19. Bianca
BIANCA
My eyes open and darkness swallows me whole.
Where the fuck am I?
I bolt upright, and my hand shoots out to find a knife that isn’t there before my eyes adjust to the unfamiliar shadows of sleek furniture and floor-to-ceiling windows.
The penthouse. I fell asleep on their couch.
My phone glows beside me—5:07 AM. The space sits silent except for the distant hum of the city below. They must all be asleep, leaving me alone with every horrible truth they poured into my mind last night.
Whitney’s been abusing men who were supposed to be mine for years…
I would’ve never dreamed of hurting them.
My stomach churns as the memories flood back. Freddie breaking down in my arms, his whole body shaking as he panicked about things too horrible for him to speak aloud. The way they all looked—hollowed out, desperate, clinging to control by their fingertips.
They’ve suffered in her hell while I played survivor in the woods.
The guilt eats at me. While I was busy learning to hunt and building walls around my heart, they were trapped. Suffering. Being used as entertainment by a psychopath and her friends.
I need to move. Need to channel this fury into something productive.
I need to fuck someone up.
My phone screen is too bright as I open social media apps, fingers already typing names I remember from Whitney’s circle. Girls who think they’ll never face any consequences.
They’ll find out soon enough how very fucking wrong they are. I’m not the same mild-mannered girl who left.
There’s rage that still lives tamped down inside me from the day on the mountain ridge that has never found an adequate outlet.
It looks like several opportunities to purge it just fell into my lap.
To start…
Katie Preston. Verified account, two million followers.
Her social media feed makes my stomach turn.
Endless makeup tutorials, product reviews, followers hanging on her every contouring tip and skincare routine.
How would they feel if they knew she raped men for fun?
Her stories show expensive dinners with mystery men, private gifts that go way beyond brand partnerships.
This fake, vapid bitch. She touched them. She fucked them. No doubt she laughed about it with the others.
The visual of stabbing the obscenely large tits she just recently upgraded, based on her posts, pops into my head.
I push my murdery daydreams away and screenshot everything.
I need to focus .
Next: Rebecca Wells. Another verified account, but this one’s different.
Professional headshots, corporate events, posed photos at Barrett Pharmaceuticals galas.
She’s climbed impossibly high in Tristan’s father’s company—some VP position that raises serious questions.
Did Whitney pull strings to get her friend a plush little job? Or is Rebecca fucking the boss?
Fucking parasites, all of them.
Liz Martinez. The serial dater with expensive taste. Post after post with different wealthy alphas—yacht parties, private jets, luxury shopping sprees. She’s perfected the art of being pampered by powerful… and married men who clearly expect more than just her company.
And still feels the need to take advantage of unwilling alphas.
I envision strangling her, her eyes begging me for air frantically… and denying her just like she denied them the choice.
I need to play this right, though. A murder spree would land me in prison… and unable to continue my mission.
There are bigger fish to fry .
I consider calling Ezra and getting his advice. But I know he’s going to give me some calming mantra lecture bullshit and try to talk me out of it.
No.
I fucking need this.
I have to stop it. There is no other option for me.
Even if it takes me down in the process.
They’re all living together in Westmont.
How quaint. But it makes things easier for me logistically.
Their stories show the same marble countertops, infinity pool, and walk-in closets stuffed with thousands of dollars' worth of designer clothes, shoes, and purses.
Recent posts show they just returned from meeting Whitney in Europe. Brunches, shopping, perfect white smiles.
The rage builds until my vision tunnels. I can’t just lie here, drowning in fury. I need to regain control and tap into the woman I’ve become. I need to move.
The penthouse gym gleams with state-of-the-art equipment when I find it.
Still wearing my oversized hoodie and leggings from last night, I attack the heavy bag with focused precision, each strike sending vibrations up my arms, but it’s not enough.
Nothing will be enough until I’m watching them pay for what they did.
My movements flow into a rhythm, muscle memory from years of training guiding me while my mind considers every vulnerability I can exploit. Predictable routines. No real security for their neighborhood, not even a gate. That wouldn’t have been enough to stop me anyway.
Easy targets.
Underneath the planning, Freddie’s breakdown keeps replaying.
