Chapter 62
sixty-two
brIAR
The padded wall of the room creaks open, revealing a man in a black pinstriped suit. An oppressive gasoline scent washes into the nest, stinging my nostrils before I can even lift my head.
I blink my eyes. They burn from the bright colors around me and the light that floods in from the wide, blank basement behind him. For a second, I think I might be hallucinating. Surely, the voice I heard through the door wasn’t real… right?
But the alpha silhouette in front of me chuckles, his amusement distinctly ominous. “Do you recognize me yet, omega?”
I… do.
He was there, at our wedding. During the interminable dinner after. And again, a few weeks ago. At the party when I learned the Blackwood alphas were my mates. The soiree where Cillian introduced this man as—
His grandfather.
Forsyth Blackwood.
The older alpha steps into the nest, the soles of his shoes grinding dirt into the light silk fabric. A frisson of disgust tightens my guts.
It isn’t my nest, but still.
Have some respect, asshole.
He clearly doesn’t hold regard for much, if his derisive scowl is any indication. He loops dark gray eyes over my shuddering body, lingering in ways that have me curling tighter into a ball. His mouth pinches in distaste, but carnal interest lights his gaze.
“You know,” he starts, stepping farther into the room. Leaving gritty footprints behind. “I was hoping for more.”
… more?
Forsyth narrows his stare, sliding his hands into his pockets. “Some nobody with an insane guardian. An injured dancer. A broken doll. I couldn’t understand why Cillian chose you.”
His words whip at me, slicing deeper than they should. My quivers intensify until I’m shaking so hard my teeth chatter. False pity flits over his features. “Poor dear. It turns out that madman’s projections were spot on; I’ll give him that.”
Madman?
I only know one bastard who fits that description. The one who sold me and promptly disappeared…
“M-my f-f—?” I try to ask, but can’t scrape words out.
Forsyth nods anyway. “Yes, Dr. Brynn had your heat cycle charted down to the hour. If you’re interested, I had him lay out the next few before we… parted ways.”
His implication is clear, but it makes no sense. How did he even know my father? Nonetheless kill him?
One glance into the Blackwood patriarch’s flinty, soulless eyes confirms; yes.
My father is dead.
It explains why none of us heard from him after the wedding. And why he hadn’t tried to pester Blackwood Corp. with more of his “inventions.”
But still… he’s dead?!
I blink, trying to feel anything other than bewildered relief. But my thoughts are blank, apart from one question.
“How?”
The word rasps, but I’m proud of myself for sounding steadier. Forsyth seems to reconsider me, leaning back as his salt-and-pepper brows lift. “Your wedding. My men apprehended him after dinner. Once Cillian was thoroughly preoccupied with his new bride.”
I suppress another shiver, glaring. Sure, I don’t actually care if the asshole who “raised” us is gone—but Forsyth has no way of knowing that. And his smug expression reveals just how much he’s hoping to devastate me.
“And you decided to kill him? For what? Kicks?”
The old man shakes his head. “Nothing I do is without cause. Your husband seems to have forgotten where he learned that particular trait—but I never forget what Cillian is. What I made him.
“So when he suddenly announced he was taking a wife; playing at being an obedient grandson, bent on producing our family heir… I knew there was more to the story. I assumed your father would be useful in piecing Cillian’s plans together. He wasn’t, but he did tell me all about you.”
… me?
What the hell would that man have said about me?
She reads too much? Don’t try to make her drink mysterious “health shakes”? She handles being locked in the dark for days like a champ?
Actually, come to think of it, that last piece of info might be pertinent here.
Forsyth clocks the stupefied look I try to stifle. His brows crouch. “Surely you must have wondered what Brynn was doing with you and that other girl. The beta?”
“He was our father,” I spit. “A fucked-up one who tried to use us to do omega research, but he was—”
Or was he?
Because the haughty, faux-pitying look on this man’s face implies maybe…
Maybe I don’t actually share any DNA with my “father.” Or my long-lost sister.
I think about the swabs Dane so carefully collected. How he wanted to make me feel better about all my family’s uncertainty by giving me some insight into my heritage.
Is it possible I know even less about where I came from than I thought? And everything our “father” told us was a lie?
Of course it is.
And what’s worse? It makes a sick, depressing sort of sense. What kind of person would experiment on their own flesh and blood?
It never struck me just how wrong that was. Not until I got to Blackwood Manor and saw how even the most fucked-up pack protected one another. Defended each other. Would kill and die if it meant giving their brothers a chance to live.
Violet and I were that way, too. We knew we probably didn’t come from the same mother, but it didn’t matter. Because we were family.
It should have been like that for our father. And probably would have been… if he really was the one responsible for our existences.
Fuck. My head feels like it might cave in, but I won’t give this bastard the satisfaction.
“So he told you the truth, then?” I bluff, pretending I’m in on the secret.
Forsyth doesn’t buy it. He chuffs a dry laugh. “Brynn said you had no idea. That he’d been using you and your sister for years to conduct a series of tests. All aimed at creating a perfect omega specimen.”
Oh God. All those “protein drinks.” The nights he took Violet down to his lab—her desperate phone call, telling me to obey. Warning me not to ask questions.
