41. Emmeline
41
Emmeline
“ N
ow, we’ve got—” I say, before startling as the door to the meeting room is flung open with such force that it bangs into the wall.
I have no doubt that it’s going to leave a dent.
My heart pounds, my scent perfuming for everyone to notice, and it’s only the fact that the intruder is one of my alphas, that keeps me calm enough that the baby inside doesn’t go into distress.
He kicks rapidly, torturing me, because he knows his daddy is close.
But at least he’s still moving.
“Emme, I need you,” he says, urgently.
His senna skin is paler than usual, his eyes wide and frenzied. There’s an aura of panic surrounding him, and the sharp tang of vanilla in his scent is hard to ignore.
“Mr Sinclair, we’re?—”
“Not the time, little treasure,” he says, shaking his head.
My anger bristles, as does my panic, and I don’t know which is going to win the battle.
“Everyone, out,” he commands, an alpha bark unleashing across the room. There are no omegas in the room, but every alpha and beta here stride out without hesitation.
My legs tremble, as I hold back the urge to leave too—even without saying so, it’s clear my alpha did not mean for me to exit with them.
“What’s going on, Pax?” I ask, reaching for him. My voice is shaky, but I’m determined to stay grounded, for the baby, for myself, and for him.
He’s clearly on edge, and I don’t know what could’ve rattled him to then affect him this badly.
He doesn’t answer, just takes my hand and tugs. He’s not hard, or rough, but there’s an insistency in him that can’t be ignored. I don’t understand.
“Calm down,” I soothe, squeezing his hand. “Take a deep breath and ground yourself. I’m coming with you, okay? We’ll be together, so please don’t panic.”
He nods, and I let him pull me through the halls. Past the admin floor. Down the executive corridor. Into the lift, up to the next floor, and along the familiar corridors to Sterling’s office.
My alphas scent is sharp with adrenaline, and something else that I can’t name. Relief? Gratitude?
I really don’t know.
He shoves Sterling’s door open, and I flinch as it slams into the wall. I drop his hand, stepping forward to check if it’s left a dent, but I don’t think it has.
“We’re busy, Jamie,” Paxton shouts, and I see his assistant startle. “Head home. We’ll see you tomorrow.”
He shuts the door behind us.
My heart is racing, my limbs trembling, and of course my baby is doing somersaults inside of me. My poor bladder is taking a beating, but I don’t think now is the best time to go and relieve myself.
Not when Uri is pacing like a caged beast, fists clenched at his sides, breathing heavily and scarily.
Oscar is standing unnaturally still, like he’s trying to calculate how to breathe, and how to end the world in the same exact breath.
“Hi guys,” I say, tentatively. “I can see that something is going down.”
Sterling meets my eyes, and I’m startled by the complete glee on his face. Where Uri, Oscar and Paxton seem out of control, Sterling looks like he’s just been given the cure for every disease, the world’s lottery winnings, and unlimited wishes from a genie, all in one.
He rubs his hands together, his scent growing sweeter. “Lacey’s dead.”
And just like that, I understand.
My stomach churns, and I know I can’t get to the toilet in time. I drop to my knees at the door, pulling the bin into my lap, as I empty the entire contents into it. I choke, gag, my eyes watering and my throat burning, as I retch over and over.
Lacey’s dead.
Two words.
No buildup. No preparation.
He didn’t even try to hide his excitement at it.
I gag, coughing and spluttering, as I shove someone away from me. I don’t know who, I can’t see.
Lacey’s dead.
No apology from Sterling for the harsh way of sharing it.
Just the complete and utter truth.
A tissue brushes my cheek. Then another. Then another. I’m still shaking, still gagging, but someone’s holding my hair back now. I don’t know who, but their touch is gentle, careful.
Another one of my men is whispering my name, offering soft reassurances, and trying to calm me down.
But the room feels far away. Every sound muffled and so far away. It’s scary, this kind of disassociation. Twenty-six weeks pregnant, and I’m worried I’ve lost my mind.
“The bin is real,” I say.
The burn in my throat is real.
The chaos inside me is real.
And so is this feeling building under my ribs—this wave of something I’ve never felt before. Is this how a killer feels after he slices someone’s throat? After he takes a soul from this earth, with not an ounce of regret?
