Chapter 19 - Bridget
Gabriel and Andrew’s apartment was beautiful. It was on the top floor and the view of downtown was incredible. The windows showed a forest of gleaming buildings, all the way out to a scrap of the gleaming bay just visible on the horizon.
The furnishings were comfortable and simple, and there were no pictures on the walls, but it was so much nicer than anywhere I’d ever stayed. My bed was heavenly soft, rather than the creaky old mattress I’d had at the Center.
All of this conspired to make me feel like an intruder, no matter what Gabriel and Andrew said.
The first night of my stay passed in a haze of exhaustion.
I hadn’t slept properly since I left the Center, and my body was eager to catch up.
It was patently insane, but something about Gabriel and Andrew’s scents made me feel safe.
It was a trick of my Omega brain, my pheromones recognizing theirs as compatible, but that didn’t change how I felt.
After a dinner of pasta that I couldn’t properly appreciate, and a quick shower, I passed out again in my white, fluffy cloud of a bed.
But now I was wide awake and feeling incredibly uncomfortable in the living room.
“How did you sleep, tesoro?” Gabriel asked, setting down a cup of tea for me.
He sat next to me on the couch. Andrew had stationed himself in an armchair as far from me as possible, which both thrilled and horrified me.
After Gabriel’s revelation that my scent wasn’t as undetectable as I thought, I wondered if it was affecting Andrew now.
Should I have asked for descenter? Would they take offense at that?
“Um, well, thanks,” I said, forcing myself to focus on Gabriel rather than staring at Andrew. “That bed is so comfortable.”
“Are you sure it’s okay? Because we can get you a new comforter or pillows or something,” Andrew said quickly.
I grimaced. They had to stop being so nice to me, or I was going to explode. “It’s perfect.”
“I have already heard from your Maggie. She is very… persistent.” Gabriel slid the flip phone Soren had given me across the table. “Please call her so she knows we are taking care of you before she comes to kill us.”
I laughed despite my embarrassment. “I can do that.”
I also wanted to call Nathan and tell him to not do whatever it is they were planning, but I didn’t have his number. My phone was still at Maggie’s place, and I could imagine her assumptions if I asked for Nathan’s contact info. Maybe I could email him instead.
“Did you know Anvi has a criminal record?” Gabriel asked. That had my full attention.
“No. What? Anvi?” Of all the people in the world to have a record, Anvi was the last on my list. “For what?”
“It was a juvenile offense. I am trying to get the records, but they are sealed,” Gabriel replied.
“There’s no way Anvi is involved. She’s too… sweet,” I said, wrapping my hands around the mug of tea.
Gabriel smiled, a little sadly. “You never know what someone is capable of, carrissima. But I will get answers.”
“You won’t find anything,” I said.
“What about your mom?” Andrew asked cautiously. “Could she have something to do with it?”
Of course they knew it was my mother who’d burst into the clinic; we looked pretty much identical. I had thought about that a lot over the last few days. Her showing up was too big a coincidence to ignore. And she’d shown, time and time again, that she was willing to betray me at every opportunity.
My mother spent her life trying to be the perfect Omega for my fathers at the expense of everything else, including me. After years of therapy, I accepted she was trying to protect herself from them, but I didn’t forgive her. I couldn’t.
I did have good memories of her. Mostly of her singing. On the rare occasions my fathers were both away, she would blast show tunes in the kitchen and spin me around until I felt like we could both fly away.
She sang to me at night, too. Beatles' songs mostly. Her voice was lovely, and sometimes I wished I could hear her sing “Blackbird” again.
Linda, my therapist, tried to soften my anger. “It’s not healthy to carry that around with you. Maybe she was doing the best she could.”
The rage that had boiled up inside me scared me. I hated my mother as much as I loved her. “Then it wasn’t good enough, was it?”
I forced myself to focus back on the room, on the present. I could feel myself getting swept into the past. Tears pricked at my eyes, and suddenly Gabriel’s arms surrounded me.
“Ah, please do not cry,” he murmured into my hair. I swallowed hard, determined not to cry yet again.
“Fuck, I’m sorry,” Andrew said. His voice sounded raw with regret. I pulled back to look at him.
“It’s not your fault,” I said, rubbing my eyes.
Andrew was leaning forward, his elbows on his knees and his hands clasped, with a look of such despair on his face that I wanted to reassure him.
“My mother… She saved my life by getting me out of my fathers’ house.
But that was basically the only time she ever protected me from them. ”
Andrew’s eyes were intent on me.
“You do not have to share this, fiore mio,” Gabriel said. He still had his arm wrapped around my waist.
