Chapter 28 Jo
twenty-eight
Jo
Amale omega?
I’ve never met one in real life, and they are rare as hell.
“What the fuck?” Sam snaps, his anger coming out full-force. “This is something you should have told us about!”
“Language,” Whitney chides, shaking her finger. “We are only warning you because he does have a…scent. His body stopped reacting to the suppressants a few months ago. Not even his daughter knows he’s an omega.”
“I…” I shake my head, at a loss for words. “This is so not what I was expectin’. I’ve never met a male omega.”
“It…caused some issues when he started to date Adela’s mother.” She leans forward, like she’s about to tell the world’s biggest secret. “She was an alpha.”
Welp, that explains it. Female alphas are just about as rare as male omegas.
Suddenly, I have a feeling I know exactly what Isaac Thornfield and Roland Olivier had their argument about. If he found out the best friend he always thought was a beta was actually the designation he had been raised to hate…I don’t see how that could go well.
I open my mouth to say something, but then Sam is hissing, “Shit!” and putting his arms over my head. Heart pounding, I glance out the front windshield to see a man standing there in ratty jeans and a T-shirt, a damn shotgun aimed at the car.
It’s nearly impossible to tell what he’s yelling about, but I think I get the gist.
He thinks we’re intruders.
Which, I guess, we are.
But then Christopher throws the door open. “Roland! Roland, it’s us! It’s just us! Put the damn gun down!”
Despite his haggard appearance, Roland really is quite pretty. His lips are lifted in a snarl as he barks, “Who the hell are they?”
He must’ve been pretty young when he had Adela, considering he can’t be much older than forty.
“You know,” Whitney huffs, shuffling out of the backseat, “if you hadn’t refused to have a cell phone, we could have had West call you. But instead, you made us trek all the way out to the middle of the forest like we’re…” she lifts her hands in frustration, “mountaineers!”
“Why would West need me?” He frowns, the shotgun lowering slightly.
West opens his door. “Mr. Olivier, I need to speak to you, please. It’s about Adela.”
Roland’s face pales as the gun clatters to the ground. “Addie? Is she okay? Is the baby okay?”
Well, this is not the reaction of a man who sent his daughter away for being pregnant.
I try my luck, stepping out of the car. “She’s okay—for now. But we—West really needs to speak to you.”
West’s parents look shocked as hell. “What baby?” Whitney hisses to her husband.
“Who are you?” he asks, nostrils flaring as I step closer, and I catch his sour lemon scent, no doubt intensified by his worry. “You’re…an omega?”
I move closer, keeping my voice low so nobody else can hear me.
“I am, I work at Thornfield Asylum with West and my alpha, Sam.” His eyes widen in alarm as I point to Sam, who is now stepping out of the car.
My voice lowers further as I reach out and place a hand on his arm.
“So, like I said, we really need to speak with you. Without West’s parents. ”
“Thornfield?” His eyes nearly bug out, an incredulous look on his face. “What? Why—”
I shake my head and meet his eyes. If they even so much as mention what we’re here to do to Isaac, he could tell Xavier, and then Adela will be back in Thornfield faster than we can blink.
Something passes between us. Something silent, but no less immense. An understanding. From one omega who fought their designation too long to another.
“Okay,” he nods once, “West, Sam, and…” he looks at me.
“I’m Jo.” I give him a small smile.
“Jo.” He takes a deep breath. “You guys come inside with me. Christopher and Whitney, I need you two to wait out here.”
Whitney rolls her eyes. “Sure, sure. We don’t have anywhere to be.”
We sit next to what looks like a suspiciously large nest.
We’d barely sat down when he demanded, “What do you mean Thornfield, why would my baby girl be there?”
West’s brows shoot up. “Adela was under the impression that you sent her there for being pregnant and refusing to ‘get rid of’ the baby.”
Roland’s face morphs first to shock, then to heartbreak. The kind that you can’t fake. “She…no, of course I didn’t. I…” He chokes on his words, shaking his head as tears fill his eyes. “She…there’s been a mistake somewhere. Xavier said—”
“Xavier?” The word comes out sharper than intended.
He sniffs, nodding. “Xavier Bowen. Addie is with his son…he’s the father of the baby.”
“What did he say?” West asks gently.
“I...I was at work when she called and left me a voicemail about…being pregnant, but when I tried to call her back, she…she never answered me. Xavier reached out, telling me that she found out about my real designation and that she’s…
disgusted with me. That she never wanted to see me again.
I tried to tell him I wanted to hear it straight from her, but she never returned any of my calls.
I showed up at their house, but they wouldn’t let me in.
Xavier came out, saying that seeing me would be too distressing in ‘her state’ and that I needed to let it go.
That she was only six months away from turning eighteen and then…
he handed me paperwork for…emancipation.
A judge had already signed it, and I figured she had to be in good health if someone like that signed off on it.
” He scoffs, shaking his head. “I feel like such an idiot. I should have tried harder, demanded to see her—”
My hand lands on his back in a comforting gesture, and neither of my guys make a peep as he lets out a shuddering breath. Something about him being an omega means that they know I have some sort of kinship with him.
“I could only take the rejection for so long,” he sniffs, wiping his nose. “When my suppressants began to fail not long after, I figured I’d just…disappear like I never existed. They can’t expose my designation and ruin my daughter if I don’t exist.”
My heart breaks for the man in front of me.
