Chapter 24 #2
“You walked out like your hair was on fire,” she whispers against my hair before glancing up to take in the surprised looks my coworkers have. “Did anything happen today that I need to know about as her alpha?”
Way to lay it on thick, Cass.
“No, Mrs. Tremaine,” Lena breathes. “We didn’t know… I mean…Mrs. Larson came in and I had to play interference. She’s—”
“A predator,” Cassidy snarls, turning toward the owner of the boutique angrily. “Cordelia, really. I don’t know why you haven’t banned her.”
Turning in her arms, I watch as the owner links her hands together in front of her. It’s clear she’s nervous and trying not to show it.
“There have been reports, but she has a lot of power in the community,” Cordelia reminds her.
“She’s a hanger on who enjoys gossip and creating drama,” Cassidy snarls.
“I’m entrusting you with my omega. Mrs. Larson can’t return here.
I have the charity event in a few days for the arts, and I’m wearing the gown I bought from here last month.
I’ll ensure you no longer need Mrs. Larson’s patronage by the end of it. ”
“She always makes me uncomfortable,” Cordelia admits. “If you can make it so I can safely ban her from my store, then I can finally protect my employees.”
“If you’re worried about protecting people under your care, then that’s a problem,” Cassidy snarls. “I’ll let you know if I need any last minute assistance with the dress.”
I follow her out as she slams out of the boutique, watching as she breathes heavily in anger.
“You don’t have to go back to the store for me to fix your dress. I can do it at home,” I remind her gently as we walk.
“It was more a distraction to help me walk out without losing my shit, and a reminder of who I am,” she growls under her breath. “No one should be fucking touching you inappropriately.”
“She couldn’t stop touching my hair,” I sigh.
“You changed,” she notices, her eyes moving to glance at my pants. “Why?”
“The other alterations consultant suggested it,” I explain. “Apparently, this woman is inappropriate often.”
“Fucking bitch,” Cassidy breathes, her glare scaring more than a few people into moving out of the damn way as we walk. “Her reputation will be ruined by the time I’m done with her. Then, when she has an incident with us and disappears, no one will care. She made a big fucking mistake.”
I let her stew as we walk, the rain barely a drizzle as it sprinkles over us. The sun still shines through a cloud, giving the illusion that it’s playing peekaboo with us, and I wait Cassidy out. I have a feeling there’s more to this.
“You know that Shi and I went to school together, right?” she asks finally.
“I do,” I say, shivering slightly. It has nothing to do with the weather, but more a sense of foreboding about what she’s going to tell me.
I can feel her anxiety, and it makes my stomach flip flop as I hold my bag closer to me.
“Our families have always been close, but when his father died, my mom started to worry that Shi was too unstable for me. I’ve always thought I’d present as an alpha.
I’ve had the traits for it since I was little, but my mother was a beta who wanted me to be softer spoken and sweet,” she explains.
“Men take care of the women, and they don’t want strong, outspoken females. ”
“Obviously she’s wrong,” I mutter.
“True, but my mom has a way of making the world feel smaller than it should be. Shiloh was going through some shit when we were sixteen, and she told me to leave him alone, because no one wants to be bothered when they’re grieving.
Especially, not by a whiny girlfriend,” Cassidy sighs.
“I don’t think I’ve whined a day in my life. ”
Pushing her hair off her shoulders, we turn onto a side street as we walk.
“I should add that Shiloh is a protector, which you may have noticed. Except, it doesn’t extend to everyone.
He has to have a connection first, and there aren’t many people that he’s connected to,” she adds.
“I backed off not because I thought I was being a burden, but because Shi was helping his mother get back on her feet. His father was abusive, and Shiloh killed him. He made the man disappear, and I helped him afterward.”
“Wow,” I whisper. “No one noticed that he was abusing his family?”
“At a certain level in society, everyone turns a blind eye. Shiloh played football in school, so the bruises were attributed to that,” Cassidy says.
“Mr. Calvin Tremaine ruled with an iron fist, and no one noticed his extremely quiet wife. Society has a penchant for failing the people who need the most help. So while I left Shiloh helped build his mother back up from the crumpled woman she’d become, I allowed my mother to talk me into attending a party. ”
Shit.
“What kind of party?” I rasp. A part of me is enthralled by her words, while the other part is screaming at me that this is going to hurt.
“One of her friends was having a party, and she dragged me to it.
I was wearing a pretty, short dress that while beautiful, showed a lot of skin.
Being tall makes it difficult to feel as if you're going to flash your ass or not,” she grumbles.
“My mom said it was fine, and my father backed her up while rolling his eyes at me.”
“It wasn’t fine though?” I ask.
“Not at all. It was all guys, and then me,” she scowls. “We were dressed up, and our mothers hung out and chatted. At one point, we were pushed out to the basement and told to “get to know each other.”
“You can’t force that,” I say. “Cassidy, what did they expect to happen?”
“I think my mom was hoping I’d forget about Shi, but we’d already agreed that we’d be pack no matter what,” she says.
“It didn’t matter that we were in high school and sixteen.
Shiloh and I have always been ride or die.
My mother thought that Shi couldn’t handle me, and that I needed a stronger hand. ”
“You’re not a bull or a horse,” I grunt. I know what it’s like to know at a young age that someone is your forever. Her mother clearly refused to understand.
“I’m not,” she says, lips twitching in amusement for a moment.
