7. Liam
CHAPTER 7
Liam
Leaning against the wall, I watched as my omega stood at the threshold of my brother’s office almost as if she were nervous, and tried to remember this wasn’t the same girl I’d known back in middle school.
She lifted her chin and took a deep breath before stepping into the chaos of the crime scene. It was a fucking miracle I was even looking at her right now and her eyes were grey .
The grey of an unclaimed omega.
Years of searching the world for her, and she’d walked right into my life all on her own after I’d given up all hope of ever finding her again. It was some pretty fucked-up karma, because she didn’t even remember me.
That was my fault though.
How many times had I kicked myself for not telling her my real name? Not that it would have made a difference. She’d always been bad with names and faces.
I sighed and ran my hand through my hair. My brother was dead , and the very next day the girl I’d spent over fifteen years looking for just stumbled into my arms?
What was even worse was that I almost hadn’t recognized her even though the way she’d crashed into me was almost identical to the way we’d first met. Fifteen years ago, she’d slammed into me at the park and we’d both fallen, skinning our elbows and knees.
The girl I’d known back then had been a real crier too, her face so open and easy to read. Now it was a slab of marble with nothing carved into it to tell me what she was thinking or feeling, but damn…
She was still a work of art.
Black scent blockers instead of clear were taped around her neck in three parallel lines, almost like she was wearing chokers, not scent blockers. They were made with the same material used for clear adhesive bandages that were popular with tattoo artists and burn victims but I’ve never seen someone use them the way she did.
They covered some of the tattoo creeping up her neck and none of it was done in color so the delicate spider lilies were black against her pale skin.
An omega with tattoos.
Not only were they easily visible, but they covered her neck too. She’d really done her best to be as unappealing as possible to legacy alphas. Just thinking about why she might do that had me clenching my jaw so tightly I could feel it creak.
Everything about her was different now – everything but her adorable obsession with axolotls at least. I almost couldn’t believe that weird, energetic little girl had grown into this quiet, alternative beauty.
Multiple earrings on each ear glimmered under the harsh lights set up for the crime scene and her long black peacoat brushed the tops of her sneakers covered in those pink axolotls. Her hands were tucked in the pockets again, and this time I knew she was wearing a loaded gun like it was nothing.
For some reason, that hurt more than anything else – even her forgetting about me.
I should have been there during the worst moments of her life – to protect her against all the looks and judgment. I’d asked her to wait for me, but I’d been an idiot. Too young and na?ve to understand what it was I was asking of her.
If I’d wanted her to wait, I should’ve told her my real fucking name, but…
That would have put her in danger.
But she’d captivated me from day one and I’ve never quite been able to shake off her spell.
The girl I knew back in middle school liked to bury things in the sand so she could dig them up like she was an archeologist and she’d talk a million miles a minute while I took whatever ‘treasures’ she handed me and organized them for her.
It had been a fun game of pretend – I was the assistant and she the world-renowned doctor discovering a new culture. After every successful excavation, she would give me one of her treasures in thanks.
It had been the first time anyone had treated me like just another kid.
After the first few times, I’d brought little trinkets to hide in the sand for her to find and the look on her face every time she unearthed a treasure she hadn’t expected to find…
That smile had ripped my heart right out of my chest and turned me into a fucking fanatic. There was nothing I wouldn’t have done for her.
I’d planned to officially court her the second we found out if she’d perfume as a beta or an omega. Either way, it hadn’t mattered to me.
Then, as fate would have it, my mother had insisted I attend a boarding school across the country while we were having a territory dispute with another pack. The school I’d gone to with Lucy had erased every trace of me per my mother’s orders, even though I was already attending under a false name.
Not telling her the truth about who I was had been the logical choice. Keeping Daphne— Lucy as far away from that danger as possible was the smart thing to do. If she knew my name, she’d go looking for me and someone could try to hurt her just to get to me or my pack.
But every day for the last fifteen years I’d regretted that choice.
