales deeply near my neck, and I have to fight not to gag. “Right now, you smell divine. Nearly ready. Tell me, precious… have you let any of those other fucking Alphas touch you? Did they finger you or lick your pussy? The ones you’ve been hiding with? If they did, I’ll rip their heads off.”
“Fuck you!” I grit out, but my speeding pulse betrays me.
His smile widens.
“Still saving yourself, aren’t you? Your body knows who you belong to, and I’m going to coat my cock in your virgin blood.” His free hand strokes my hair, and I try not to vomit. Idiot still believes I’m a virgin, a lie I told him when he started getting crazy obsessed and kept pushing me to have sex. “You’re mine. The other Omegas I was with were just practice, but you... you’re the one I’ve been waiting for.”
A chill runs down my arms. “Others?” How many has he hurt?
“Ssh.” He presses a finger to my lips, and it takes everything in me not to bite it off. “Don’t worry about them. They served their purpose, helped me perfect my techniques. But you’ll understand soon enough. Pain and pleasure, punishment and reward—it’s all part of the training process.”
“You’re insane,” I whisper, real fear starting to slide up my throat. “Whatever fantasy you’ve built up in your head about us, it’s not real. It never was. I was just some dumb Omega you manipulated?—”
“Still so defiant.” He laughs, and the sound raises every hair on my body. “That fire in you… it’s what drew me in. Breaking it will be...” He licks his lips. “Exquisite.”
“I won’t let you hurt me again.” The words come out steady, despite my racing heart.
“Let me?” His eyes glitter with something that looks an awful lot like madness. “Oh, my precious Omega, still thinking you have any say in this?” He releases my jaw and runs a finger down my cheek.
I jerk away.
“You know what happens to disobedient pets, don’t you? Remember that night with the knife? How prettily you cried?”
“Go to hell.” I spit on his shoes, but my voice shakes. That night still haunts my nightmares.
He chuckles darkly, crouching down to my level. His perfectly pressed suit crinkles as he reaches out to grasp my chin. "Such fire. Just like your parents had – before their unfortunate... accident." His lips curl into a cruel smile.
I freeze. "What did you just say?"
"Oh, you didn't know?" Julian's eyes gleam with satisfaction. "They thought they could borrow money from my father and then refuse to pay. As if they were above consequences." He brushes a mock-tender thumb across my cheek and I shove his hand away. "You should be grateful I saw potential in you, took pity on a poor orphan girl."
"My parents?" The room spins as memories crash over me – being shoved into the kitchen cupboard by my mom's trembling hands, the raised voices, the screams. The police officer telling me about a tragic accident but it was all a lie. Were they in on it too?
Julian stands, straightening his cuffs. "Let's call it a lesson in paying one's debts. One you'll need to learn as well."
"They were my parents, you monster!" The sobs tear from my throat as I slump forward, the truth shattering what little composure I had left. "I was ten years old! They killed my parents over money and made me believe..." My fingers dig into the floorboards as rage burns through my grief. Now their murderer's son wants to make me his omega? I want to scream!
"Your family was weak," Julian replies coldly, checking his watch when I glance up as if my breakdown bores him. "But you... you have potential. Once you learn your place."
I look up at him through tears, hatred crystallizing in my chest. "Your fucking family destroys lives and calls it business."
"Careful, Casey," he warns, voice dropping to a dangerous whisper. "Don't make me remind you just how easily history can repeat itself."
Staring down at me, he reaches for his belt. “I think it’s time for another lesson in manners. The kind that leaves you choking.”
The guard behind me snickers, and my gut tightens. Julian’s eyes are fever bright as he slides his hand down and begins to unlatch his belt, pulling open the first button of his pants. “I’ve missed this,” he breathes. “Missed hearing you beg and plead. You always did break so beautifully.”
The fury that’s been building inside me explodes. Before I can think better of it, I drive my fist up between his legs with every ounce of strength I have. Julian doubles over with a strangled sound, and I’m on my feet in an instant, adrenaline singing through my veins.
But I’ve barely taken two steps and twisted around when something cracks across my face—the back of a guard’s hand. I stumble, tasting blood, spots dancing in my vision. That’s when I see it—the knife at Julian’s back, fallen from its sheath as he curled in on himself.
“You little bitch,” he wheezes, still doubled over. “I’m going to make you scream for that. Make you beg for death.” He starts laughing, the sound unhinged. “But you don’t get to die, precious. Not until you learn. Not until you’re perfect...”
I lunge for the knife, snatching it up and slashing wildly at the nearest guard. The blade catches him across the stomach, and he staggers back with a curse. The second guard charges, but I pivot toward Julian, raising my knife to drive it into his back, but the second guard slams into me like a storm. My head cracks against the floor, and everything goes fuzzy.
When my vision clears, Julian is standing over me, adjusting his belt. The smile he gives me is pure evil, promising torments I don’t want to imagine.
“You want to hurt me? Your Alpha?” His words shake.
Then his phone rings.
“What?” he snaps into it. His face darkens as he listens. “How the fuck did that happen?... No, hold position.... I said hold fucking position!” He runs a hand through his hair, messing up its perfect styling. “Give me a sec. Clearly, I have to do everything myself. These incompetent—” He cuts himself off, taking a deep breath. “Just. Hold. Position.” He gestures to the guards. “Watch her. Don’t let her move a muscle.” Then he looks down at me, eyes glittering with promises that make my blood run cold.
“Enjoy this small break, precious. When I get back, we’re going to have so much fun together. Starting with that smart mouth of yours...”
I push myself to sit, everything aching, my heart shattering, as Julian strides out with one of the guards on his heels. Through the blinds, I watch him climb into a black town car that glides silently away. One guard sits outside the room as he pulls the door shut, the second one remaining inside with me. He leers at me, and I curl my lip in disgust, though inside, I’m shaking.
My head throbs where it hit the floor, but that’s nothing compared to the heat building inside of me, the ache deep in my soul to have learned the truth about my parents.
Yet, every breath brings Alpha pheromones that make my body scream for relief, even as my mind recoils in horror. The guard’s scent isn’t that of an Alpha, but a Beta, so he shouldn’t hurt me as I wait.
My clothes are still damp from the tub back in the cabin, making me shiver, and I start to feel bruises forming on the side of my face where I got hit.
I have no idea where I am, no way to contact help. The men don’t know where to look for me. And when Julian comes back...
I close my eyes, fighting down panic. I’ve never seen him this unstable, this determined to hurt me. The calculated cruelty in his expression promises torments beyond anything he’s done before. And now there’s no one to hear me scream.