Chapter 73
Chapter Seventy-Three
~Harlow~
Instead of going to my regular station, I make my way up the stairs to the VIP section to find Bree working behind the bar upstairs. She smiles and waves me over to her, and I quickly rush toward her and what little safety there is behind the bar.
"Thanks for coming in," she says before looking downstairs toward the lower bar.
"That man down there came in twenty minutes before you did," she tells me, nodding toward Jake and glancing down at him nervously.
"He knows your name."
I swallow and nod.
"As Harlow," she whispers. Tal and Bree know my real identity now, yet the fact he figured out where I work and came here frightens me.
"Apparently, he was here last night, asking about you," Bree tells me.
Now that worries me. I don't offer her an explanation. Though it makes me curious as to why he is here.
"His name is Jake. He’s the Alpha responsible for killing my sister. She took my place in his pack," I tell her. Saying that out loud makes the sickly feeling in my stomach worse, remembering how angry he was when he found out he had the wrong Omega.
"Stay up here today; I’ll have Shane stay in case he gives you a hard time," Bree tells me, giving my arm a squeeze before going downstairs. She is due on stage in twenty minutes. I hate the idea of being here by myself, but know it can't be helped. Besides, Shane will step in if he tries anything.
I set to work, trying to ignore Alpha Jake the best I can, yet he remains most of the day.
When I think he is finally getting up to leave, relief fills me, but it is only temporary.
Instead, he comes to the top bar, where I am.
Shane, the security guard, watches him closely and never leaves my side.
But his presence is becoming harder and harder to ignore.
"Are you going to ignore me all day," Jake asks.
"Yep, I have nothing to say to you," I tell him while sliding the drink he ordered over to him. He sighs.
"Does Thane know you are working here?" he asks, and my hands stop what they are doing as I wipe the counter down.
"Chill, I won't tell him. That isn't why I am here," he tells me, and I return to my cleaning.
"So why are you here?" I snap at him.
"Are you happy with your mates, Harlow?"
I glance at him. Do I look happy? I could be at work with them, but instead, I’m sneaking around behind their backs, trying to find a way out of this city that isn't going to have me eating out of dumpsters and sleeping in alleyways.
Jake moves closer and leans over the bar before whispering. "Zara sent me," he says, and I grit my teeth.
"You're lying. Your pack killed her," I snap at him, and he leans back, looking toward where Shane stands watching him. Yet as long as he doesn't try to grab me, he will remain where he is.
"No, we realized as soon as she was brought to us that she hadn't bloomed. We aren't monsters, despite what the media says about my pack."
"You knew and forced her anyway?" I ask, glaring at him. Jake shakes his head.
"Once an Omega is bought, marked, and mated, a pack can't take another; Zara bloomed the next day," Jake tells me, looking around. "Think about what I am saying, Harlow," he whispers, unbuttoning his shirt. He jerks the collar aside, revealing his neck.
"We waited, would have waited forever if need be. She begged us to save you. Said that you promised each other to never be separated. The only way for a pack to have two Omegas is if one is dead," he tells me.
"We gave her my serum when she bloomed. I tried to buy you for her.
When I found out Thane used his last serum on you, I convinced her to let you stay with him.
He is a good man, and I knew you would be safe with him.
But then you killed his mother and went on the run.
We have spent the last two years searching for you, hoping we would find you before he could get his hands on you," he tells me.
"You're lying. Packs can have more than one Omega. And even if what you're saying is true, how did you get away with faking her death?"
Jake sighs.
"Why would I lie, Harlow? As for your other question, I can’t tell you here.
Too many ears. But ask your mates. The laws changed three weeks before Zara came to us.
They made it stricter. Once marked and mated, that is the only Omega for the pack.
No new ones, and those that do take another are heavily penalized. "
"So, Thane can't take another Omega?" I ask him.
"Not unless he wants to pay over a million dollars in fines. Not that he can't afford it, but why risk it when you have his last serum running in your veins," Jake tells me, buttoning up his shirt.
"Omegas are becoming rarer. It is also why the council is so quick to chuck Omegas into rotation these days, trying to bring population numbers up.
One thing goes wrong, and an Omega is forced into the rotation—parking ticket, arrears in rent—the council has become desperate.
I wouldn't have been able to bid on you had they known Zara was alive. "
"You could just be saying all this. Those marks could be from anyone in your pack," I tell him.
"I could be, but when I saw you, saw how frightened you were, I stuck around. I found out you worked here. I knew once Thane figured out who you are, he would want your head."
"Then prove she’s alive, call her," I tell him, knowing I would recognize her voice anywhere.
Jake shakes his head. "No, we just got her to a good place. I am not getting her hopes up only for you to decide not to come. So again, Harlow, do you want my help in getting out of here?" he asks.
How can I trust him? For all I know, he could be the one who killed Thane's mother and set me up. He could whisk me away only for me to find out my sister is indeed dead.
"What do you mean about her not being in a good place?" I ask him.
"Our pack has lost a lot. I am not willing to lose my mate or this baby by destressing her," he tells me.
My sister is pregnant? That makes no sense. She’s dead. I saw the autopsy report.
"Then how am I supposed to believe you if you won't let me speak to her?" I tell him.
He slides a folded piece of paper over to me. "My number. I am staying in town until my meeting on Friday with Thane. Decide before then. I have to leave on Friday to get back to my family," he says, standing up and sliding his stool under the bar.
"Did you have anything to do with Thane's mother's death?" I ask. His brows pinch.
"No, you killed her. Didn't you?" he asks, seemingly genuinely perplexed. I shake my head.
"But Thane thinks you did?"
"He won't let me explain. They have some shitty grainy footage of me leaving a restaurant with his mother before she died. But I didn’t do it. We were run off the road and attacked after that. She told me to run."
"Can you prove this?" he asks. I shake my head, knowing I can't. No one else was on the road besides the people that tried to capture me.
"Have you told Thane this?" he asks.
"I tried; he wouldn't listen," I admit.
"I'll look into it. But remember, Harlow, Friday. Decide by then or I will leave without you," he says before leaving.
I am so confused. He was acting very differently when I saw him at the office a couple weeks ago. Like two completely different people, and I don't know which version of him to trust. If he is right about the laws changing around Omega purchases, that is also more motive to try to deceive me.
When my shift ends, I quickly change back into my clothes. I'm about to leave when Bree hands me a plastic bag.
"Your shoes and clothes from the other night," she tells me, and I curse. I left the clothes and shoes I borrowed from her at the hotel.
"Thanks, I will return yours tomorrow when I come in," I tell her before bidding her goodbye, catching a cab back to the hotel, and doing my normal after-work ritual of ridding myself of the scents from work before my mates arrive.