My eyes caught on those magic-eight-ball earrings she was wearing and I tried not to grin. She was still fucking weird and adorable even if she didn’t smile anymore. At least, not the smile I’d fallen in love with.
Those little smirks of hers were just as devastating though.
Jesus fuck . Wasn’t I supposed to be mad at her for disappearing?
Lucy turned and locked eyes with me as if she could sense my attention on her and for the second time that day, it felt like I couldn’t breathe.
Rain slid down the glass behind her, but the clouds had parted just enough that sunlight was starting to shine down on the world, framing her in its golden light and gilding her dark brown hair that had always made me think of dark, bitter chocolate.
It was up in this bun that reminded me of when she’d taken ballet, but most of it was parted to the side and curling around her face to show me how long it might be when she let it down. The ends brushed against the top of her breast and she tucked it behind her ear with elegant fingers.
Black nail polish and some more ink peeked out from her wrist to hint at the sleeve of tattoos on her left arm. No ring on her finger and no bite marks that I could see, but her partner’s alpha scent lingered around her wrists.
It was infuriating.
I sighed and wished I’d had time to shower and change, but this girl wanted to do everything right now . It was weirdly reassuring to know there were some things that had stayed exactly the same. I may not have recognized her at first, but those eyes…there had been flecks of grey in them even before I’d left and when I saw her shoes it had all clicked .
She’d stared at me like she knew me. I’d almost blurted out her name right then and there, but she’d pulled away before I could.
Lou Parker was her name now, but her partner called her Lucy.
I had to admit, it suited her better than her original name.
“She’s pretty fucking cute, isn’t she?” Cas rested an elbow on my shoulder. “Are you sure pretending to date her is a good idea?”
I grimaced and tried not to think about how desperate I’d felt when she’d rejected me with such finality.
It was pathetic – all of this was fucking pathetic.
“She stands out.” I watched her turn and stare down at the pool of blood on the floor while various people on the forensic team took their pictures, inspecting the office just like they had been all morning. “People will notice her and with all those vultures outside…”
The second Gideon’s death had made the news, the press had swarmed outside the building, waiting for me to make some kind of statement. It had gotten even worse when it was leaked that I’d been arrested as a prime suspect.
My mother was most certainly not pleased about that which was why Lou Parker was now staring down at the pool of Gideon’s blood with this blank look on her face that told me absolutely nothing. She was careful not to get too close though. Blood on those axolotl sneakers would ruin her whole day.
If I hadn’t managed to ruin it first.
“Did you finish running the background checks?” I asked, changing the subject.
I would have to tell Cas who she was soon, but for some reason, I wasn’t ready to.
Part of me still couldn’t believe she was here – that she was just as beautiful as I’d imagined she’d be, if not more so. Everything about her was just as perfect as I’d predicted, but the marks of her past created an unexpected harshness .
She was also tall, which was a nice change from all the omegas I was used to. If she wore heels…fuck me, she’d be a goddess.
“Frank James is legally Francesca James,” Cas informed me as he handed over his tablet. “After some digging, I was able to get ahold of her original birth certificate, which was sealed.”
Cas swiped away from the picture of her driver’s license to an old birth certificate with the name Francesca Lopez on it.
Well, wasn’t that just fucking fantastic?
The woman talking to one of the forensic investigators was also from a pack of legacy alphas. Despite her alpha scent, she didn’t have the signature red eyes, which made me wonder if she’d changed her name because she’d been disowned for not living up to the legacy, or if it had been something else.
“Do you want me to inform your mother?” Cassius asked, his voice too low for anyone to overhear, but Lucy pinned us both with a look as she moved toward Gideon’s desk.
Her nose had always been something else, but now it was fucking god-tier. Could she sense my discomfort even now? I would have to put on fresh scent blockers soon if I didn’t want her figuring out just how bad I had it.
“No, just keep a close eye on Ms. James. She’s representing Genesis, not her pack.”
“Her pack owns Genesis,” Cas reminded me.
I ignored that statement and flipped to the next picture. Lucy’s current driver’s license had the same address on it that Frankie’s did.