Sam curses, and West frowns, pulling out his cell phone. “But she…” Roland looks around. “She thinks I’m the one who sent her there? Is she still there?”
“Not anymore…” I frown. “When she turned eighteen, Vander came and got her out. But now Xavier is threatenin’ to send her back.”
“What?” He shoots to his feet, fury written all over his face. “Why would he do that?”
I sigh and exchange a look with Sam and West. He needs to understand just what is at stake here, and to do that, he needs to know everything.
Sam gives me a grim nod, and West sighs, running a hand over his face before he launches into an explanation.
He details everything from my mission to find my sister, to my friendship with Adela, to how they made us fight, sent me to the Cathedral, and how my guys rescued me.
Every admission from Brooks, Senator Pierce, and Xavier himself.
I watch as Roland’s face morphs from confusion, to disbelief, to outrage.
“Experimentation?” Roland is pacing in front of his fireplace, trying to process everything we’ve just told him. “Designation nullification? This is crazy. I know Isaac. He may have hated that I was an omega, but he—”
The door to the cabin opens, and Whitney and Christopher stand in the doorway, serious expressions on their faces. Christopher runs a hand over his face. “He is exactly the kind of money-hungry elitist who would do something like that.”
West shoots to his feet, his expression panicked. “Mom, Dad—”
“We came to check on you, since you were taking so long, and we caught some of the words you were saying…well, we listened.” Whitney looks physically pained. “West, how could you not tell us what was really going on? What our home is actually being used for?”
West opens his mouth to answer, but Christopher beats him to it. “He thought we were in on it.”
Whitney looks between the two of them, her crestfallen face taking in the truth of her husband’s statement. “Weston…”
“I didn’t know, okay?” My beta looks torn. “I didn’t know if you were involved, and I couldn’t risk it. If you say a single word to Thornfield, he will run to Xavier, Adela will get sent right back to the asylum, and we can’t let that happen.”
“Of course not.” Whitney nods, her tone decisive. “She’s still just a child, and she’s innocent.”
“How much did you hear…exactly?” Sam clears his throat, glancing at me.
“I will admit…we did not wait very long before checking on you.”
My stomach drops. Great. So now they know everything.
But what really gets me is the growing sense of boldness coming from West’s side of the bond.
“Then I’ll just come out and say it,” West clears his throat as he moves to me, grabbing my hand and pulling me up before wrapping an arm around my shoulder.
“Jo is my omega.” His parents’ heads turn toward me so fast I’m surprised they don’t give themselves whiplash.
“I’m her beta. We’re all part of a pack with Sam, the bastard son of the leader of the Russian Mafia, and an oddly chipper pyromaniac.
They’re my pack. My…family.” His throat bobs as he swallows.
“And if you have a problem with that, then we can just part ways now.”
There’s a moment of silence as Christopher and Whitney absorb the bomb that West just dropped. My heart races, and sweat beads at my brow as I imagine them sizing me up, calculating my worth and how I measure up to their son.
Turns out, I not only have daddy issues, but mommy issues as well.
Full-on…parental issues.
At least Kole and Hayden pretty much hated their dads, so fuck their opinions. I managed to make a good impression on Ozzy since the whole saving his life thing, but West’s parents? They’re intimidating as hell.
But West is full of a strange mix of anxiety and defiance as he stares them down, daring them to speak against me.
Imagine my surprise when Whitney closes the distance between us and wraps me in a hug.
“You…” she chokes on her words, and it’s only when I feel the drops on my back that I realize she’s crying. She pulls away, bracing her hands on my arms as she looks at me. “As a mother, all you ever want is for your adult children to have someone to love them. Tell me—do you? Love him?”
My throat goes tight as I nod. “Very much, ma’am.”
“Well, that’s all that matters then, isn’t it? You must have a very big heart, Jo.”
“To her own detriment, at times,” Sam snorts, earning a glare from me.
Christopher clears his throat. “I’m not going to pretend to understand how any of this works, or how you could be okay sharing your woman—” he cuts off at a growl from Sam before rolling his eyes, “but I’m not going to try to stand in the way of anything.
We’re just…glad you have someone. Someones.
We were starting to get worried about you. ”
“This is all good and well,” Roland cuts in, huffing a little, “but we still don’t have a clear plan on how we’re going to keep my daughter out of Thornfield. If what you’re saying is true, Isaac will do anything Xavier says.”
“He will,” Christopher confirms, frowning. “It’s strange, some of the things he would confide in me about wouldn’t make much sense. About how he’s losing autonomy over his business, but the money is too good to pass up. Looking back, I feel like an idiot that I didn’t see it sooner.”
“Willful ignorance.” I shrug. “Things were good for you, so you ignored the red flags.”
He opens his mouth as if he might want to argue, then snaps it shut before sighing. “I suppose you're right.”
West chuckles, his fingers threading through mine. “She is, most of the time.”
“Which is why y’all should listen carefully when I say these next words, even though they go against every instinct.
” I take a deep breath, knowing my next sentence will cause a riot.
But our position is clear. We can’t give Brooks back to Xavier, and we don’t have any sort of leverage to keep him from following through on his threat.
“We need to let Adela get sent back to Thornfield.” I hold up my hands as Roland sputters, and I feel West’s and Sam’s shock from inside the bond.
“Our only option is to expose it for what it is and intercept her before she walks through the door. Metaphorically, physically, it doesn’t matter.
Thornfield Asylum for the Criminally Insane is burnin’ to the ground. ”