Am I allowed to feel this way?
Am I allowed to feel anything ?
The room is too warm. My skin is too tight.
My chest aches like it’s trying to split open. I can’t catch my breath—I’m gasping now, small and sharp, like I’ve just been plunged into cold water.
There are hands on me. Too many hands. Not enough.
Don’t touch me.
Don’t stop touching me.
My palms press against the floor. I dig my fingers into the edge of the rug, trying to feel something solid, something real. But my nails scrape uselessly. My body won’t relax.
I can’t get my legs to stop trembling. I think I’m still gagging, but I can’t hear myself over the ringing in my ears.
Lacey’s dead.
I should feel relief.
I do feel relief.
So why does it feel like I’m falling apart?
I don’t even know this woman, beyond the trauma and hurt she’s caused my men. She’s poisonous, and I’m glad she’s dead. But part of me aches knowing that a woman has lost her life, that an omega is dead.
I feel like a fucking horrific person.
The baby kicks me—hard, like a warning—and I jolt. The room floods back into focus, the lights too bright, but everything else safe, and comforting. I press my hand to my belly, protectively, instinctively.
“I’m okay,” I whisper, even though I’m not. “You’re okay. We’re okay.”
I can’t stop the way my heart pounds. I can’t stop the sweat beading at my temple. I can’t stop the sick, cruel voice whispering in the back of my mind?—
What if it’s a lie?
What if it’s a trick? A test? A punishment?
What if this is just another game she’s playing, and we’re stupid enough to fall for it?
Last time, she tried to kill them. What happens this time? Does she try to kill us all? Has she really escaped, and masterminded this entire plan to wipe out me, and my child?
Did she know how happy I’m trying to make them? How healthy they’re becoming as they overcome her abuse?
I feel a tremor run through my spine, a sob threatening to claw up my throat. My teeth are clenched too tight to let it out.
“She’s gone, Emme.” A voice. Familiar. Calm.
Oscar?
Oscar.
I look over at him, and he gives me a tense smile. “It’s confirmed. She’s really, really dead.”
“She’s dead,” Paxton repeats, rubbing his hand up and down my back. Uri’s crouched down on my other side.
Sterling’s not moved from his desk.
I curl in on myself a little more, clutching my belly, letting the tears fall silently now. Not from grief. Not from guilt. Just from the sheer, all-consuming shock of being released from something I never even thought affected me.
She was their cage. A burden hanging over their heads.
I never thought she was hanging over mine too.
“She’s really gone?” I whisper, blinking through the blur.
“She’s not coming back,” Uri says. He’s the one with the tissues, kneeling beside me now. His voice is quiet but unwavering. “Confirmed. Prison report came through. Cause of death pending toxicology, but it doesn’t matter.” He touches my arm, a soft press of grounding. “She’s gone, Emme.”
I sag. Not collapse, exactly. But something sinks out of me. Something rotten I didn’t know I was still holding. A tension in my spine, in my shoulders, in the pit of my gut that’s been there since I was old enough to know fear.
Lacey is dead.
She can’t hurt my men anymore.
She can’t twist their words. She can’t abuse them. She can’t spread her poison through every space I work so hard to protect.
She can’t hurt them .
My voice comes out hollow. “Are you sure?”
“We checked,” Uri says, his tone still too sharp, like he doesn’t trust this to be real either. “Twice.”
“She was never going to leave that cell,” Sterling adds, a twisted grin on his face that makes my stomach churn again. “Now she’ll never breathe air again. I’m not unhappy with this outcome.”
I sit up straighter, and wipe my mouth with a tissue Uri tucked into my hand.
“Do you need water?” Paxton asks.
I shake my head. “I need to stand up.”
Hands reach out to help me—Paxton and Uri—but I manage to get upright on my own.
Barely.
And then I breathe .
It doesn’t feel like victory. Not quite.
But it’s close enough.
“You’re all free,” I say, glancing around the room.
Uri makes a sound, low and broken, like something inside him is cracking. Then I feel him at my back, his arms wrapping gently around my middle, careful of the bump.
“She’s gone,” he whispers against my head. “She’s fucking gone.”