“Sometimes, when you get ten guys and one girl in a room, they decide to tie you down and take turns raping you. I screamed, cried, and begged, but no one could hear me. The basement was well insulated from the rest of the house, and I couldn’t get free.
It wasn’t until they took a break and went back upstairs that I was able to get one of my hands free to text Shi for help.
One of the idiots had left his phone near me to remind me there was no way to get free and take video.
I have Shiloh’s number memorized for emergencies, and he’s never changed it.
My wrist was bloody and ripped up, but I damn well got free. ”
My eyes get misty as I shake my head at her words. She was sixteen, and her own fucking mother put her in this position! I don’t realize I’m sniffing until Cassidy wraps her arm around me.
“Shiloh broke in through the basement window, and released me. He asked me what I wanted to do, and I said I wanted them to pay. So I pretended to still be tied up, and Shi hid. When they came downstairs, he beat the fuck out of them, and I threw on his hoody and helped,” Cassidy explains.
“Shiloh had taught me how to fight, but ten to one when I wasn’t expecting them to jump me aren’t exactly fair odds. ”
“Fuck no,” I say, hiccuping as I cry. “Did anything happen to Shiloh or you for beating them up?”
“Nope. Shi said he’d come back and finish the job if they told the truth and he sent all the videos to himself to blackmail them before deleting them from their devices,” she says, smirking.
There’s tear streaks down her face as well, and neither of us are unaffected by her story.
“I had a really hard time after that. I apologized to Shiloh for going to the party, because I felt guilty. If I’d told my mother no, or fought harder, maybe I’d be able to get out of it.
Not only that, one of the guys managed to give me an infection, and it was so bad I can’t have children now.
I was asymptomatic until it was too late,” Cassidy says with a sigh.
“The consequences of going to that party—”
“You didn’t invite those guys to attack you,” I snarl.
We’re on a very quiet street, and the rain is beginning to fall harder. We both ignore it, locked only on each other as I pull away to glare at her. My heart hurts for her, because if anyone should have children, it’s her.
She’s such a beautiful person. This pisses me off so much. Damn people who can’t keep their hands to themselves. They should get them all chopped off!
“You’re also not responsible for someone else’s actions, especially when your mother is the one who put you in that situation,” I add. “I really don’t like her already.”
“It’s why we don’t see her often,” Cassidy says, shrugging.
“My mother enjoys the position I’ve taken in society, yet wishes my pack was different.
There’s a lot of things I internalized growing up with her.
I have to remind myself that a strong body isn’t one that’s fat or masculine.
I dress the way I want, but I can see the scars left from having a father who didn’t have enough time for me, and a mother who didn’t believe I was enough. ”
“You’re more than enough,” I growl, angry on her behalf.
“It’s a battle to continue to remind myself of that,” she says sadly. “Every day, people are put in impossible situations, and then they’re forced to live with the fallout. Sometimes the living part is hard for me.”
“You’re one of the best people I know,” I say honestly, hugging her. “I mean it. You could have left Bell and I to be someone else’s problem.”
“Never,” she says, pulling me with her as she begins to walk again. “While I love this city, I don’t always enjoy the people who live in it. I could never have left you once I knew what was happening, scent matches or not.”
We’re both quiet as we walk, and soon I see that we’re almost home.
“Are you going to see your mom at this event you’re going to?” I ask finally.
“Unfortunately,” she mutters. “We’ll have to go together as a pack. My mother will be insufferable and probably a little prejudiced due to the pack’s age difference to you and Bellamy.”
“How big of an age difference is there?” I ask.
I’ve never really thought about the difference, mostly because they don’t make a big deal about it.
“Seventeen years, give or take,” she says.
“It sounds worse than it is,” I grumble. “I can’t change how old I am.”
“I know, nor can we. Abbott is thirty-nine, but he’s always grumpy and overbearing. It’s part of his charm,” she chuckles. “My parents are assholes I still unfortunately love. It’s complicated.”
I nod because I can understand that. Unfortunately, my Aunt Matilda lost all familial respect and love when she admitted that she wanted to kill my parents. Cassidy told Bellamy and I what she found out while she was torturing her, and I had to run to the bathroom to puke.
I don’t know why Aunt Matilda was so jealous of my mother, and it no longer matters because she’s dead and gone now. I’m glad Cassidy made her hurt. She deserved it.
“So is this charity event fancy?” I finally ask as we climb the stairs to the house.
“It is. We’re going to have to go shopping,” Cassidy admits. “I love to shop, so that’s not a hardship for me.”
I chuckle, because I’ve heard about her love of shopping. The door opens wide and we have a group of concerned men waiting for us as we stop in front of them.
“Who am I killing?” Shiloh growls, taking in our reddened eyes.
“Possibly Mrs. Lorena Larson,” Cassidy sighs. “I told Winter about what a delight my mother is.”
“Fucking cunt,” he mutters, stepping forward to hug us both. “Bellamy has been crawling up the walls waiting for you to get home.”
“Come inside and tell why we’re adding Lorena to a list,” Abbott rumbles, ushering us in.
Even though they tend to want to fix everything by stabbing it, I don’t think I’ve ever felt so cared for outside of how Bell loves me. I can’t help but hide my smile as I step inside of the house, and I can feel Bell’s amusement and worry.
Ugh, I guess I have to tell them all about my day, huh?