Chapter 3
Little by little, the asphalt gave way to a gravel path that tore at the soles of his feet.
Ren clenched his teeth and kept running, each stride a new stab of pain, a tiny shard of glass or a sharp stone embedding itself in his tender skin.
It started raining more heavily. Like a second skin, the latex clung to his body, offering no defense against the cold that penetrated his core.
Behind him, the casino’s streetlights now stood.
Here the lighting was sparse: a solitary lamppost every hundred meters casting anemic pools of yellowish light onto the sidewalk.
The industrial zone surrounding the casino—closed warehouses, buildings with rusted metal shutters, empty parking lots—stretched in all directions like an urban wasteland.
Not a soul in sight. Only the patter of rain against the metal and his own ragged breathing.
He turned right on instinct, seeking to get away from the primary avenue. If they sent cars to look for him, the headlights would find him in seconds on a straight, open street. He needed cover. Alleys, vegetation, shadows. Anything that would swallow him up.
He ran for what felt like hours, though it was only minutes.
Gradually, the scenery underwent a transformation.
The warehouses gave way to larger lots, which were eventually succeeded by fenced-in plots bordered by tall hedges.
Behind stone walls and wrought-iron gates, the first houses emerged.
No, they weren’t houses. Those were states Front yards the size of parks, with manicured lawns and white gravel paths winding up to columned porches.
Expensive cars sat in the circular driveway.
A few windows glowed on an upper floor, but most of the facades remained dark, impassive, oblivious to the soaked, barefoot figure running past them.
The residential area for those who could afford VIP casino entry. The ones who bid on people.
A cramp bit into his left calf, and Ren came to a screeching halt, doubling over.
He rested his hands on his knees. The air stabbed at his throat; each breath was a sharp hiss.
His feet were bleeding; he could feel the warm moisture mixing with the rainwater between his toes.
His vision blurred for a moment, and he blinked hard, refusing to give in.
He raised his head. To his left, a group of ancient oak trees flanked the entrance to an unlit property. Their crowns intertwined, forming a dense canopy that the rain barely penetrated. Beneath it, the darkness was almost total.
He crawled over there. The overwhelming comfort of being sheltered from the downpour caused him to sag against the broadest tree, releasing a visceral sound that was part sob, part groan. Shut his eyes. Just for a second. Just so the world would stop spinning.
He opened his right fist.
The paper was a mess. Wet, crumpled, the ink smudged at the edges. But the center remained legible in the dim light filtering through the leaves. An address. Street, number. Nothing else. No name, no instructions, no promise.
Ren read it three times, forcing his exhausted brain to process the words.
He recognized it. Or thought he did. He had walked past that street two minutes ago, maybe three. One mansion in this very neighborhood, the one with high walls and obscene gardens. His stomach clenched.
Who was this Rocco? A croupier. Or a man disguised as a croupier.
He had slipped him that piece of paper with the precision of a pickpocket and whispered those words—when the lights go out, run—with the calm of someone who knows what’s going to happen.
A person who had orchestrated the blackout. Or who at least knew it would happen.
Why help him?
The obvious answer was the worst: he wasn’t helping him. He was redirecting him. From one cage to another. From the casino to a private mansion where no one would hear a thing. Where there would be no cameras, no witnesses, no pretense of a civilized auction. Just thick walls and silence.
His fingers trembled. He smoothed the paper against his thigh, as if the action might reveal some hidden meaning in that cramped handwriting.
But staying here wasn’t an option either.
The rain and the darkness protected him, yes.
For how long? By now they would have discovered the open emergency door.
Reznov had paid seven hundred thousand for him.
That kind of money doesn’t just vanish without consequences.
They’d send people. People with cars, with flashlights, with dogs.
A barefoot, penniless omega running through the streets of a residential area wasn’t invisible.
Reznov. Seven hundred thousand. His.
A chill that had nothing to do with the cold ran down his spine.
He folded the paper with clumsy fingers and tucked it under the sleeve of his overalls, where the warmth of his body might keep it dry. He stood up. His legs gave out for a moment, and he grabbed the oak trunk, the rough bark scraping his already raw palms.
