The Last Word #3
"Here's how this is going to go," I say, and I'm surprised how level I sound.
"You're going to leave my mates alone. No more private investigators or demanding I come see you. You will leave my pack alone.” My voice rises, growing firmer.
“You won't harass them, fire them, or destroy their careers, because if anything happens to one of my mates.
If one of them loses a contract or gets a funny look from a cop.
" I let my words hang. "I'll go on every news station in this city that will have me.
And I'll cry these pretty omega tears you hate so much, and I'll tell the whole world how my loving parents encouraged me to join a pack.
How the great Aldric and Lavinia Van Houten are secret pack-lovers who placed their only daughter with four men themselves. "
My father splutters. "That—that’s a lie! No one would believe—"
"Wouldn't they?" I tilt my head. "A liberal omega, weeping on camera about how her once monogamous parents are finally ready to come out as progressive. And even if most people don’t believe it, I’m sure it’ll still make your stocks plummet."
Lavinia's lip curls. "You ungrateful little girl.
" Her voice comes out low and vicious. "We gave you everything.
A name, a future, a good life, and you're throwing all of it away to be obstinate.
To spite us." She lifts her chin. “This is it, child.
Don't you dare come crawling back here when those men are finished using you. There will be no home to come back to."
The rage that's been simmering in my gut boils over.
"I would rather be their whore than your daughter." The words come out steady and clear, and I watch them land. "I would rather have dirt under my nails and rust in my hair for the rest of my life than ever look at either of you again."
Lavinia’s hand lifts, then swings so fast I don’t have time to process it, until she slaps me hard across the face.
The crack of it echoes off all the glass.
My cheek lights up hot, and my head turns with the force of it, and through the doors I feel my mates surge, three separate spikes of fury down our bond. I push back one steady pulse of my own and tell them to wait, that I've got this.
I turn my face back to her. And I smile.
"That," I say softly, "is the last time you will ever put your hands on me."
Her hand is still raised. Her breath is coming hard, and for the first time in my whole life I watch my mother look unsure of herself.
"The two of you are dead to me." I look between them, my mother with her hand in the air and my father gone purple in the face, and I feel zero grief.
"I'd suggest you treat me the same way. Pretend I never existed.
Because if you come for me or mine, you won't be dealing with your polite little omega daughter anymore.
" I hold Lavinia’s stare. "You'll be dealing with my pack.
And they are not nearly as forgiving as I am. "
I turn to my father one last time. He opens his mouth, and then he closes it, and he has nothing. All that money and all that rage, and there's not one thing left he can take from me.
"Goodbye, Father." I hold his eyes. "Forever."
Then I turn my back on both of them and walk out of that glass room with my head held high.
Adrian and Nico are waiting right where I left them, and they fall into step on either side of me without a word, close and warm and solid. Thomas has the front door open before we reach it.
Out in the drive the sun sits high and bright, and Mack and Owen are standing among the roses with their hands full of stolen blooms. They both look up at the sound of the gravel. Mack's whole sad, beautiful face breaks into a grin when he sees mine.
I walk down the steps and into the middle of them, into my pack, into the only home I ever chose for myself.
"How'd it go?" Owen asks, tucking a rose behind my ear.
"It's done," I say. And it is. All of it. "Nico said we have plans?"
Nico's hand settles at the small of my back, steering me toward the truck.
"We do." There's something almost like a smile in his voice.
"There's a place for sale about an hour up the coast. Five bedrooms, big kitchen, with a big stretch of land all around it.
" He opens the door for me. "Owen already called about a viewing. "
Excitement lights me up as I climb into the back of the truck. "Are we going to look at it right now?"
"If you want to." Mack climbs in beside me, still smelling like roses.
“It’s got a workshop,” Adrian says as he sits in the passenger seat.
“And,” Owen says as he shuts his door, “there’s enough space for your own nesting room.”
My own nesting room.
I’m so shocked I can’t even find the words. "Yeah," I whisper as Nico smiles at me through the rearview mirror. "I'd like that a lot."
The truck pulls down the long drive, and I face forward the whole way.
I don't look back at that house once.