Chapter Five #2
“Fuck, it was almost a welfare check,” he said, eyeing me from head to toe. “Make sure you were still alive, and Tory wasn’t just bullshitting about going to work.”
Torin was his youngest son. I’d taken him on as a courtesy for Finn’s discretion. He wasn’t the best personal assistant, but he was good with his mouth.
“Of course I’m alive,” I deadpanned. “They didn’t ring the bells.”
He huffed a laugh. “You’re a hard man to get in touch with.”
“I’m busy. What do you want?”
Finn’s expression morphed into what I suspected was pity. He sighed heavily. “That omega is here again, and he’s refusing to leave this time unless he sees you.”
“What omega?”
His gaze shifted around the room, bewildered.
“Uh, the one who’s shown up here twice in the last two years asking for the Alpha he spent his first heat with? Except both times I called, you weren’t interested? Is any of this clicking?”
Dylan Tae-sung Park.
That was the omega’s name. I’d acquired it from the city’s archives shortly after he’d left the Den. It was against the rules, but those rarely applied to me.
Born twenty-four years ago on the fifteenth of June to an Alpha mother, Park Eunji, and an omega father, Lee Hyuk.
After their mating, they immigrated to Ailemorth from Korea, settling in district forty-two, two years and four months before Dylan was conceived.
He was premature, and his father stayed in the maternal ICU for six days due to complications.
It was a simple case of utilizing the resources at my disposal, and every single detail of his life was at my fingertips.
From his report cards to the date his parents died, to the fact he always won silver at his school’s sports day, and he had a particular attraction to a café on Cycero Street but never went in.
It wasn’t out of interest or sentimentality.
I kept tabs on anyone who crossed my path, in case they tried to use our interaction as leverage, though nothing extraordinary had happened in the twenty-seven months since our encounter.
He hadn’t mated, which was . . . peculiar.
I’d never known an omega to go so long after their heat without seeking out a mate.
It was unheard of, but considering how fussy he’d been during his heat, I’d thought no more of it.
Nor had I returned to the Den after that night.
I would have known if he’d come back here.
“You didn’t call me,” I stated, much to Finn’s dismay.
The vein on his forehead looked ready to burst.
“Are you joking? One of your lackeys said you couldn’t have given less of a fuck, so they blocked my number. I had to send a letter in with Torin, like a fucking fan.”
I resisted narrowing my eye. No one had relayed a message. “As I said, I’m busy.”
He combed his fingers through his hair, exhaling slowly. “Well, you’re here now, so can you talk to him?”
“You reiterated the confidentiality agreement, I assume,” I said flatly.
“Mm-hm.” I didn’t believe him. “He said he technically wasn’t breaking it because he only wanted me to set up the meeting. He doesn’t want any other details.”
“You’re still too soft.”
He threw up his hands. “I’m a bleeding heart, sue me.
He was really upset when I told him you didn’t want to see him.
The first time, he cursed you out and left.
The second, he was in heat, and spent it alone, locked in one of the rooms. But this time .
. .” He chewed over his words. “He didn’t ask for you specifically—as in, the Alpha from his first heat.
He asked to see the owner, or someone who could help him with something potentially illegal.
He doesn’t know you’re one and the same, but he seemed desperate.
He’s lost weight, he looks terrible. Hell, I’m a beta, but even I could smell the distress rolling off him.
It’s as if coming here is his last resort. ”
I sighed internally. It was mildly alarming I hadn’t known of his frequent visits here, but that could be resolved later. “Where is he?”
“Room five.”
The same room.
I nodded to Raegan, a wordless command for her to stay put, before striding down the hall. My jaw clenched.
The door was already cracked open, and the closer I got, the richer the scent became.
It was suffused with misery, but still the same scent—spring and citrus—which had taunted me for the last two years.
It had faded, but clung in my nostrils as if he’d planted a curse.
The pack doctor had checked my levels after the event.
My defect hadn’t disappeared, which I could’ve told him myself, but I’d clearly found a kink in the chain.
It was a rarity, and he’d said I was lucky.
I didn’t feel lucky.
I had felt derailed.
I’d gone most of my life expecting the pheromones of an omega to never be anything other than pure sickness.