Two options. The direction on the instructions or nothing.
Nothing meant continuing to run, barefoot, soaked, with the omega mark painted on every pore of his skin for any alpha who might cross his path at this hour of the night. No phone. No money. No documents. No one in this city would or could help him.
The address meant trusting a stranger.
Both choices were terrible.
He pulled away from the tree trunk. He took a step toward the sidewalk. Then another.
“Omega!”
The shout tore through the stillness of the residential street like a gunshot. Distant, perhaps two blocks away, but clear in the night’s silence. A male voice, deep, accustomed to giving orders.
“We know you’re here! There’s nowhere to go!”
Ren’s body reacted before his mind did. His legs moved on their own, the pain in his feet erased by a rush of adrenaline so violent it tasted like metal on his tongue.
He broke into a run toward the direction written on the paper, toward the trap or salvation, because the certainty of what he was leaving behind was worse than the unknown.
The rain pelted his face like tiny needles. His bare feet splashed against the wet asphalt, each stride a flash of pain shooting up from the soles of his feet to his knees. Ren turned the corner, skidding on the slippery sidewalk, and slammed into a wall of flesh.
The impact knocked the wind out of him. He bounced backward, the world tilting, and before he could regain his balance, a huge hand grabbed his left arm above the elbow. The fingers dug into his skin with the precision of a mechanical grip.
“Got you, pretty boy.”
The man was broad. Thick neck, square jaw, the dark suit jacket soaked and clinging to shoulders twice as wide as Ren’s.
One of the casino security guards. He’d seen him before, standing by the door to the auction room, hands crossed over his chest and the blank expression of someone herding cattle.
“Freeze. Don’t make me—”
Ren spat in his face.
It wasn’t a calculated move. It was pure instinct, disgust, the visceral reaction of a cornered animal that bites before thinking. The spit hit the man just below his right eye, and he blinked, startled, loosening his grip for just a second.
A second was enough.
Something ignited inside Ren. It wasn’t courage.
It wasn’t strength. It was something more primitive, a certainty that was born in his gut and rose through his chest until it filled his throat: he wasn’t going back.
He would not be Dimitri Reznov’s merchandise.
He would not kneel before him as compensation for seven hundred thousand dirty dollars.
He’d rather break his knuckles against this man’s jaw.
Rather fall and let this man beat him to death here, in the rain, than allow himself to be dragged back to that stage.
He was not going back.
Ren struck him with the heel of his palm on the nose.
Direct, sharp, with the technique he’d honed over years in cheap gyms and training sessions his family considered a ridiculous eccentricity for an omega.
The cartilage cracked under his hand. The man’s head snapped back, and a stream of dark blood spurted from his nostrils, mixing with the rain.
“Son of a—!”
The grip loosened. Ren didn’t wait. He spun on his left foot, planted his right, and drove his knee into the opponent’s groin with all the weight his sixty-odd-kilogram body could muster.
The man doubled over, his mouth open in a silent O, his eyes bulging.
The sound that came from his throat was high-pitched, almost feminine, and under any other circumstances it would have been downright comical.
Ren didn’t laugh. He grabbed the man’s head with both hands—the short hair slipping through his wet fingers—and slammed it down against his rising knee. The impact shot through his entire leg. The man fell sideways onto the sidewalk with a soft, wet thud.
He lay there. He didn’t move.
Ren took two steps back. His hands were shaking. The adrenaline turned his blood into hot acid circulating too fast, too strong. He could feel every beat of his heart in his ears, in his wrists, at the base of his throat. He looked at his palms. The right one had blood on it that wasn’t his.
The man groaned. He brought his fingers to his face. He tried to prop himself up on an elbow and slipped.
Ren broke into a run.
This time the terror was different. It was no longer the paralyzing fear of prey fleeing.
It was something sharp, lucid, allowing him to register every detail as his legs devoured the distance.
The street number on the corner—sixteen—the row of unlit streetlights to his right, the limestone wall separating two properties, the ivy climbing up it.
He counted the houses. He looked for numbers on the gates.
The rain was plastering his hair to his forehead, and he had to shake it back every few seconds to see.