The way his voice cracked when I demanded they tell me everything.
How his hands shook against my waist like he was afraid I’d disappear if he let go.
He’s terrified for me to know the whole truth because of things they forced on him… on them.
The potential scenarios burn through me, mixing with fury until I have to remind myself to breathe.
I’m deep in my assault on the heavy bag when footsteps echo behind me.
“Jesus Christ.”
The words are quiet, but they slice through my concentration like a blade. Owen . I freeze mid-strike, pulse thundering in my ears.
I turn slowly, and my mouth goes dry.
He stands in the doorway, looking like sin in the flesh, wearing nothing but black sweatpants that hang low on his hips.
Every tan muscle is defined to perfection, a body broader than I remember, marked with scars that tell stories I wasn’t there to prevent.
His dark hair is messy like he’s been running his fingers through it, and those dark eyes are locked on me. My knees feel soft.
He looks exhausted.
But still, he stares at me like I’m naked instead of drowning in an oversized hoodie and leggings. Like he can see straight through the fabric to every inch of skin underneath.
My hoodie feels too warm. The oversized fabric feels like a barrier between us, and I have the insane urge to strip it off just to feel his gaze on my skin.
Get it together, bitch.
“Having trouble sleeping?” I manage.
“Something like that.” His voice is gravelly, like he’s been awake for hours. His gaze travels over me slowly—taking in my sleep-mussed hair, the way my hoodie has slipped off one shoulder, how my breathing comes fast from exertion. “You?”
“Needed to work off some energy.” The words sound more loaded than I meant them to.
Energy. Right. That’s what we’re calling this burning need to destroy everything that hurt them in my absence.
He steps into the gym, and I catch his scent—blackcurrant, warm spice, and musk underneath that awful rose that makes me see red.
Focus. I need to focus on anything except the way his muscles shift beneath his skin as he moves.
“Want some company?” he asks, moving to the weight rack.
“Sure.” The word escapes before my rational mind can object.
He starts with basic curls, and I try to return to the heavy bag. I try to pick up where I left off planning the girls’ destruction.
But every sound he makes—his breathing, the quiet grunt of effort—sends heat pooling low in my belly. When he moves to the bench press, lying back and gripping the bar, my eyes trace the lines of his body like they have a mind of their own.
The weight moves up and down in a steady rhythm, his chest rising and falling beneath it. A thin sheen of sweat starts to glisten on his skin, and I find myself matching my breathing to his without conscious thought.
This is extremely pathetic. I’m supposed to be a trained fighter, not some horny little omega panting over a shirtless alpha.
But my body doesn’t care about any of that. It recognizes him on a level that bypasses all logic and all self-preservation. Every cell screams that he’s mine, has always been mine, and clearly, I’ve been starving for him all this time.
I attack the bag harder, hoping the physical exertion will clear my head. Instead, I become hyperaware of his presence behind me—the sound of weights clicking against metal, the rustle of fabric as he moves.
“Your form is incredible,” he says, and his voice is closer than before. Dangerously close.
I turn to find him standing just a few feet away, drinking water from a bottle. A droplet escapes, trailing down his throat to his chest, and my throat goes tight watching its path. The urge to follow that trail with my tongue hits me so hard I have to grip the bag to stay upright.
“Thanks. Lots of practice,” I say, though my voice wavers.
His eyes darken as they follow the movement of my throat when I swallow. “Show me what else you learned while you were away.”
The words are innocent enough, but the way he says them—low and rough—makes them feel like a dare.
Which reminds me… there’s a good chance Owen is going to combust when he figures out someone else has touched me.
“Like what?”
“Want to spar?” His gaze drops to my mouth for just a second before meeting my eyes again.
My pulse kicks into overdrive. The space between us feels charged, electric. I don’t know if this is the best idea…
But…
“Okay.”
He moves to the mat area, and I follow like I’m under a spell. This is supposed to be about training, about working off aggression. It has nothing to do with the way his muscles move or how badly I want to touch him.
Keep telling yourself that.
We circle each other on the mat, and immediately I know I’m in trouble. Every movement he makes sends heat spiraling through me. When he feints left and I counter, our bodies brush for just a second—enough to make my breath catch and my skin burn where we touched.