Chapter 29
Twenty-Nine
Strat
T he judge hated my guts. He was of the old school, where the only thing that would be worse than me being an Omega ADA, would be if I was a female Omega ADA.
According to him, and the other old-school judges with this way of thinking, women and Omegas belonged in the home, making sure it was perfect for their Alphas.
Gag.
With his name on the docket, I knew I’d have a tough time selling to him that the state had enough evidence to at least fine the men found at the event, if not give them jail time.
But Judge Chastain—the people in the office called him Judge Shitstain, though never to his face—already had it out for me. In the shortest pretrial of my career as a prosecutor, he found the evidence for everyone, except the garage owner and the bookie, to be too circumstantial to warrant a trial.
Half a dozen people had walked away with zero consequences for their cruelty. Otillie-James was going to be so angry. I strode out of the courtroom, stopping to talk to my associate and give him instructions, before making my way to the parking lot.
My heart sank, seeing no one there. Maybe she was angry at me? This was the first thing she’d asked of me, and I’d failed miserably.
I sighed heavily, turning back toward the courthouse. This was why I hadn’t moved into the Packhouse yet; maybe they’d wake up one day and find me defective, and then where would I be? Back home with my parents?
Fuck no.
My phone rang, and I was both relieved and terrified to see that it was her. “Hello?”
“Strat! I’m so sorry we aren’t there, but you’re never going to guess what happened!” Lance was muttering something in the background, which I didn’t think was a good sign. “That guy from the show? He walked out and got in the back of an SUV, and you’ll never guess who else was in it… Anthony Smalls.”
I frowned. That was surprising. “Okay…” I said suspiciously. “And where are you now?”
Deep down, I already knew. If I’d learned anything about Otillie-James, it was that she was impulsive as hell, and I doubted Lance would be able to temper that impulsiveness much. He would give in.
“We’re trailing their car?—”
“Otillie!” I interrupted, and she hushed me. That damn Omega who’d crawled her way under my skin hushed me.
“Stop being a worrywart, Strat. I have Lance with me. He can kill a man with a spork and a rubber band.” She said something to our Beta, but it was muffled, like she’d covered the microphone of the phone. “Not that he’ll need to do anything like that. We are just surveilling them. I want to see where they go.”
I sighed, pinching the bridge of my nose. This girl was going to give me gray hairs. “Need I remind you that the last time you surveilled anything, you ended up in a holding cell? ”
Otillie-James just laughed at me, and I was beginning to see why she made Truett so stressed. Honestly, though, this was something I loved about her. I wouldn’t change her for the world.
Sighing, I stepped back inside the foyer of the courthouse. “Okay, but only looking. Do not do anything rash. Lance, do not let her do anything rash. Observe, then we’ll go from there. And you better call me as soon as you’re on your way back. I’ll be at the office. You two owe me lunch.”
She promised and hung up the phone, and I tried not to worry. Lance wouldn’t let anything happen to her. He might have no care for himself, but he would protect her with his dying breath.
Not for the first time, I impulsively wished we were bonded, so that I could feel her emotions down a soul-deep connection between us. So that I would always know she was okay.
Wherever they’d gone, they didn’t arrive home until late in the afternoon. By then, I was going insane. I’d left work early, unable to concentrate, and headed back to the Packhouse. My energy definitely wasn’t helping the two Alphas in the house either, and it was only the message from Otillie-James saying they were on their way home that stopped Sonny and Truett from jumping in the car and going to retrieve her from wherever the hell she was.
I should’ve been soothing them, or they should’ve been soothing me, but Otillie-James was our core. It was wild how much she’d come to mean to me in this last month.
I sat by the dog on the porch, Akio watching the setting sun right along with me. I buried my hands in his fur, and he leaned against my legs as we watched a car come down the drive. Recognizing Otillie-James’s Fiat, I breathed a sigh of relief. Thank fuck.
Sonny was out the door first, but Truett was close behind him, and they bounded down the steps. They were at the passenger door before the car had even rolled to a stop. Sonny pulled the door open, and Truett had her out of the car and into his arms before the ignition was off.
“OJ, you can’t fucking do this anymore! Do you know how much you stressed out our Omega?” Truett indicated where I sat on the front porch, and I frowned. He’d been stressed too.
Guilt washed over her face, but then I took in her posture, her eyes.
She’d found something.
