Chapter 73
SEVENTY-THREE
LAUREL
My footsteps echoed on the polished floor as I walked across the empty Ringside.
It had been a few days since Madison’s torture, and I could move about more now without my shoulder wound tearing open.
My schedule had also been busy, as Vivienne had packed it full of engagement events, but I had some free time now.
I was wearing casual clothes, and my hair was tucked into Kaos’s beanie.
He’d caught me stealing it when he wasn’t wearing it, and instead of taking it back, he’d tucked a loose golden curl inside and pressed a kiss to the top of my head.
I was still wearing his shirt as well, and being surrounded by so much of his scent was making my inner omega incredibly happy. I was kind of embracing it, especially after the results of my visit to the omega clinic. Though I wasn’t sure how to tell them what I’d found out.
Crossing to the betting booths, I slipped down the back corridor until I reached a single black door. I put in the code and stepped inside the staff bunks. I was going to meet Jade; apparently, she had an update from her contact.
My uncle Marcus was in charge of this area, and it seemed he didn’t bother with it much.
The corridors were dimly lit, and the doors to the rooms were old, covered in scratches and graffiti.
There were two kinds of people Marcus employed down here.
The regular shady kind that got paid well and went home after work.
And then there were the debtors, like Casey, who paid “rent” to live on site here.
I walked down one corridor until I reached the common area, spotting Jade seated at a fold-out table, playing cards with a couple of the other staff.
Casey was standing at the sink, washing a mountain of dishes.
His shoulders were tense, and he wasn’t even looking at the pot he was scrubbing; he was watching Jade as she drummed her fingers on the linoleum surface.
I paused at the entrance, and Jade pushed some more cash into the pile in the center.
She glanced up and gave me a grin. I felt a little bad for the people Jade was playing against; she cheated extremely well.
“Give me two minutes,” she said, and the other men at her table glanced up curiously. Thankfully, they didn’t seem to recognize me. I crossed over to Casey, who looked at me in surprise.
“Oh!” he said, “Miss—”
“Elle,” I cut in, with a pointed look at the other staff.
Casey nodded. “I wasn’t expecting you.”
“Shouldn’t you be sleeping?”
He shrugged. “The dishes needed doing,” he said, and glanced back at Jade, shifting on his feet. I followed his gaze to where Jade sat, her small frame dwarfed by the other males sitting around the table.
“Let me help,” I said, rolling up my sleeves and grabbing a dish cloth. I started drying, and Casey told me where to put things away. I had to be a bit careful because of my shoulder, but my bond mark wasn’t feeling as bad as before.
A curse drew my attention back to the table, where they were revealing their hands.
“Tough luck, fellas,” Jade said, reaching for the cash in the betting pool.
“Hold on,” one of the older men snapped, grabbing her hand. “If you think I’m letting a little shit like you get away with that, you’re wrong.”
“You have five seconds to let go of my arm,” Jade said coldly.
Casey had turned around, and he walked over to the table. He folded his arms, the rubber gloves squeaking and getting his apron wet. “Is there a problem?” he asked, his voice hard. He glared daggers at the man who had grabbed Jade.
“It’s just—”
“And five,” Jade said, whipping out a knife and jamming it into the man’s hand. He howled, lurching backward, and Jade swept the winnings into her fanny pack without any further protest. She stood up and turned to Casey. “Thanks for having my back,” she said with a wink. “I had it, though.”
The man was muttering curses under his breath as his friends led him away.
Casey’s hard look was gone, replaced by worry. “They might not let that go,” he told Jade. “Does your room lock?”
“Nah, it’s busted,” Jade said with a shrug and a mischievous grin. “Maybe I could stay in your room for a bit?
Casey’s mouth opened and closed, but no sound came out. His face was turning a bright shade of red. “Um, okay,” he managed. “For…safety.”
Jade winked at him. “Okay, peaches. Now, go get some sleep.”
“But the dishes…” Casey said.
Jade snorted and reached around his belly to untie his apron. He bent down so she could pull it over his head, his eyes wide with awe.
“I’ll finish them. Though why you decided to do them for everyone is beyond me.”
“We were out of plates,” Casey replied.
“Go to bed,” Jade said firmly, spinning him around and giving him a push. He started walking, giving us one last glance. “Walk?” Jade said, looping her arm in mine. We started toward the door.
“You and Casey?” I asked, when he was out of earshot. “Thought you went for more mature guys?”
She’d caught me up on her love life; most of her flings had been way older than us.
“Those weren’t serious.”
“So Casey is?” I asked.
She shrugged, glancing over her shoulder. Her expression softened. “I’ve never met anyone like him,” she admitted. Her cheeks were going a bit pink. “He’s literally the nicest person ever.”
“Does he still think you’re a guy?” I asked when the door to the dorms was firmly shut behind us.
“Yeah.”
“You should tell him. He really seems to like you. What if he’s gay, and you break his heart?”
“He’s not,” Jade said. “We had an adorably awkward conversation about it, and he swings both ways.”
“You should still tell him before it gets that far.”
Jade rolled her eyes. “Okay, fine. By the way, is that skeleton boy’s beanie?”
I felt my cheeks go a bit hot. “Don’t change the subject. And I needed to hide my hair,” I told her. We’d reached a loose panel that was one of the ways into the secret crawlspace. “Oh, uh, are we going to the hangout?”