Did she ask too many? Is that why he had her taken away?
He must have realized his experiments failed on me. That’s probably why he decided to auction me off to the highest bidder.
“That’s how he sold you to Cillian, I suspect,” Forsyth continues. “As some sort of ultra-potent breeding machine. And my conniving grandson likely thought your modified genetics would help him win.”
No.
It’s amazing how certain I feel, but I know, in the deepest parts of my soul: Cillian didn’t want me because of my father’s failed experiments. He wanted me because I was his.
He told me so himself—the patent was a smokescreen. But he had to throw off suspicion about his real connection to me, so he let my father believe he was a genius who had sold me and his stupid invention to a billionaire.
None of it was ever real, except the way Cillian felt about me.
And Forsyth has no idea.
My stomach flips. He still doesn’t know we’re mates.
Is that a good thing?
I debate internally while he goes back to incorrectly assessing me.
He frowns, ponderous. “I couldn’t allow that, of course.
Cillian may be as smart and ruthless as they come, but he’s still a bastard.
I was never going to allow any child of his to be my heir, just like I couldn’t allow my wayward, lovesick, idiot of a son to take over. ”
Oh Jesus fuck.
The look on his face… the braggy air…
“Caine didn’t kill himself,” I mumble through numb lips. “It was you?”
Forsyth’s sneer spreads into a purely evil grin. He starts to pace closer, taking a step with every horrifying admission.
“It was all me, Briar. Getting rid of Caine’s tawdry mate. Convincing Caine it was his brother, Adam. Letting Caine dispose of that worthless drunk before I staged Caine’s suicide.”
He’s close enough to touch me now, stretching wrinkled fingers to my cheek. I shudder, flinching back, but that only ignites the malice in his eyes.
“A real man owns up to his mistakes and corrects them,” he growls. “My sons were weak. Unworthy. One throwing his life away between a mistress’s thighs and the other drinking himself half to death, refusing to take his foolish brother and his bastard son out.”
He drops his hand, standing back to his full height. “Mistakes,” he grits. “Just like letting Cillian live. He was only a boy—I thought he might be useful. Malleable. Especially given the soft spot he always had for that pitiful blond runt.”
Rhys.
Forsyth must have used him as leverage to manipulate Cillian after his father died. Could that be how he ended up taking the position at Blackwood Corp. in the first place?
I may never know.
Because I don’t think this alpha plans on letting me go.
“Originally,” he says, “I planned on taking you for Gideon. He might not be as shrewd as Cillian, but he’s still an excellent vice president. Plus, he has a proper pack—and he’s not a bastard.”
The old man sighs as if exasperated. “But when I went to him last night to inform him that I had you here, in the nest I had made for his pack, ready for your heat—he failed my test. Instead of agreeing to dispose of Cillian and marry you himself once your haze set in, he told me no.”
His headshake is full of genuine dismay and disappointment. “Such a waste of time and energy, grooming him to take over. We’ll have to do better next time.”
Better. Next. Time?
What does he mean? Surely he can’t think that I—that we—
Bile burns my throat as my insides twist. Revulsion thickens my saliva and thins my breath. “I won’t,” I tell him. “No.”
He huffs. “You will. As soon as your heat sets in, you won’t be able to help yourself. It will be me or no one. But I’m guessing, this being your first heat, you’ll be much too disoriented to hold your own for very long.”
Panic vibrates through me, my Omega whining frantically. He’s right. Once my heat comes over us, we won’t be able to stop him. And we’ll be locked in here. Without our alphas.
I scramble for any way to convince this lunatic his sick plan won’t work. “B-but I’m not your wife—I’m Cillian’s. You can’t have a legitimate heir with someone else’s wife. And he-he’ll come for me, eventually!”
Forsyth lifts a condescending brow. “Not if he’s dead.
Which also solves the issue of your marriage.
I planted your little locket at Gideon’s penthouse as I left last night, so I assume, once Cillian finds it, those two will take care of each other.
And if not… like I said, today is the day I correct my mistakes. Once and for all.”
A fierce wail of alarm vibrates up my throat. I try to fling myself at Forsyth’s legs, acting on pure instinct—the need to tear him down, claw at his threats—but he steps out of the way.
I collapse against the nest, dizzy from how wrong it all feels. “You”—I pant, struggling to breathe —“fucking asshole.”
Forsyth lodges a swift, ruthless kick into my stomach. It knocks the wind out of me, turning my scream into a wheeze.
“Listen here, girl,” he barks. “You don’t want to make yourself another mess for me to clean up.”
I barely hear him over the buzz in my head. My body rolls, and I curl into a ball. Something in the pocket of my sweatpants presses into my thigh.
They aren’t mine, I remember. They’re Dane’s. And Dane always carries—
A knife.
No one took it from me, which means they probably didn’t even bother to search me when his henchmen carted me in here. Somehow, that makes me almost as angry as the notion of being taken in the first place.
This motherfucker didn’t even think to check my pockets. Because it never occurred to him that I’m not some weak, defenseless piece of ass.
Well, fine.
He said today’s the day for fixing mistakes, but this one will cost him.
Because this rose?
Has thorns.