33. Chloe
CHAPTER 33
CHLOE
I wiped my tears away and checked my makeup. My mascara was still doing its job. All I needed was to retouch my lipstick a tad. There.
It didn’t even look at all like I had a complete emotional breakdown after realizing that all of my hopes and dreams for job fulfillment and prosperity had gone to live in the trash can.
Why hadn’t anyone told me that working at a front desk was so soul sucking and miserable? It wasn’t my oasis of quiet at all. Why did anyone choose to live like this?
Was it just this job, at this dental office? Or was it me? Was I cursed to live my life in hectic chaos?
Alright. Now I was spiraling. All I had to do was focus on keeping it together, just until my ride got here. Then I could make a hasty escape with Daddy-Lo and then none of these people would ever see me again.
I plastered my fake smile back on my face, and sat back down on my receptionist chair, waiting for the next tormentor to start giving me shit about insurance and co-payments and everything.
Suddenly, glass exploded across the lobby. Reflexively, I swung my elbow up, guarding my face. It took me a second to register the heavily muscular man who rolled into a crouch, with an assault rifle slung across his shoulders—the man who’d leapt straight through the dental lobby windows—as Mag-Dad.
Oh shit.
If he was here… did that mean ALL my dads were showing up?
He had an expression of deadly calm as he scanned the perimeter, reaching around to grab his assault rifle.
Glass crunched behind him as a heavily tattooed man, with scars and burn marks littered across his face and biceps leapt through the window into the lobby, flanked by a white haired man with his blue eyes blazing, and throwing knives clenched in each hand: Pa Nix and Daddy Lo.
The door slammed open, the remaining glass panels shattered, as a giant stepped inside. Nearly seven feet tall and built like a mountain with an auburn beard that flowed down to his chest, Father was intimidating on the best of days. His presence made the entire lobby seem to shrink to half of its size.
Bringing up the rear, Daddy Gee had green and black camouflage paint smeared across his face as he strode in, sniper rifle in hand. Following close behind, Papa Diesel had a huge metal cylinder over his shoulder, with something that looked like a torpedo with an angry shark face painted over it.
“Chloe!” Father roared, as if I was a football field away and not in the same room as him separated by about a dozen feet. I battled the part of me that sort of wanted to hide under the counter and melt into the floor from embarrassment, but forced myself to stay where I was and give them a little half-hearted wave.
I thought that my dads might overreact, but even for them, this was a bit much.
“Is that a rocket launcher?” Oh my God, this was so fucking embarrassing. I tried to hide my face in my hands, when a strong grip uncovered my face. Father was looking me up and down, searching for any signs of injuries.
As my dads came closer to me, the patients in the lobby took the opportunity to back away and run out of the broken glass windows and escape to the parking lot.
The acid scent of urine flooded the air.
Emma was shaking and ducked under the counter as if this was an earthquake drill. I quickly averted my eyes from the sight of her wet pants.
Well, I’m not gonna lie, I was a little bit pissed at her for the snide hints that omegas couldn’t handle office jobs, but that didn’t mean that I wanted her to piss herself.
“What have they done to you?” Daddy Gee gently stroked my cheek. His gaze narrowed in on my eyes. I thought that I’d done a good enough job hiding the fact that I’d been crying, but the way that Daddy Gee was glaring daggers, that was not the case.
Ronald Brown ran out of his treatment room, with his mouth swollen and with the blue bib thing still clipped around his neck. He was wide-eyed, running like his life depended on it.
Ronald was still here? His appointment started hours ago, what did this dude do to his teeth? I just crossed my arms and watched him go.
Dr. Miller came charging out into the lobby not long after, still holding a dental probe. “What’s going…”
The sentence died in his mouth at the sight of a full pack of heavily armed and enraged alphas.
Shit… he was holding something that looked like a weapon.
Well, it kind of looked like a weapon. If you squinted—it was metal and had a sharp pointy end… which was me nacing enough for a pack of enraged men who were already on a warpath.
Father snarled, grabbing Dr. Miller by the throat and slamming him into the wall. He bent down to leer straight into his face.
“What. The. Fuck. Did you do to our daughter?” Father’s face twisted into an angry snarl.
“D-daughter?” Dr. Miller’s eyes went round, his jaw dropped. I could practically see the little hamster wheel spinning in his mind as he tried to process who the hell all these angry alphas were talking about. His darting gaze landed on me—given the fact that three of my dads were huddling around me and fussing like nervous mother hens, I guess he connected the dots to who their daughter was. “I didn’t do anything to her, I swear!”
Father turned to me for confirmation.
“You are going to get me fired.” I muttered.
It was really just to say something at this point, it wasn’t like I wanted to work here anymore.
“Yeah, well, the men in this office should worry that we don’t fire them.” Papa Diesel aimed his rocket launcher at Dr. Miller who pressed himself harder against the wall.
I rolled my eyes, but inside the gesture loosened something inside of me that I didn’t even realize was tight—until I was feeling weightless.
I stepped away from my post at the front desk, shaking my head. “I just said that I needed a ride. I didn’t need all of this.”
Daddy Gee and Mag-dad each slung an arm around my shoulders, shepherding me out of the lobby. Each of them turned to give death glares to Dr. Miller that he possibly didn’t deserve—though angry enough that their glares made it clear that they would follow through in a heart-beat.
Daddy Gee leaned close to whisper into my ears, “Don’t worry about a thing pumpkin, we’re going to take care of everything.”
Father flung a business card on to the counter. “You can make a statement to our lawyers. Make sure to explain to them in detail exactly what you were doing with our daughter.” Father’s eyes narrowed, and a little vein was bulging right at his temple.
If Momma Rain was here, she would be pissed. Order him to sit down and waddle over to the kitchen to put on a cup of chamomile tea… but I digress.
Getting into the SUV, all my dads piled in all around me.
Maybe having the love and support of a pack of dads wasn’t normal. Not for anyone outside of a pack anyway. But I had six pairs of eyes looking out for me.
If this wasn’t normal then maybe I just didn’t want or need to be normal anyway.