Chapter 39 Major
thirty-nine
Major
Dominic leans against the hood of his car, bathing in the soft sun of the morning, eyes shielded by sunglasses.
I curse him loudly as I park my car behind his, my muscles sore from driving over three hours in pure tension.
I just had the best night of my life. I should have a fucking smile on my lips, but I’m pissed off instead.
He brought me to the middle of nowhere.
There’s nothing but vast vegetation on both sides of the highway, and the last signs of life disappeared at least an hour ago. I jump out of my truck and bang the door, rolling my shoulders back.
“Where the fuck are we?”
“Good morning, Major.” He sighs and pushes against the car, stepping my way.
My eyes go to a gun in the holster on the side of his hip. I know this is Texas, but he didn’t have one when he came to the ranch a few weeks ago. The gun is a reminder of how dangerous what we are about to do is.
“I just drove for hours without knowing if the baby was safe,” I say angrily. “You gave me nothing, Dominic.”
“I gave you an address.”
Barely. He gave me coordinates, and that should have been my first clue that he was fucking with me. At each mile, I cursed him out, and now that I have arrived here, wherever here is, I know for certain that he’s playing with me. There’s no baby to be seen.
“Inside.” He nods to his car.
I lock mine and go in with a curse hanging from my lips. If he sent me on a fool's errand, I might have to kill him on the spot. The moment the doors are closed, I turn to him, full of accusations.
Dominic opens his mouth to start, but then his nostrils flare, and he narrows his eyes at me. I still smell like her. There was no way to hide the scent after what we shared, and I didn’t want to. Our scent is blended into a delicious fragrance that I will wear proudly for the rest of my days.
“So you didn’t listen to me?” he says, cocking an eyebrow.
“This is none of your business.”
“It’s not,” he agrees, starting the car. “But it’s good advice anyway.”
He is not wrong, so I swallow down the hard words I have for him. We peel off the side of the road, pressing forward and away from my car. I sit in silence for a while, wondering how far west we still have to go until he interrupts my thoughts.
“They were holding me back for a while. I had this address, but they wanted to make sure Anderson was implicated enough that he wouldn’t retaliate after we take what he thinks is his.”
“I thought the Alliance didn’t believe there was anything wrong with St. James.”
He slices me a look. “They had to accept once I handed in my investigation. I’m assuming they didn’t email back asking for forgiveness.”
We both snort with the notion. Of course they never contacted me back to inform me I was right.
“They knew time was ticking, but they wouldn’t let me act.”
My eyes fall on the grip he has of the wheel. “What changed?”
“I was fired.”
I reel back. “Fired?”
He shrugs. “Disconnected from the Alliance is the term they used.”
Frustration rolls off me, and I shake my head. I don’t know him well enough to worry about his employment status. All I care about is finding Mirasol, and if he can’t anymore, he needs to spell it out for me.
“So what’s this about?”
“Calm down.” He shakes his head. “It worked well for you. Now that I’m not part of the Alliance anymore I can move without asking permission.”
I don’t hide my relief. My shoulders drop and I nod.
“Is it safe to take her?” I need to know if I have to hide Veda and Marisol after this is over.
“You don’t need to worry about that. Once we have the baby, I’ll take care of everything else.”
I nod.
“But that means we have no one with us. No back up,” he says in a hard tone. “Are you ready for this?”
“Yes.” There’s not a doubt in my mind. “Is she far?”
“A little farther. They are good at hiding their breeding houses.”
My whole body goes rigid. Fuck. A breeding house? “She’s in a breeding house?”
He doesn’t say anything for a moment, his eyes on the road, and I almost start shaking him for answers until the words come out of his mouth.
“They keep the babies with their mothers until it’s time to sell.
The breeding houses are equipped for babies.
I think keeping Veda with her child was a little too dangerous because she didn’t grow up in the same conditions as the other Omegas.
She needed to believe she was giving her daughter up for adoption. ”
Everything out of his mouth is so matter-of-fact, it makes me angry beyond belief. I’m not sure what I want him to do about it or what tone I want to hear, so I keep the anger to myself.
“Those are just my guesses. There’s a lot I don’t know yet,” he continues. “And I’ll never know now.”
I give in to curiosity. “Why were you fired?”
“The international Alliance accepted money from Angelcorp to fund their Omega-Alpha matching program. As of last week, Angelcorp is officially handling every pack pairing and has all our data in their greedy hands.”
I shake my head. “What is Angelcorp?”
He sighs, as if there’s a lot that I don’t know. And he’s right. I never trusted the Alliance, but it was my mistake to stay out of their business rather than pressure them to do better.
“They are a tech conglomerate. They have a lot of money, and that’s why the Alliance agreed to their sponsorship so quickly, while I find it odd that they want to throw so much money into our happily ever afters.” He chuckles darkly.
My face is closed, my eyes following the highway as I try to connect the dots. I don’t like to sound ignorant. I hate that since Veda entered our lives, I don’t fully understand the big picture. At each turn, I’m left feeling like my desire to keep my family safe isn’t enough.
Something in my expression must give away the inadequacy of my thoughts, because Dominic starts explaining without me having to beg for clarity.
“I told you about the program before,” he says.
“Yes, they found a lot of Omegas in South America, so they started to pair them with the packs all over.”
He nods. “Yes. Once an Omega is found, they run blood tests and pair her with the right pack that will scent-match with her.”
My mind goes to Veda and the celebration we should start today.
Jesse is contacting the township to let them know we found Mirasol, and we can’t go to the celebration today, but maybe she never needs to go at all.
All she has to do is get her blood tested while waiting at the ranch, and hopefully, a pack never matches her in the database.
“The program changed the lives of a lot of people,” he says, unaware of my conflicting thoughts.
“It’s extremely successful. So you must imagine that, for the first time in twenty years, the Alliance is not facing the doom of extinction but the hope of survival.
As more Alpha packs return home and send their blood, the more expensive the program becomes.
The database keeps growing, and then Angelcorp steps in and takes over the financial burden.
Of course, the Alliance is enamored and doesn’t realize the risks of giving a corporation like that all the information about our very fragile society. ”
“So they kick you out instead,” I finish for him.
He shrugs. “I don’t have anything on Angelcorp. I just raised concerns, but the way I was disconnected,” he says the word in a lot of anger, “makes me think I’m on to something.”
“What something?”
He shakes his head slowly, eyes hard, facing forward. “The important thing is that I got the address before they shut me down. My source says that’s where St. James moved the baby.”
The words behind the quick change of subject are clear.
There’s a lot more going on that I don’t understand.
I’m not particularly fond of Dominic, but even I have to admit he was trying to do something good within a failing organization.
My disinterest in the Alliance ended the moment Veda and Mirasol entered my life.
Now that I have something precious to take care of, for the first time, I find myself worried about the future of Alphas and Omegas everywhere.
It doesn’t surprise me that they suddenly realize that the extinction they have been dreading is not happening in other parts of the world. It’s baffling that they never went outside their own ass to connect with other countries when something like that was happening.
It makes me angry for young me, and for so many packs who lived their entire lives mourning something that could never be. The anger and the sadness intertwine in one as we push forward. Dominic is lost in thought, and I’m not much different, so we both are quiet for the remainder of the trip.