Chapter Fifteen – Hayden
My head spins as I walk to the hall with Bradford. It’d be spinning with the omega revelation alone—like I said, I had my suspicions, but having suspicions and then those suspicions being confirmed are two totally different things.
It makes me understand her better, why she acts the way she does. Why she’s so damn small.
But then I heard her voice, saw the bruising her neck. The black and blue dotting the flesh on her neck that she tried to hide with a collar and her hair. The sad thing is, it worked during the ride here, and she obviously was able to hide it from Bradford too.
I called my boss and asked him if he could do me a favor and look into her. I don’t know who she lives with or what kind of people she surrounds herself with when she’s not here, not yet—but it doesn’t fucking matter. I won’t let her go back there, not to whoever’s hurting her.
Whoever it is, I want to fucking kill him.
I never thought of myself as bloodthirsty, but the moment I saw the skin on her neck and the state of it, it’s the first word that came to mind.
I want that person’s blood, and I want it on my hands.
I don’t know if I’ll be able to think straight until I get it, until I know without a doubt that person can never hurt her again.
Bradford and I walk into the hall. We put a bit of distance between us and the dining room, but we make sure to keep the opening in view so that if she tries to run again, we’ll spot her.
I’m the first to speak, and I do so while shaking my head at myself, “I should’ve seen the signs.
I’m so fucking stupid.” That can be said of both the omega revelation and about the abuse she clearly suffers.
“Who the fuck could do something like that to her? She said she doesn’t have a pack, she’s not mated. ”
The über standing a few feet away still has his arms folded over his chest. He hears what I say, but his eyes are averted, on the floor just beside me. His face gives nothing away, not really, but there’s something different about him now, something I can’t quite put my finger on.
I don’t know if I’d say he’s as pissed off as I am—if he is, then he’s pretty damn good at hiding his emotions. This guy, even now, I can’t really read him.
He’s slow in whispering, “The ones who can hurt us like that, the ones we keep going back to because we have no other choice—family.”
“No, family doesn’t do anything like that to each other.
” I say that with conviction, and yet I start to wonder if Bradford didn’t pull that little nugget of wisdom out of thin air.
He was extremely concerned when she said she had a meeting with his father.
Maybe his childhood wasn’t as sparkling and pretty as I thought.
“Fine, maybe not family, but blood does.” His dark eyes rise, meeting my stare. “Why else would she protect whoever it is? Why wouldn’t she report them? Then again, what would happen to her if she did? If she has no one else, and she’s an omega…”
Then she doesn’t really have many options.
She clearly doesn’t come from money. She’s as big of a nobody as you can be.
Based on where she lives, I’d say she’s downright poor, and poor omegas have it the worst in life.
Really, can anyone blame her for masquerading as a beta?
Mating prospects aren’t so good when you don’t have a decent last name to back it up.
“We have to find out who’s doing this to her,” I say, and to my surprise, Bradford nods with me in agreement. Hmm. Maybe he does care, in a weird way, though his facial expression certainly doesn’t show it. “And she can’t go back to her place tonight.”
“No,” he says with another nod. “She can’t.”
“I could take her back to my place, but… I don’t think she’d come along willingly.”
“Then she’ll stay here,” Bradford says. “She’s already here, and I have plenty of spare rooms.” When he notices the way I’m looking at him, he adds, “If you would feel better about it, you can stay as well and watch over her.” He turns his head away.
“But for the record, I would never lay a hand on her.”
It’s bizarre, but I believe him. I accepted this job knowing what he did and therefore what he’s capable of, and it seems at every turn, he’s right there breaking the mold.
“Can I be honest with you?” I ask, and he nods. “You’re not at all what I expected. When I heard of what happened here, I thought… well, I thought you had to be a certain kind of person to do what you did.”
Kidnapping an omega and a beta; something like that is either conniving or desperate. I would have put money on it being the former, but the more time I spend with him, the more I start to think it’s actually the latter.
“But the person I thought you were wouldn’t care about an omega in need.”
Bradford frowns at me. “Regardless of how I seem, I am not that cold-hearted. She needs help, and I… there aren’t many things I can do right now, given my circumstances, but I can keep her here. House her, feed her, for as long as it takes.”
I eye him up. “Is this you being generous, or is there more to it?”
“What more would there be?”
Seeing as how he asked, I have to explain, “If she’s an unmated omega… you’re an unmated alpha, and an über at that. You have to know where I’m going with this.”
“Do you know how many times in my life my father has tried to set me up, force me to have heirs and further the Bentley bloodline? More than I can count. I’ve been presented with what amounts to omega royalty.
If I wanted an omega, if I wanted a mate, I would have had one a long time ago and this discussion would be moot. ”
Bradford cocks his head at me, studying me with a quiet sullenness that goes beyond anything I’ve ever seen on his face before.
“Perhaps I should ask you a similar question: why do you care so much about her? Ever since she started here, you’ve seemed rather interested in her, far more interested than a supposed beta should be. ”
A supposed beta. I pick out those words instantly.
I ask him, “What are you getting at?”
“When you started, your tools were all new. You got sunburned the first day,” he says, bringing up things I wasn’t aware he noticed.
“And your hands, they’re not nearly as callused as they should be, if groundskeeping is your profession—and that says nothing about how large you are for a beta.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a beta only a few inches shorter than myself. ”
“I am a beta,” I say.
“Right, and you’ve done groundskeeping before.
” He takes a small step toward me, lowering his voice to a bare whisper when he says, “Listen, I don’t care who you are.
I don’t care if your name isn’t even Hayden.
I don’t care if you’re an alpha in disguise or if you’ve never touched a trimming tool before this week.
The only thing I care about is whether or not you work for my father. ”
Damn. Bradford is definitely more perceptive than I gave him credit for. The man is full of surprises, isn’t he?
“I don’t work for your father,” I say, not for the first time.
“I believe you, and I believe you would never hurt her, either, which is the only reason I’m inviting you to stay as well. I don’t know if she would try to run back to her abuser, but one of us should be near her at all times to make sure she doesn’t have the opportunity.”
This guy better be careful. I might start to respect him a little. A dangerous thing to admit, considering the whole reason I’m here.
“Now,” Bradford says, “we should get back in there and try to get her to eat something.”
I nod along with him. It seems, for now at least, we are in agreement when it comes to Kayla.
I doubt she’s going to be thrilled at being stuck here in this house, but she’s clearly not safe with whoever she’s staying with.
She can’t go back there. I can contact my boss in a bit and fill him in.
Legally, I can get protective custody of her, in case whoever she lives with reports an official kidnapping.
For reasons that should be obvious, I don’t think that person would do something like that—reporting her missing would invite the police to not only look into her, but also to look into them, whoever they are.
Someone who would lift a hand to her like this would probably want to stay away from the cops.
Together with Bradford, we return to the dining room and find that Kayla hasn’t moved an inch, nor has she eaten any of the donuts.
This job is getting more and more complicated. I came here with one goal, one duty. The moment I met Kayla is the moment things started to get muddy, but I’ll be damned if I sit back and do nothing when she so clearly needs help.
Alabaster Security is all about helping omegas. I’m sure my boss will understand.