I kept my gaze on Andrew. “No, it’s okay. If she is involved, then Domenic, her Alpha is too. She never did anything without my fathers’ permission. Now that one of them is dead—” An odd pang of something made me pause. “Domenic is definitely still in charge. And he’s a monster.”
No one spoke for a moment. “They were bad men. They… hurt us. And Domenic was always the one that scared me the most.”
It was true. Even if Sebastian did more of the hands-on punishment, Domenic had become unpredictable in his rages near the end.
Andrew’s hands tightened on each other, the muscles of his forearms standing out in sharp relief. Gabriel was murmuring in Italian. I caught the word “stronzi.”
“She got me out though. I was sick and almost died. But she got me to the hospital, and from there the National Omega Network took me in, even though I hadn’t presented fully yet.”
I considered telling them about my illness. I didn’t want to, but I might as well go the whole way to showing them how messed up I was.
I adopted my best scientific voice. “I’m in recovery from anorexia. That’s why my pheromones are abnormal. I damaged my endocrine system, which was the whole point, but the damage seems permanent. It’s why I don’t have normal heats, or perfume.”
“The whole point?” Andrew asked, his voice low.
“I didn’t want to present. If I did, they would have sent me off to bond with a pack just as horrible as them,” I said, still trying to sound as detached as possible.
Gabriel squeezed my waist briefly. “We will kill the other one. This Domenic. Where is he?”
I exhaled a shaky laugh. “Yeah, okay.”
Some tension I’d been holding inside melted. There was no pitying look from either of them. No obvious glances at my body to check how thin I was. No dark curiosity about the realities of the disease. They both just looked livid on my behalf.
“I am not laughing, mia cara. I will gladly kill him for you,” Gabriel said.
He looked utterly serious, and that made my heart race. Why was the thought of him killing for me… exciting? I shook my head firmly. “It won’t change anything. Sebastian died, and it didn’t change what he did to me. So no going to jail on my behalf.”
Andrew took a deep breath through his nose, his nostrils turning white, then exhaled slowly. He stood abruptly. “I need to go for a walk.”
Gabriel rubbed my back as I watched Andrew slamming out of the apartment. I jumped slightly at the sound.
“Did I do something?” I asked, still watching the door.
“No, non preoccuparti. Do not worry. He is so angry for you it is choking him,” he said, placing a hand over his heart. “He did not want to scare you, I think.”
“You can feel that?” I asked.
I knew about bonds in theory, of course.
They were one of the great scientific mysteries surrounding Alphas and Omegas.
All the other markers of designation — heats, knots, instinctive behavior like purring — biology could explain those.
But bonds were another story. There was no scientific explanation for how a bond could allow some kind of psychic connection between two people.
Gabriel’s hand brushed mine. “Thank you, tesoro mio. For sharing with us.”
“It’s so embarrassing. Having to talk about it,” I whispered. Shame and anger mingled in my stomach.
“Do you remember I told you I worked with another Omega?” he asked after a moment.
“Yes. In Italy, right?”
“Matteo. He was not so lucky as you to escape from his family. They could not repay a loan to the pack I worked for, so Matteo became the payment.” He ground his jaw for a moment.
I could imagine life with a pack who treated an Omega like that.
I’d lived it. “There is nothing shameful about what happened to you. Or to Matteo. Only the ones who hurt you, or did nothing to stop it, should feel this way.”
I reached for his hand instinctively at the pain in his voice.
“I do not deserve your comfort,” he said, squeezing my hand with a sad smile. “I did not help him leave. I tell myself I would have, if he had asked, but… He should not have had to ask.”
“But if his pack was that dangerous, wouldn’t they have hurt you, too?” I wanted to wipe the guilt and pain from his face.
“Sí. And it would have been worth it,” he said. “I will not make the same mistake again. No one will hurt you, carissima. Not if I am here to stop it.”
Knowing there was another reason for him to care so much made me feel better and worse. If I were just another Omega he wanted to help, consolation for a past mistake, that took some pressure off the situation. “Thank you. But I’m still feeling guilty for intruding on you like this.”
“Carissima, how many times must I tell you? It is our pleasure to have you here for as long as you need.” He released my hand to sink his into the hair at the nape of my neck, his fingers cradling the back of my head. His thumb brushed my earlobe, and tingles spread across my scalp.
I tried and failed to form words and ended up letting out an embarrassing whimper. His brown eyes were bright on mine, and I swore they flicked to my lips for a moment. I fought the impulse to lean forward and kiss him, to see what it would be like. Would he push me away?
Before I could act on these insane thoughts, he let his hand fall away. I suddenly felt cold and very silly. Why couldn’t my stupid body remember he was just a very affectionate Italian and his touches meant nothing?
“We should call your friends and see if they have any new information,” he said.
“Right,” I agreed, sliding away from him on the couch. I needed to get a hold of myself.