Chapter 33 Sai
Sai
I pace my apartment, trying to swallow the fury of knowing that my mother tried to shove a check at my Omega yesterday morning.
My mother looked at the person I love and tried to buy him like a problem that could be solved with money.
My mother has been the one behind all of it, the paintings, the rent, the platform, the modeling.
The machine finally has a face and it is the face that used to kiss me goodnight.
My phone has been ringing for almost twenty-fours between Mom, Dad, and a few other second generation Hollis family members I have no desire to talk to. I haven’t answered once. I’m surprised she hasn’t shown up at the apartment yet.
Maybe Lyric warned her off or maybe Alistair intervened or maybe she is regrouping after Mavi told her to go fuck herself in a diner. Either way, the calls keep coming and I keep watching the screen light up and I keep not picking up.
Mavi is out with Noemi. He needed air and he needed a friend to process the diner without me hovering.
I let him go because he asked and I am learning that some of Mavi’s battles are Mavi’s to fight.
But the apartment feels wrong without him.
It’s too quiet and there is too much space for the rage to echo.
My door swings open an hour later, Koda strolling inside to find me mid-pace. He reads the room in two seconds and drops onto the couch like he owns it. “Glad, I showed up since you left the fucking group chat. Now, talk to me before you wear an actual groove into the floor.”
I explain everything, including my absolutely awful plan where I unload everything at dinner tonight, including, officially, that I’m not marrying Elias. Mom knows by now but I need everyone to hear it from my mouth, not just through rumors and chats.
Tonight I am going to stand up to my mother. To all of them. I am done hiding. I am done performing. I am done.
Koda raises an eyebrow as he leans back farther. “What do you need from me?”
“Everything you have. Anything. Whatever it takes to keep them from ruining Mavi. He’s mine, Koda. Mine. And they’ve already started taking his galleries and his modeling and his platform. I can’t let them take anything else.”
Koda nods, the seriousness sitting under the charm catching my attention. “Yeah. I get that.”
A beat passes. I look at my cousin, studying his face before it clicks. “How could you… do you have someone? Is there anyone who—”
Koda snorts and cuts me off. “I hired on a few new mechanics for the car. Two of them are really good but they’re…” He trails off and rubs the back of his neck. “They’re distracting as fuck.”
“You’ve never had a problem fucking the staff.”
Koda laughs, a hint of surprise coating the sound. “I already did. That’s the problem. They won’t go away.”
I frown. “What’s the issue?”
“They are both Omegas.”
I raise an eyebrow as the implication sits between us.
Not one Omega but two, both refusing to leave, both apparently unfazed by the fact that Koda is a Hollis Alpha with a reputation and a reckless streak.
I file the look on Koda’s face, not his usual easy dismissal of romantic complications but something more confused, more unsettled, more interested than Koda wants to be.
I clear my throat. “Back to dinner. How do I do this?”
Koda shifts into strategy mode, showing off the side most people underestimate.
The laid-back charm hides a sharp mind. “We call your contacts. Every model you have shot, every editor you have worked with, every gallery that has shown your work independently. We secure contracts, new ones, ironclad, in your name. Not Hollis. Sai. Personal service agreements that the family cannot touch because they are between you and the client directly.”
“Has that ever worked? Has anyone walked away?”
Koda shrugs. “A few cousins are on the outskirts of everything. My brothers are not really involved in the main operations. We get more leeway based on what we handle for the family. But yeah, I know of at least two who stepped back and survived.”
“Okay. Let us do this.”
My only priority is to protect Mavi in all of this but if I can get out unscathed, I’ll be forever grateful. The morning devolves into working through a massive list, Koda working on the galleries while I focus on my private clients.
Some say no because they are not willing to go against the Hollis name or they are too scared or too connected to risk it.
Each no stings but I keep dialing. Others say yes.
Models who have worked with me for years and know my talent has nothing to do with my last name.
Editors who have seen the work and don’t care about dynasty politics.
Gallery owners who took a chance on my photography before the family name meant anything.
One by one the yeses stack up. Contracts get drafted, terms get agreed to, signatures incoming.
It’s not everything but it’s enough. A foundation that belongs to me, not the machine.
Papers spread across every surface of the apartment. My meticulous nature channels into something productive for once. I organize contracts and check terms and build my own scaffolding. It isn’t until a knock sounds at the door that my focus redirects.
Mavi peeks in. His hair is windblown from being outside, his jacket hanging over one of my shirts, He looks soft and real and slightly amused by the chaos.
“You’re back?” I look up from a contract. “What time is it?”
Mavi snorts. “You said we had to be at the dinner at six. It is five-fifteen.”
I stare at the clock. At the papers. At Koda, who is grinning from the couch. At Mavi, who is surveying the apartment with every surface covered in documents and two phones on the coffee table and empty coffee cups, an expression of fond exasperation on his face.
Mavi crosses the room and takes my face in his hands.
The touch grounds me instantly, the way it always does and the way it always will.
“Hey. Breathe. You got this.” He glances around the room.
“I’m sure you do, judging by the state of paper across every surface.
Now, let me go get your clothes. You get dressed. We leave in thirty minutes.”
Koda catches Mavi on his way to the closet. “He is ready. Are you?”
Mavi’s smile has teeth. “I’ve been ready since the diner.”
I walk into the Hollis family dinner with Mavi on my arm.
The room shifts the moment we enter as conversations die mid-sentence, forks pause halfway to mouths, and glasses stop in the air.
The scent hits first, our merged sandalwood and honey-citrus so deeply woven that every nose in the room reads it instantly as mated.
The golden boy is mated and the Omega on his arm is not the Moreau.
Mavi carries himself at his full five-foot-six like it’s six feet as he wears full glam with editorial-perfect makeup and an outfit that shows off the several marks I played all over his skin.
