29. Chapter 27
CHAPTER 27
Matteo
I f I clenched my jaw any tighter, I would end up cracking a fucking molar. There were supposed to be three sisters being held at this compound. There were supposed to be a handful of alphas.
There had been twelve fucking omegas ranging from twelve to twenty-four. Fucking twelve years old. The omegas had been both male and female. Three were already pregnant and one of those was only seventeen.
The handful of alphas ended up being six, but they hadn’t expected us. Instead of going for stealth, we’d kicked in doors and opened fire, putting bullets in every single one of the motherfuckers.
Twelve omegas. And a few of them were still children. I couldn’t stomach the thought of what they had endured while being held here. Or how the hell they had ended up here to begin with.
But that was part of what we did. We needed to find out how exactly they were missed by the government, why they hadn’t been turned over to the Omega Center, whether the government themselves were trafficking or selling omegas on the black market the way we did the illegal stashes we often found during these quests.
There were only a few weapons on the property, but we’d stumbled upon a gold mine of suppressants, along with chemicals that would force an omega into an artificial heat. It didn’t matter to sick fucks like the ones lying dead on the floor whether the constant heats would do irreversible damage to the omegas’ systems, as long as they were ready and willing and fertile enough to be impregnated.
And from what we could tell, that was apparently the end game here.
“Do you have families looking for you?” Raece questioned the omegas who huddled together, holding each other.
There were two males among them, one tall enough he could have passed for a beta were it not for his distinct perfume currently tinged with a sour edge from his fear. I noticed he kept his body further ahead of the others as though to protect them and earned a fuck load of respect from me.
He could have just as easily been sent into heat, raped, and knocked up. Yet he was willing to risk his own safety for the little girls, small women, and the petite male omega behind him.
A few of them shook their heads. The rest watched us silently with wariness in their eyes.
I didn’t blame them. Why the fuck would they suddenly think they were safe? We were alphas, too, just like the evil motherfuckers who’d taken them in the first place, who had enslaved them, who had fucking abused them in the worst possible way.
“Do any of you have somewhere safe to go?”
“Who are you?” the male asked, his dark brows pulled tightly together.
“We’re no one. And after you leave here, forget we exist. Put all this shit behind you and build a life of your own,” Raece said.
The male huffed out a laugh. “Right. It’s that easy for us.”
A small hand tightened around his bicep as a female tugged him closer. She probably thought his outburst would result in some fucked up punishment. Not from us.
He was strong. He would survive. Those behind him, those whose eyes looked empty as though their souls had been stolen would have a longer road ahead. And some might never recover from this nightmare.
“We can help you, but you have to talk to us,” Winter said, holstering his gun and lowering onto his haunches in front of the group huddled on the floor. “We have places where you can disappear. There are groups like ours who will help you disappear if that’s what you want. Or we can help you get back to your families if–”
“We have no one. How the hell do you think we ended up here to begin with? Our families got rich selling their kids to those–” His words cut off as his eyes landed on the corpses around the room.
Turning my eyes to Raece, we had a silent conversation before Winter and I began to drag the dead alphas from the room in hopes of putting the omegas at ease.
By the time Winter and I reentered the room, a few of the omegas were on their feet, but still hugged each other close. The male kept his body between us and those behind him.
If we hadn’t already found and fallen so fucking hard for Wren, this guy would have been the perfect omega for us. Not only was he beautiful and smelled amazing – even through the emotions tainting his scent – but he was strong, strong enough to deal with the kind of work we did.
“I would rather not leave without knowing you’re safe,” Raece said.
Apparently, I’d missed out on some part of the conversation while dumping the bodies in the woods surrounding this rundown shack on the edge of town. By the time they were found, the animals and elements would have erased anything we might have inadvertently left behind like one of our hairs or our scents.
“And we would rather not trade one prison for another,” an older female spoke up. She was the one who stayed closest to the male, her hand now clenched tightly in his.
“It wouldn’t be a prison. And you would never have to see us again. It’s…think of it as an underground omega railroad. Our contacts can get you some suppressants to hide your scent or hold off your heat if you want. They can help you blend into society or hide from the world at large if you’d prefer.”
“We’ll take our chances,” the female said.