“Yeah. Safe space and all,” she said, slipping inside the wall.
“I may have taken it over. A bit. And it’s kind of my nest now,” I explained, following her.
She paused. “Should we go somewhere else?”
I hesitated. “No, but maybe we’ll just sit outside?” I said, trying not to think of her getting her scent in the main pile.
Before, I would have welcomed her, but since I’d bonded the Seo pack, I just wanted their scents inside it. I’d stolen Finch’s suit jacket when he’d left it in the VIP suite, and I’d brought it in my backpack today to slip it inside after I’d met with Jade.
We climbed up, slower than usual because of my shoulder, and were just one floor away from our hideout when Jade paused.
“You checked all Jule’s stash points, right?” she asked. “Even the one here?”
“There was one here? Since when?”
“Oh, maybe just Jule and I used it,” she said, walking along a dusty beam and opening a seemingly empty box.
“Aha!” Jade called, pulling out Jule’s old school backpack. “Who’s the best?”
“Jule,” I said and she snorted.
She unzipped the bag, and I crossed over to look inside. She swore and slowly pulled out a long, grey scarf. Her face had paled.
“What?” I asked, concerned.
“This is my scarf,” she said, staring at it. I heard her swallow. “I thought I lost it. I guess he stole it.
I took the bag from her, leaving her holding the scarf. I peered inside. It looked like a go-bag, packed with granola bars and expired bottles of electrolyte water. Scent blockers and a change of clothes. Even some cash tucked inside.
I glanced up at Jade again, who sniffed. She snatched the bag out of my hand and shoved the scarf back inside. “C’mon babe,” she said, nodding up to the hangout space. “I’ll tell you what I found.”
I climbed to the platform and settled outside the main area. Jade sat down next to me, shoving the backpack into the corner.
“So,” she said, dangling her feet over the ledge. “The hunt for Jule. My friend got access to the trafficking records. The police have like, years worth of them.”
“And?”
“It’s really weird. He looked up the records from the date you gave me—the times he was put in the cages. And there is an entry of a male being sold from the Crimson Palace.”
“So it could be him?”
Jade frowned. “No. This is the weird part. It was for a male omega.”
“What?”
“Yeah.”
She showed me the picture of the document on her phone.
I’d given her a list of names my family used for shell companies, gathered from the conversations I’d recorded over the years.
Red Horizons, showing a transaction dated for when Jule had been in the cells.
I frowned at the number on the tag line as she explained the way the ring had coded their sales and that this was a male omega.
“What if he’d bonded this omega?” I asked slowly. Jade’s face shuttered, her mouth drawing into a thin line. I winced. “Sorry. It just…it makes sense. Father had him dragged to the cages for a reason. A bond’s permanent, and Father would have lost it on Jule.”
“Sure,” Jade muttered, drawing her knees up and wrapping her arms around them. She was still just staring out into the darkness in front of us.
“So, my father found out and sold this omega.”
“Then whoever bought him killed him. It’d explain Jule’s suicide,” she said.
My heart squeezed painfully. “If Jule actually committed suicide, why would my father have a fake body?” I insisted.
“Fine,” Jade said. “So he ran away. Ditched us to go rescue his mate. Now they’re living happily ever after in Canada or some shit.”
“He wouldn’t just abandon me like that,” I said. “You know he wouldn’t.”
“Do I?” Jade’s voice wobbled, and she gave a small laugh. “Did he ever tell you why I left?”
“He wasn’t really talking to me much, after he presented,” I said tentatively. “You just left me that note. I figured you guys had a fight.”
I blinked as I remembered it. The note itself was long gone, but the words were burned into my memory.
Jade reached out a hand to squeeze mine. “Sorry babe,” she said. “I—we slept together. It was right before he claimed his aura.”
I was silent. I’d always figured it would be inevitable; they were obsessed with each other. But the way Jade said it, it didn’t sound like a good thing.
“I thought…that he cared about me, y’know? I was so happy.”
The misery was pouring off her in waves, so palpable, even in her beta scent, that it drew a whine from my lips. I moved closer, holding her hand in my lap. Thick tears were rolling down her face.
“He stayed the next morning. He…was nice. He said he’d completely deny it if I tried to tell anyone, though.”
I snorted, and she gave a wet laugh, wiping her face on her sleeve. She rested her head on her knees, sniffing.
“Then he left, and he just…ghosted me. I thought maybe his phone was broken or something, but he was gonna take me to a movie the next day and he never showed. When I finally tracked him down, it was like he was a different person. I knew he was an alpha, his scent was so strong. And I thought maybe he was off because of your dad, because he’d never wanted to become one.
But he brushed me off when I tried to talk to him.
Mocked me for thinking he was serious about the movie.
We ended up in this screaming match, and he made it pretty clear he’d just wanted a quick fuck but he couldn’t ‘waste any more time with a beta.’”
She wiped her face again, more aggressively this time. “Sorry. I should be over it by now. I just…I thought I knew him, but I was so wrong. So I don’t think we should rule out the possibility he just fucked off and left us.”
I kept my mouth closed as I rubbed her back. “Wait, right before he claimed his aura? That meant he was dressing up for you that night.”
“What do you mean?” Jade asked.
I looked at her. “Did you not know why he got thrown into Blood Court?”