I’d been fine with that, but our meeting had disrupted my plans.
It wasn’t a phenomenon I could explain, and it irked me.
I’d only ever slept with betas because of my affliction, never wanted an alternative, but somehow this omega had defied it all, and it vexed me.
Sebastian had said it would be in my best interest to return to the omega, as my symptoms could worsen since experiencing relief. I would’ve had him shot, but he was the only specialist in the city who was intimately aware of my defect, sworn to secrecy. It would be a pain to have to find another.
I stepped toward the door, hovering, getting accustomed to the scent again in case I did anything rash.
The omega was perched on the bed, his head in his hands.
He had more tattoos than last time, though I’d already known that—symbols on his arms, which likely meant nothing, and a spiderlike flower peeking out from under his collar, all of them done by less than reputable “artists.”
It made my teeth grind.
The blond in his hair was gone. It had changed several times over the years, and was now a dull shade of blue—as if he hadn’t kept up with its maintenance for a while. He favoured that colour; he’d kept it for eighteen months.
I balled my hand into a fist at my side, and walked in.
I noticed the moment he inhaled my scent: his shoulders tensed and his fingers ceased fidgeting. His gaze whipped up, accusatory, but it evolved into horror when recognition struck. “You’re . . . Caine Devereux.”
His voice was raspier than I remembered it, though it could be a result of the glaze over his eyes. “I am.”
I noted his tongue piercing was gone as he gaped.
Shame.
“Oh, fuck.” He cradled his head again, tugging at his hair. “This can’t get any worse. Oh my god, you—you’re the one who . . .” He growled in frustration and stood. “Why the fuck is this happening to me?”
He looked wretched. Haggard. There were black rings under his eyes that were too dark to be new, but I must have overlooked them before.
His clothes were at least two sizes too big, which he seemed to prefer according to my surveillance, except they were worn to rags.
He’d retained his spark, though. He was knocked down, broken, but not defeated.
My eye flicked to the bed before returning to him.
“Why are you here?”
His back faced me, rigid and unmoving. I watched his fingers tremble, his body wavering on an exhale. He was silent for a stretch, and my patience dwindled, though he curled his hands into resolute fists and lifted his chin. His eyes were red with unshed tears when he finally turned around.
“I had a baby,” he blurted out, voice shaking. “Your baby, if that wasn’t clear, and she was taken from me. I need your help to find her.”
I stared at him.
He stared back.
“I didn’t want to come here again,” he carried on, his tears falling.
His mouth twisted with anger. “I didn’t want to remember the arsehole who knotted and abandoned me, but I’m desperate.
I heard rumours this place was owned by an Alpha who could track people for money, and you’re my only fucking option.
Right now, I don’t care if you ignored our existence for the past two years, but I won’t be ignored now.
You will fucking help me, and you will get her back for me! ”
There were several holes in his account. Discrepancies I couldn’t piece together as my version of events was entirely different.
The child, for example, was an unfamiliar component.
“Who took her?”
He frowned, as if he’d anticipated another response, but glanced at the floor.
A blush crept over his neck. “Loan sharks,” he said.
“I borrowed money, and I was one payment away from being done, but I was a day fucking late, so they came to our house and took her. I don’t know why.
To teach me a lesson? I would’ve gone to the police, but lending money like that is illegal and I didn’t know what else to do. ”
A flicker of agitation rose in my gut. Loan sharks were amongst the scum of the earth, typically smaller packs who set up shop in the impoverished districts where law enforcement was scarce.
They owed their living to the poor and destitute.
I could commend that part, but they pledged no allegiance to anyone but themselves.
They were easily managed, but slippery. Unreliable. Untrustworthy.
My observations were irrelevant. They were parasites, but they never took people, especially not for late payment. Assets, yes. Money, absolutely. They were known for their violence, but kidnapping children? Not their forte. They had some form of code, I supposed.
There was more to this, a scheme I was apparently involved in, and either he was just as much in the dark, or he was leaving out valuable data.
“Are you saying . . . you let my child be taken because you failed to pay your debts?”
“I didn’t let her be taken,” he seethed. “I tried to fight them off, but there were four of them, and they had guns. What the hell was I supposed to do?”
Guns.