Her look was a little less intense in this picture since her hair was down and she was wearing glasses with thick black rims that only made her look even more adorable. There were fewer tattoos in this picture, but those three black bands around her neck were still there.
Scent blockers.
Flipping to the next one, I saw it was another driver’s license but from a decade ago. She couldn’t have been more than fifteen when that one had been taken, but her eyes were already grey, and she wore those damn scent blockers again.
She’d perfumed way too early.
Emancipation papers came after her driver’s license. They’d been filed when she was only sixteen. Her address at the time was a familiar one – the Lopez pack house.
So, Frankie had adopted Daphne.
That explained why it had been impossible for me to find any trace of her. The Lopez pack had just as many connections as Valor did. If Frankie had convinced her to change her name, Daphne would have disappeared.
Even her birth certificate showed the name Lucille Parker.
Must have been a hell of a favor if Frankie hadn’t been able to erase her own existence the same way she had for Lucy – but maybe she didn’t have access to that contact anymore.
“Francesca James graduated with honors in criminal justice and psychology. After that, she went through the police academy with top marks, but never enlisted with the force. It looks like she created the Genesis Agency back when Parker kept getting rejected by the police academy for her designation.” His face didn’t give anything away, but we’d known each other for so long that I knew the big jerk was feeling bad for what he’d said to her.
Cas hadn’t been worried about her capabilities exactly. It was her long silences that made the other alpha nervous because they made it difficult for him to read her. Even I was having a hard time and I knew more about her than anyone.
Other than Frankie anyways.
Flipping to the next file, I saw Lucy had graduated at the top of her class with a master’s degree in criminal psychology and it had only taken her three years.
A genius.
“They’ve been working at Genesis together for almost six years now,” Cas told me, flipping to the next file which showed Lucy and Frankie at some crime scene or another. “They solved over one hundred and fifty cases last year and most of them were murders, or missing persons. They’ve even solved a few cold cases the police couldn’t get a lead on.”
Why did that make me feel proud? I had nothing to do with her accomplishments, but for some reason I couldn’t help feeling so fucking proud of her for succeeding in a field where most assumed omegas could never thrive.
I looked up from the tablet to watch her slip on a black, latex glove so she could pull the desk drawers open with a single finger, her face still as blank as it had been earlier.
Leaving the drawer open, she reached for the picture of Gideon and Melinda on top, turning it over to pull the back off. Lucy took a picture of the photo with her phone before putting it all back exactly the way it had been. Then she moved on to the next thing while Frankie chatted with anyone and everyone who would talk to her.
They were such a strange pairing, but they worked together effortlessly.
If anyone could figure out who the fuck had murdered my brother, it would be the girl who’d given me a baby axolotl to remember her by – as if I could ever forget her or that fucking smile that used to shine brighter than the sun.
My very own sunflower, always turning toward me like I’d given her the light she’d needed to survive.
All these years later, and I was still just as obsessed with her as before while she was out here thinking I was secretly dating Cassius – a potential murderer. It was all so fucking messed up the only thing I could do was laugh, because she hadn’t been wrong about me and Cas, but she hadn’t been right either.
“Give them access to whatever they need.” I handed my partner back his tablet. “If they want my medical records, my bank accounts, the pack’s bank accounts…whatever it is they want, give it to them.”
“ Liam .”
Giving the other alpha a look, I flexed the tiniest shred of my dominance to remind Cas who was in charge when it came to Valor.
“ Sir .” The word was sharp, and Cas did not look pleased. “I don’t understand.”
“It’s not your job to understand yet.” I settled a hand on Cas’s shoulder to ease the sting of that statement. “I’m going to shower and change. Watch over them until I get back.”
Then I turned on my heel and headed for the staircase that would take me right outside my own office.
Even if Lucy Parker didn’t think I was in a relationship with Cas, there was a very good chance she’d still want nothing to do with me. Telling her who I was…
It almost felt like cheating.
Plus, she was probably furious with me for taking so long to find her.
But now that I had, I was never going to let her go.