Chapter Fifty-Eight
Wes
“Can I see Grace, please? Does she know Rosalind isn’t dead?” I pleaded with the agent from the Bureau of Investigation when he came back into the room.
That was going to be a shock to her. It was a shock to me. But why should Rosalind be dead? It made sense with what I knew about her. She probably faked her death and let her sons do her dirty work.
“That’s not my call.” The agent handed me a cup of coffee.
I was in a small fishbowl of a conference room, not a mirrored interrogation room. I kept looking out the glass windows to see if Grace walked by. Sadness, anger, and annoyance kept shooting through my bond with her.
“Thanks. Can I see Rosalind, then?” I took a sip. It was late, and fatigue pressed down on me. Worry for Grace made my stomach hurt. Also, I wasn’t sure where everyone else was.
The agent’s look went skeptical. “Why?”
“She’s not dead, so I’d really like to punch her.” Okay, I wanted to do more than that. “Do you know what she did to my mate?”
I then proceeded to trauma-dump everything that Rosalind ever did to Grace, and to some extent, me, leaving out the entire parallel world thing.
The alpha agent sucked in a breath. “She hurt your mate so badly that even with a mate bond you thought she was dead?”
“Yeah, and Grace is now a gamma because of her. I know the law will take care of it, but do you blame me for wanting a piece of her?” I asked.
“That is fucking awful. If someone did that to my mate and I realized that she wasn’t dead, I’d want my revenge, too,” he agreed. “I don’t know about punching her, but I think they’re going to let your pack be together soon.”
“Fair. I’d like to be with them, especially Grace, Evan, and Riley.” Movement caught my eye, and my head whipped toward the glass.
Two agents dragged a cuffed woman down the hall. Grey streaked her dark blonde hair.
“I’m not the person you’re looking for. I’m Thora Silvers, and I’m innocent. It was my sister, Rosalind, who did all those awful things, and she’s dead. You executed her instead of me, which is fair because she robbed the vault, not me. Now please, let me see my sons,” she begged.
While her words seemed the epitome of innocence, the hard look in her blue-grey eyes said otherwise.
Given I wasn't cuffed to the table, I stood and flew out of the unlocked door.
“What about your daughter, Rosalind? Oh wait, you don’t have one, just your niece that you brutalized until she became a gamma. The niece you hurt so badly that she forgot her mate.” My fist contacted her face.
Oh, that felt good.
“How dare you pretend to be Thora? How dare you come back for Grace? She owes you nothing. Not to mention she did nothing to you.” I punched her again.
All the guards just stood there, though the one that was holding her looked to my guard.
The agent shrugged. “Making someone forget their mate and think they were a dream is shitty. Not to mention, you have to hurt an omega pretty badly to make them a gamma.”
“Fuck, she did that, too? Fucking variant scum,” one of them spat.
“You didn’t have to hurt her. You didn’t have to make her forget me.” I punched her again.
“What was I supposed to do? There aren’t any omegas where we were, and sending her back would ruin everything,” Rosalind sneered.
“Really?” Grace barreled over and punched her in the tits. “You stole me and took me away to make it harder to find you.”
“I didn’t steal you, I bought you,” she scoffed.
“And yes, it was easier to convince the scientists to send me elsewhere as a single mom. Given I was wanted because I stole something for them, it was only right for them to use their technology to get me to safety, especially since they were already planning on sending themselves to other worlds. You brought this upon yourself, you know. From the moment you started nesting in the laundry, I knew you were going to be a fucking problem. Why did you have to be an omega instead of taking after your mom and me?”
“Why did you have to hurt me? You could have sent me back.” Grace started to cry, and I wrapped my arms around her.
“Send you back here?” She cackled. “We were helping people escape; sending you here would have made people notice us. Not to mention you don’t deserve to be with your mate.”
Several people growled.
“Why wouldn't I deserve Wes?” Grace sobbed.
“You’re too much like her. I was supposed to be the favorite.
I’m the rose, she’s the thorns. But no, everyone always loved Thora, who was nice and played the piano.
It was always, Ros, why can’t you be like your sister?
It should have been them asking her why she couldn’t be like me.
I’m smarter, I’m better. She wouldn’t even take the blame for me.
Here, I thought we were sisters,” she scoffed.
Wow.
Rosalind focused on Grace. “And you, everyone always just loved you. Mostly because of your name. If I hadn’t slipped and called you Grace instead of Cassidy, it could have been different.
Fucking religious hicks. I mean, sure you got me a good husband and a nice life.
But then you ruined it, just like she ruined everything. ”
With a shriek, Rosalind lunged for Grace. The guards held her back but didn’t take her away. No, people gathered like they were watching a serial drama.
“Me? I ruined your life? He divorced you because you disowned me for studying math,” Grace snapped.
“Maybe I was trying to save you. You have no idea what alphas are like, what pitiful lives omegas lead here,” she added.
Grace laughed. “My life is just fine, no thanks to you. You’re not even fazed that I’m here with Wes.”
“Him? That’s the alpha soulmate you dreamt of? Wow. Even your soulmate is pitiful. Though your mom picked a sorry-ass mate, too.” Rosalind gave me a distasteful look.
“I love Grace more than you ever did.” Letting go, I punched Rosalind again and blood trickled down her face.
“It’s all thanks to me.” She spit blood. “If I had known you were working for Rydor, I never would have sold them the equipment. That’s how you got here, wasn’t it? You used the equipment and somehow made friends with the Temporal Authority? I bet you turned them in, too, didn’t you?”
Grace sucked in a breath. “Professor Jaffey got the equipment from you?”
“I should have let the camp kill you,” she spat.
Grace looked Rosalind in the eyes. “You didn’t want to talk to me, did you?”
“Oh, I did.” Her eyes gleamed with hatred and malice.
“But you weren’t going to let me come back.” Grace’s quiet words cut through the hall.
And my heart.
What?
“Why would I? You destroy everything. Even in another world, you still ruin things for me,” she spat. “Why should you be allowed to be happy?”
“Everyone deserves to be happy,” I fired back. What a miserable woman she was.
An agent who looked vaguely familiar rubbed her forehead. “This is above my paygrade. Get her out of here, and I need the recordings of all of this.”
I pulled Grace to me. She cried into my shirt.
“Why did you make me play the piano if you hated Thora for playing the piano?” Grace looked over and hiccupped.
“I wanted to see if you were as good as her. You’re not,” she scoffed as they dragged her away.
Just… wow.
“Hey, it’s okay. You’re here with me, and safe. And you got to punch her in the tits. I’m proud of you for doing that,” I soothed. It had been amazing to see her do that.
“I did, didn’t I? It felt good. Also, my brothers are idiots.” She pressed her face back into me.
“You don’t ruin everything,” I whispered. “You are my perfect princess peaches, and I’ll love you to the end of the universe. I don’t understand why she’d risk everything to come after you like that.”
“I do.” Her voice was a whisper. “First, she’s used to getting her way. Second, she’s fueled by the one emotion even stronger than love–hate.”
That seemed stupid, to come to a world that wants to execute you just because you hated someone so much that you couldn’t stand the idea of them being happy.
I hugged Grace tighter, sending all my love through the bond, trying to heal her with my soul.
“Hey, who are you and why are you here?” an agent demanded as a bunch of people approached us.
“This is now our investigation,” someone stated. “The building is locked down. You all need to report to the main conference room.”
They all smelled weird and looked like Agent Weigmier.
Oh shit. The fucking Temporal Authority was here.