Uri’s voice breaks at the edges. His arms tighten around me, and I can feel the way he’s trembling, the sharp inhales of his breaths.
And on one long exhale, he finally relaxes.
“I thought I’d feel something else,” he murmurs against the crown of my head. “Anger. Hatred. Victory.”
His scent flares—honey and black pepper—before settling into something softer. Warmer. Sweeter.
“But all I feel is… relief.”
I rest my hand on his forearm, brushing my gland against his. He presses a kiss to my hair.
“I’ve been working through this with my therapist,” he admits, quietly. “Trying to stop letting her live in my head. Letting her win. But this…”
He exhales again. Rough. Shaky. Scared.
“It’s like something finally let go. Like a grip I didn’t even know was choking me. I can breathe now, Emme. I can fucking breathe .”
My throat tightens. He’s not crying, but I might.
Paxton steps forward, his face unreadable, his movements controlled. But I can feel the storm behind his eyes.
“She deserved worse than death,” he says, voice steady but stripped bare. “And still—I’m glad it’s over. I hate that it ended this way, but I hate her more than I’ve ever hated anything. It’s fitting in a way.” He rubs the back of his neck. “If I’m a bad man for thinking that… so be it.”
“You’re not,” I whisper. “You’re not a bad man, Paxton.”
He looks at me like he wants to believe me. But I know he doesn’t. He’s not that kind of man.
“She took so much from us,” he says, quieter now. “And I let it fester. I let her dictate how we loved, how we trusted, how we lived. But I’m done letting her control anything.” His voice grows firmer. “She’s dead. And I’m fucking grateful.”
Uri doesn’t pull away from me, but I feel the shift in his breathing as Paxton speaks. A unity in their pain. It’s one I can’t understand—not really.
Oscar hasn’t said a word in a while, but his gaze hasn’t left me. Not once.
He’s watching. Calculating. Deciding.
Sterling is still behind his desk, silent now, the smile fading from his face as he watches all of us silently try to process the fact that— for once —evil didn’t win.
“I couldn’t give a fuck about any of it,” Uri says, with a heavy sigh. “I’m done.”
“What do you mean?” I ask, moving out of his arms to look up at him. “What do you need to do?”
“Nothing,” he says. “But with her death being suspicious, it could be worthwhile keeping an eye on the internal investigation.”
I freeze. Suspicious?
“Suspicious?” I ask, the hair on the back of my neck instantly prickling. “What do you mean by suspicious?”
Sterling sighs, giving Uri a dirty look. “It’s nothing, little storm. She is nothing.”
I cross my arms in front of my chest. “I’m not stupid, and we all promised that we wouldn’t lie to one another. What is suspicious about her death?”
“We’re waiting for the toxicology report, but it looks like this was a homicide,” Sterling says carefully. “Someone took a hit out on her, and well… the bitch is dead.”
That tendril of fear is back, wrapping around the nerves in my spine, spreading across my entire body so quickly, I blink slower. “Wait, so does this mean you guys are at risk? That the case you were working?—”
“We don’t talk about that,” Oscar says, cutting me off.
“But no,” Paxton says, shaking his head.
“I told you, little storm, that we’re done with that life,” he promises. “We’re done with it all. There’s no danger, nothing to panic yourself over. We’re safe.”
But the fact that I have panicked, makes the decision that’s been brewing in my mind so clearly the right one.
“I don’t want to wait anymore,” I say. My hands are trembling, but I lift my chin and meet my head alpha’s gaze.
“Emme…” he breathes, lifting his head, understanding immediately flickering over his face.
“Claim me,” I say again, louder this time. “All of you.”
Oscar’s brow twitches. “What happened to the no sex in the office rule?”
I huff a quiet laugh. “Fuck the rules. It started here… maybe it should be confirmed here.”
Uri leans in, pressing a kiss to the curve of my neck. “What’s confirmed, little dove?”
I meet his eyes. “That we’re made for each other.”
Another moment of silence.
Then Sterling steps away, crossing the room with purpose. He presses his palm to the side panel by his bookshelf, and the hidden door slides open, revealing the quiet, dim-lit bedroom beyond.
No one says anything.
But my feet start moving.
And behind me, I hear them follow.