Koda’s perched off to the far side in a three-piece suit, looking as uncomfortable as I’d imagine he actually is.
His face splits into a grin when our eyes meet, though he quickly suppresses it into a smirk because the whole family is watching.
“Ready, Alpha?” Mavi murmurs against my ear.
I merely nod, guiding him toward our seats, one of the name plates clearly stating Elias.
Mom really thought in the end, I would follow her rules rather than my own.
We take our seats and the dinner proceeds with the thick suffocating politeness of people who are furious but civilized as cold comments land and pointed silences stretch.
My mother sits at the head of the table with her composure restored since the diner, though her eyes are fixed on Mavi with an expression that could freeze glass.
An aunt finally speaks up. "This can still be fixed. Mate the Moreau Omega and we move forward. Bond removal is—"
I stand and the room falls silent, everyone waiting for me to speak. Never once have I ever stepped out of line and yet, in two weeks, I’ve made my own path and made it clear who I choose. Now, I just have to state that choice loud and clear.
“I admit that making choices has always been hard for me.” Mavi grins up at me, folding his fingers into mine, giving me confidence. “But this was the easiest choice I have ever made. Mavi is mine. He will always be mine. And you can’t take that from me.”
My mother speaks from the head of the table. "We built you, Sai. Everything you have, the career, the galleries, the name, we built that. You owe this family—"
“I owe this family nothing I have not already paid.”
Movement happens at the other end of the table as Koda stands.
He reaches into his jacket and pulls out a stack of documents and drops them on the table with enough force that someone's wine glass tips and spills red across the white tablecloth.
Nobody moves to clean it up. All eyes stay on the papers.
“Every one of those contracts has my name on it. Not the Hollis name. Mine. Models, editors, galleries, they signed with Sai. Not with the dynasty. Threaten me. Try to ruin me. Pull every string you have. I still have a leg to stand on because these people want me. Not your name. Me.”
Silence falls between us as the wine spreads across the tablecloth like a slow-motion wound.
I push from my chair and walk to my mother. I stand over her, six-foot-two of broad-shouldered Alpha who knelt for an Omega an hour ago and is now towering over the woman who taught me that kneeling was weakness.
My voice drops low enough that only she hears it clearly though the room is so quiet everyone catches the edges. "But if you ever do something to my mate again, the paintings, the rent, the platform, the diner, any of it, this will be a very different conversation."
My mother's face cycles through several emotions as my father speaks from his seat. "You'll be cut off. That apartment was paid for by the family trust. The—"
Koda clears his throat from across the room. "Actually, that apartment is fully in Sai's name. It has been since he moved in. You can’t touch it."
Everyone stares at Koda. Koda shrugs and smiles the easy grin that hides the fact that he has been quietly protecting my assets for years without telling anyone. That and the fact that he’ll have to pay for his part in this, at least until he makes a clean break from the Hollis family as well.
I straighten my jacket with Mavi's tie at my throat. "I will move out if that is what you prefer. But you still will not have me. I am no longer your pawn."
"Please do not do this,” my mother whispers.
Mavi comes to my side, taking my hand in his as he glares at my mother. "You should have pleaded years ago. You had years to be a mother instead of a machine. You chose the machine."
Mavi tugs me out toward the front, my body willingly leaving the space that has felt like a prison for the last nearly thirty years. Koda is one step behind us, that grin he was suppressing now back on his face.
Outside, the cool air hits my face and I breathe. I really breathe, the way I breathe when Mavi puts the collar on me, the way I breathe when the noise finally stops. The machine sits at my back, the night stretches ahead, and the person I chose is standing right beside me.
I turn to Koda. The easy grin is back on my cousin's face but I can see what is underneath it, the cost. What Koda just did in that room, pulling out those documents, confirming the apartment, standing up beside me against the family. "What did that cost you?"
Koda shrugs. "A few more jobs. Some conversations I will need to have. Nothing I cannot handle."
"Koda." We’ve never really spoken about what he does for a living beyond racing elite cars. I know most of it’s underground but he never talks about it and I’ve never pushed.
"Seeing you walk out of there was worth it." He says simply. "That was worth anything."
I drag my cousin into a hug, holding a beat longer than necessary, letting him know how much his help was worth. My family won’t stay gone forever. They’ll step forward at another moment, trying to pull me back in but for now, I’m free.
And I’ll fucking take it.
Koda's phone rings. He glances at the screen and his expression shifts as he grimaces, half-laughs, and runs his hand over his face. "Fuck. I have to figure out how to tell these men no."
I frown. "The mechanics?"
"They want to come over. Both of them. Together." He’s laughing but it sounds panicked. "I fucked them once, Sai. Each. Separately. And now they have joined forces and they are... fuck. I gotta go."
He waves and starts walking away with the phone already to his ear. I watch him go and I see it, the same confusion I felt in the early days, the same overwhelm of want and fear and the terrifying possibility that something good might be happening and not knowing what to do about it.
Mavi tugs my sleeve. "What was that about?"
I pull him in and kiss him, letting Mavi sag against me. When I pull back Mavi's eyes are soft and his cheeks are flushed. "It seems my cousin found two Omegas who think he’s irresistible."
Mavi's grin blooms, the real one with the sharp edge. "Two? At once?"
"They work him on his car stuff. And apparently they have decided he belongs to them and Koda has absolutely no idea what to do about it."
"Oh, that is going to be a disaster."
"The best kind."
Mavi starts laughing as he pulls me toward the car, obviously eager to be anywhere other than outside the dinner. Not that I can blame him.
"Personally," Mavi says as his voice drops to the register that still rewires my nervous system, "I would love to go back to the apartment and find a pretty Alpha on his knees for me. What do you think?"
I grin. "Sounds perfect to me."