The male looked over his shoulder and they did as I’d done with Raece and had some private conversation before turning back to us.
“I don’t feel comfortable leaving the children without some form of protection,” I said, finally speaking up. The adults could do as they pleased. That’s all we wanted, was for omegas to have the same freedom the rest of us enjoyed.
But the little girls and even the petite male would be targets.
“We’ll look after them,” the male spoke up.
A harsh bark of laughter erupted from Raece, but I jerked my head in his direction and shook my head. Berating them for thinking they could protect themselves after ending up in a place like this wouldn’t make things any better or easier for any of us.
A low growl rumbled forth before Raece turned and left the room, stepping outside and pulling the door shut hard enough to rattle the warped windows.
Winter leaned against the wall near the door, shoving his hands into his pockets to appear less of a threat.
“We have no doubt you would do everything you could to keep all your friends safe. But how would you feel if you failed, and the children were taken anyway? Do you want to be the reason the twelve-year-old ends up pregnant by some psychotic alpha? Do you want to be the reason the fifteen-year-old is taken by a pack of six or eight alphas and passed around like a toy?”
The youngest of the omegas whimpered as tears spilled down their cheeks, their fear renewed by my words.
“Those of you who are legal adults can make your own decisions. And if you’d feel comfortable accompanying the minors until they’re safe, we fully understand. But I promise you, we are not the enemy. We are not like…them,” I said, jerking my head toward the door where I’d dragged away the alphas who’d imprisoned them.
“Were all of you handed over by your families?” Winter asked, his eyes moving over each of them. “Even you little ones?”
The youngest of them nodded as new tears trailed down her cheeks.
A new growl rumbled in the room, but this time it was from my own chest.
It was bad enough parents willingly handed over their sons and daughter to the Omega Center. But someone had sold their children to these alphas to be bred. Had they known what kind of life they were condemning their sons and daughters to, that they would be force fed drugs and raped over and over until they were carrying a pup?
All those questions made me want to hunt down every single person who’d had a hand in it and cut their fucking throats. Or maybe I’d tie them down and find some twisted asshole to rape them over and over until they lost their minds and forgot who they were, just like what would have happened to these omegas after a few years.
“If you’re scared of us because of our designation, we can have betas do the pickup and transport. They’ll set you up with anything you need to start a new life. But the children will have to stay with a legal adult. I would suggest the Omega Center, but–”
“Absolutely not,” the male said the same time the youngest omegas started to whimper.
“We don’t trust them, either,” I continued as though I hadn’t been interrupted. “And I really don’t want to use my bark. So…can we do this as gently and quietly as possible?” I said, my eyes directly on the male omega.
He turned and glanced over his shoulder, his gaze touching on those behind him. Finally, he turned to me and nodded, a muscle feathering in his jaw. “But we all stay together.”
“That’s doable,” Winter said, pushing off the wall and pulling out his phone, tapping on the screen a few times before stuffing it back in his pocket.
A few moments later, Raece stepped back inside, his earlier anger gone, and announced they would be getting company within the hour, that several betas would arrive to first check for any medical issues, then they would decide the safest way to transport so many vulnerable omegas.
This mission had taken too long. Not that I regretted coming or saving these people and these children. But in the hours since we’d been gone, I’d started to miss my omega. I could feel her, checking in on her through the bond now that we didn’t have to focus on staying alive and avoiding any stray bullets from hitting one of the victims.
A smile ghosted across my lips as I noted the combination of concern, anxiety, lust, and determination. Dean and Doran felt the same through the invisible threads connecting us all. It seemed they were doing their best to keep our omega distracted during our absence.
As much as I hoped she would get some sleep while we were gone, I had zero problem waking her with my face buried between her thighs the moment we were back home. I wanted to drown in her, in her scent, her slick, and the sweet stickiness of her release.
We’d gotten lucky tonight. None of us would be returning to our omega and betas covered in blood. Not that there wasn’t some speckled on the exposed parts of our bodies or our clothes.
But at least none of it was ours. This time.
The three of us hadn’t bothered promising Wren we would return, only promised to be careful after leaving her lying on the bed with her skin glistening with our cum.
And now, we had at least another two hours before we could climb into the SUV and speed toward our packmates waiting not so patiently for our return.