I was down the steps immediately, tugging her from their arms and into mine. “What happened?”
She shook her head and burst into tears. Her wracking sobs were like bullets to my chest. I held her closer, lifting her into my arms, and walking into the house. Lance would debrief the guys. He would find the words that seemed to be escaping Otillie.
I sat gently down on the couch, just holding her to me as she cried. I rubbed her back and murmured reassuring things that were probably nonsense.
Eventually, she stopped crying, just rubbing her face over my chest and clothes. She was marking me. Did she even know what she was doing?
My heart swelled, and I marked her back. I rubbed my face over her hair, stroking her scent gland at the back of her neck. I touched every part of her I could, my Omega becoming more and more frenzied with each touch, until I was almost tearing at her clothes. Sonny appeared in front of us, his hands gripping Otillie-James, like he was trying to take her from me.
No. No one can take her from me.
I growled at him, and he squatted down until we were face-to-face. “Easy, Omega. I’m just going to clean her up and give you a moment to calm. It’s okay. She’s safe with me.” His voice was soft, soothing. Almost a purr.
It took every one of my higher reasoning skills to talk myself into loosening my hold on her. With one last kiss across her lips, I let her go. I watched him carry her toward the bathroom, her arms around his neck, and his huge body dwarfing hers.
Truett slid into the seat beside me. He gripped my thigh, his thumb rubbing in circles on my skin, until it was all I could focus on. Once my heartbeat had calmed, he leaned over and kissed me. “It’s okay, Strat. She’s fine, safe. I need you to come back to me, because we need to talk about what they found.”
He handed me Otillie-James’s phone. There were pictures on the screen: dogs in cages, battered and scarred, cats that looked half dead. Other animals that I couldn’t discern from the pictures, but I would bet there were at least a few roosters.
I flicked through more and more pictures, and I understood why Otillie-James was so distressed. Some of these were awful. If I hadn’t seen the worst humanity had to offer on a daily business, I would’ve been distressed too.
Swallowing down the last of my Omega hysteria, I looked past Truett to Lance. His face was shut down almost completely, his gaze running over my face. Whatever had happened today had hurt him too. Probably her turmoil. An Omega’s distress was a powerful thing.
“Tell me everything. But first, tell me you didn’t let Otillie close enough to take these herself.”
Lance shook his head, and it didn’t surprise me that he was standing in an at-ease position. Defaulting back to his military training in a time of crisis was textbook PTSD. “No. I took the pictures.”
“Obviously, because one of you is highly trained in reconnaissance by the finest military in the world, and the other got caught with a cock up her shirt by arguably the shittest cop known to man,” Truett pointed out, clearly trying to lighten the mood.
I huffed an almost-laugh. Even Lance’s lips twitched—at least, until he continued. “We followed the redhead and Anthony Smalls to a warehouse on the south side. They both got out and went inside. The buildings around it were empty, but there was a shitty little deli that we parked in front of, like we wanted salmonella and a hot dog, hold the hot dog.” Shaking his head, he added the part we all knew was coming. “Otillie-James wanted to go check the warehouse out, but I thought that was a bad idea.”
No shit.
“So I told her to stay, while I went around the back. I scaled the side of the building to the skylights and looked inside. Needless to say, I was pretty sure they weren’t there rescuing the animals in those cages. I couldn’t hear what they were saying from the outside, but they looked comfortable. Not like they were there freeing those animals.”
Rubbing my temples, I pushed down my rage. “So we think Anthony Smalls is using his rescue as a front?”
Truett nodded. “It’s the perfect front, if you think about it. They get a free, steady supply of animals, and no one pays any attention if those animals disappear again quickly. They can just say they were adopted by people who didn’t want to be filmed. If they manage to actually adopt a couple out, they’d film it as success stories. Who would even know?”
“And what do we think he’s doing with the rest of the animals?”
Lance looked over his shoulder to ensure that Otillie-James was nowhere in hearing distance. “I think he’s using them in dogfighting rings, or as bait animals. Cockfights are an obvious one now too. Do you know that over a quarter of dogs in shelters and on the euthanasia list are pitbulls or similar breeds? He’d be taking them from kill shelters with the promise of adopting them out, then just shove them in dogfights.”
My stomach turned. It really was the perfect front. That son of a bitch. “I’ll talk to some detectives I trust. His days are numbered; he just doesn’t know it yet.”