Chapter 40
forty
Hayden
This place is crazy.
And I’m saying that as someone who grew up with a live-in house cleaner and a nanny that referred to me as “Master Hayden.”
The main house is easily twice the size of any of the other homes in the neighborhood, and the fact that there’s an Olympic-sized swimming pool and a tennis court to my left and a full gazebo and garden to my right makes me feel like I’m at a country club, not a home.
That fact only adds to my uneasiness as I leave the guest house and walk across the cobblestone path that leads to the back of the main home. I can’t shake the eerie as fuck feeling that I’m being watched somehow.
The setting sun casts the yard in shadow, and I can’t help but think of all the spaces someone could hide if they wanted to catch me off guard. The back of my neck prickles with awareness, and I turn my head quickly, scanning the wall that surrounds the property.
There’s trees and bushes, but nothing that makes me think there’s someone actually watching us.
I’m probably just off. Maybe it’s the fact that I just watched my omega put a knife through my piece of shit dad’s brain, or maybe it’s the fact that I don’t feel guilty about it.
When I watched the blade embed itself in my sperm donor’s cold, heartless eye…
when I saw the life leave it and the flames consume him, all I felt was…
relief. I probably should feel bad. But once the fire engulfed his body, the same euphoria that always comes when I watch something go up in flames took over, and it was like I was in a trance.
Able to witness firsthand my freedom from the man who always made me feel like I wasn’t good enough. Like nothing I did mattered.
He’s gone.
He can’t send me back to Thornfield, he can’t try to make me marry some random woman I’ve never met.
I’m free.
Well, free from my dad. There’s still the whole matter of escaping crazy cultists who think that betas are superior and alphas and omegas should be removed from society.
I couldn’t believe all the bullshit he was spewing when he had Jo strapped to that table.
How had I never seen it before? I suppose I had only ever seen a different version of the same mask he wore with the rest of the country.
When I reach the back of the main house, there’s a few different doors to choose from.
They all look the exact same though, so how the hell do I know which one to go through?
Deciding that picking the door closest to the middle of the house is probably the best option, I approach it with more confidence than I feel.
I frown down at the doorknob. Is it…unlocked?
What am I going to do if it isn’t? Maybe I’ll just try the rest of the doors, and if that fails…
I’ll send out a smoke signal or something.
My fears are unfounded though, because the knob turns easily, and I crack it open, stepping inside a small sitting room.
Whoops. Guess I came in the wrong door.
“Hello?” I call out, taking another step. There’s a fireplace, two arm chairs, and a couch, all in the same gods-awful floral fabric that I can tell is scratchy as hell.
There’s a door to the right, as well as straight ahead. I know I need to just pick one and commit, but before I can, I hear footsteps and a hushed voice coming from just outside the door ahead of me. It's cracked open, and without thinking, I tiptoe over to it, hiding behind the door.
A female voice speaks quietly, but I don’t think it’s Adela. “...Yes. Five of them total. Three alphas, one beta, and a red-headed omega…” The voice goes quieter again, and I find myself leaning closer to the door, wondering what the hell is going on.
“Hayden?” The sound of Adela’s voice from behind me has me jumping. When I turn, she’s staring at me in confusion. “What are you doing?” Her hand rests on her belly as she stands in the doorway that I ignored only seconds before, and she looks even more tired than she did back at Thornfield.
“Hey,” I say quietly, taking a few hurried steps away from the door so whoever is talking outside the door doesn’t hear me. “I was just looking for you. We lost Jo’s heat suppressants when those assholes crashed into us. Is there any way we can get a hold of more?”
Adela gives me a confused look, her freckles wrinkling as she scrunches her nose. “Someone crashed into you? When?" Oh, right. We didn't tell her any details.
I wave her off. “Part of the shit you didn’t want to know.”
Understanding dawns on her. “Right. Okay, yeah, let me talk to Ellen. It should play into the whole lost luggage thing.”
I nod, my eyes darting back over to the cracked door.
I don’t hear the voice anymore. “Will…will you walk with me back to the guest house?” Was it Ellen who was reporting on us?
I suppose she could have been informing Vander or his dad of our arrival—though I would have assumed that would have been the guards’ job.
She gives me a grin. “Got too used to Jo protecting you? You need a strong lady to make sure you make it back to your pack okay?”
I chuckle, shaking my head. “What can I say? I need your Mama Bear instincts.”
“Come through here though. I’m not sure why that back door was even unlocked.” She motions to the door I came in through with her head, and then steps aside so I can follow her. This door leads to a kitchen, where a jar of peanut butter sits opened with a spoon sticking out of it.
“Just ignore that,” she laughs nervously, opening one of the double doors that leads to the back yard.
I hold my arm out for her to take and shoot her a smirk. “Ignore what?” There’s something about Adela that makes me feel like a protective big brother—or, what I’m assuming that feeling would be.
She laughs, taking my arm and patting it. “I missed having you around, Hayden.”
“Missed you too, Addie.” I sigh, running a hand over my hair. I need to ask her about Vander’s family, and why someone would be reporting on us. “Hey, so about Vander’s family…”
“Yeah,” her expression falls, “I can’t tell you a lot because I don’t know.
We met at boarding school, and he was…he was so mature.
Already working for his father while still in high school.
Before I got pregnant…all the secrecy, all the deflecting, it kind of made things…
exciting. Romantic. Now, though, it’s…” she shakes her head, blinking away tears.
“Nobody will say anything business related if I’m in the room.
Like I’ll walk in, and they’ll just…stop talking.
Or I’m told to let the men ‘handle their business’.
The trip he and his father are on right now?
They left two days after they picked me up from Thornfield and haven’t been back yet. It just keeps getting extended.”
Protective anger stirs in my chest on behalf of Adela. That was almost a week ago. “He just left you here by yourself? While you’re carrying his child, and due at any time?”
Grimacing, she shrugs. “His work is very important, or so they tell me. They do what they can though. They supply me with a phone, a car, and make sure I get the best prenatal care—all my needs are met.” Her words almost sound like they’ve been rehearsed, and there’s a hollowness to them.
“So well met in fact that I don’t doubt that Bertrand or Ellen have already reported back that my ‘cousin’ has come to visit me. ”
Okay, so I don’t think they’re on to us, but now I’m worried about Adela.
“Addie, if you’re in trouble—”
Her eyes widen as she looks around, and shakes her head vehemently. “No.” Then, she takes a step back, putting space between us. “No. I’m fine. I’m being perfectly well taken care of, though I do appreciate your concern.”
Her words have turned more formal, less relaxed as her hand returns to her belly.
That, combined with the fact that she had a burner phone already at her disposal, and her rehearsed words about the father of her child, has me worried.
“Adela.” My voice is probably more serious than she’s heard it, because she stutters to a stop, looking at me with a perplexed expression.
“You would let us help you, right? If things weren’t… good? You know Jo would—”
“That’s exactly what I’m afraid of,” she says quietly, then looks at me like she hopes I didn’t hear her.
We reach the door of the guest house, and before I can open it, she’s backing away.
“I need to talk to Ellen about the suppressants. Just…be careful while you’re here, please.
You’re safer in here than you are out there but…
” she lets out a frustrated huff, “nowhere is safe. Not really.”
Then, she leaves without looking back, and I frown after her, watching the little beta I’ve grown to love like a sister make her way back to the main house.