Now Their Starlet (Starletverse #2)

1. Andi

Andi

The world around me feels like it’s moving in slow motion.

My mom is sprawled out on the hardwood floor at the bottom of the stairs, her wrist twisted at an unnatural angle. She looks even frailer than she normally does. The constant diet she’s on and hyper-fixation on unachievable beauty standards are doing her no favors.

Her robe has slipped from her shoulder because of the fall, showcasing her protruding collarbone. It reveals the black bond marks where her shoulder meets her neck. The product of her dissolving the bond between her and my dad.

A man she’d tried to convince me was an evil, abusive monster. Successfully, too. I never thought to question her at all these past two decades. But after visiting him for the first time in my adult life and meeting him? He’s nothing like I imagined.

Neither is my mother, either, if her throwing herself down those stairs is any indication. Looks like not even I’m safe from Gina Sterling’s cunning and willingness to do whatever she has to in order to get the outcome she wants.

Stuart is on his phone, typing away as he “files the paperwork.” I’m still not sure what my mom meant by that, but I have a bad feeling.

My pulse is racing through my veins. I can practically feel each heartbeat thumping against my temples.

The only comfort that’s keeping me remotely together is Beck’s hoodie, soft around my shoulders. But it doesn’t even smell like him anymore.

I reach into my back pocket and grab for my phone. I should call someone for help. Obviously, because my mom is hurt and Stuart is just standing there, but also because I don’t feel safe here.

“Don’t,” Gina snarls, glaring at me. Her eyes are surprisingly sharp, considering the amount of pain she must be in from the fall. Looks like not even that can stop her when she’s as determined as she is.

Her glare is so much sharper than the wild, crazed look her expression took on at the top of the stairs, when she revealed that she knew I’d gone and visited my dad behind her back.

A second later, two unfamiliar alpha scents hit me. They’re faint, almost as if they’re wearing some sort of de-scenter, which is unusual. Normally, it’s only omegas that wear that sort of thing.

My head jerks around as I stay kneeling beside Gina’s prone form.

Two alphas wearing dark slacks appear from the same hallway leading to the garage Stuart had emerged from, almost like they were waiting for this whole incident.

One of them snatches my phone away from me before I have a chance to react.

“Hey! Give that back!” I say, reaching for it.

“Take her to her room before she has the opportunity to hurt herself or anyone else,” Gina says, her expression transforming into that of a distraught mother.

She’s always been a good actress. She’s played a very convincing role for the reality TV show she’s been a part of for a couple of decades now, The Real Omegas of Beverly Hills.

One of the alphas with broad shoulders and a shiny bald head grips my arm, tugging me to my feet.

I jerk away from his hold, my chamomile perfume turning bitter in the air around us.

“Mom! What’s going on?”

“We’re going to get you help, sweetie,” she says, wiping a solitary tear making its way down her cheek.

“Mom!” I cry out when the other alpha, the younger-looking one of the two, grabs my other arm. “I’m not going to hurt anyone!”

My mind races.

What the hell is going on?

Everything starts to click into place with sickening clarity.

Gina always told me, growing up, that the final straw that led to her leaving my dad was that he pushed her down the stairs. But when I brought it up to my dad, he told me he never did that. That she fell down herself.

Considering how insistent Gina was about her own narrative of events, it would make sense to doubt my dad’s recounting of things.

But it’s hard to do that now after she just threw herself down the stairs. Even harder, now that she’s accusing me of being the one to push her.

“Let me go!” I yell, thrashing my body against the grip the alphas have on my arms. The restrictive hold and dominating physical presence of the two walls of muscle beside me, hauling me towards the staircase and away from the front door, makes my panic so intense I’m practically choking on it.

Right as they start dragging me up the first few steps, I take a page out of my mom’s book and throw myself backwards, breaking free for a couple of seconds.

“Do your jobs!” Gina hisses from the floor.

Jobs?

What the hell did she hire these alphas to do? Drag me to my room? Keep me hostage in my own childhood home?

Stuart is kneeling beside her, seemingly done with whatever Gina wanted him to do, offering a hand I’m sure he intends to be reassuring. She isn’t giving him the light of day, her attention entirely on the scene I’m making.

Alphas are physically stronger than omegas.

It’s a fact of biology. No matter how much time I spend working out, even if I were to do strength training instead of the cardio and Pilates I normally do, I could never hope to best an alpha who barely takes care of himself.

Not that my mom would ever approve of me working out like that.

She’s always been critical of people’s physical bodies.

Herself especially, and by extension, mine as well.

Because that’s all I am to her.

An extension of herself.

It’s especially obvious, given whatever this stunt is.

The paid alphas let out soft grunts of exasperation as they chase after me.

Look, I’ve never been good at fighting. I took one self-defense class after I graduated high school, bought a can of pepper spray I keep on my keys, and called it a day. I don’t think I’ve used a single thing I learned from that class ever.

Maybe it would’ve been useful to keep up with that sort of thing. Maybe I would’ve been able to do something when my ex-boyfriend, Ezra Fletcher, physically assaulted me in a bathroom at the Grammys in a coke-fueled drug-haze. Maybe I would’ve been able to do something now.

Realistically? It would’ve done jack shit.

The two alphas somehow manage to get me in a hold where my arms are crossed over my chest as they grip my wrists and arms. It’s a much more efficient hold. A practiced one, it seems.

Are these guys paid to restrain people often?

Crazy job, if you ask me.

“Let me go!” I scream again, still continuing to thrash about, even though there’s literally nothing I can do. “Mom! What the hell is going on!”

I’m going crazy. I must be. Because, seriously, I never in a million years would’ve imagined this happening.

I remember feeling like this a lot growing up.

I’d do something wrong and Gina would act like I literally committed a felony and was asking her to take the fall for it.

The worst thing I ever did growing up was drink underage, but who in our circles wasn’t?

Hell, I didn’t even drink and drive. Not once.

“The paperwork has been filed,” Stuart says softly.

With my arms twisted around my body like this, pinned between the two alphas, I can’t even turn to see him speak.

“This is for your own good, Andi. You obviously can’t be trusted,” Gina calls after me.

To the people who believe her narrative, who believe I threw her down the stairs, her words probably sound like she’s referring to that. But to me? I know they mean that I broke her trust enough by going to meet my dad that she’s willing to do something as insane as this.

I jerk my body backward with all my weight, nearly sending myself tumbling down the stairs.

The bald alpha lets out a frustrated grunt.

“Relax,” the alpha bark cracks through the air like a whip, and my body obeys instantly, a slave to my baser instincts and biology that I have no hope of controlling.

My eyes fly wide as my body goes limp in their hold.

I’ve never experienced an alpha’s bark before.

Not even Ezra—as self-centered and kind of immature as he was—ever used it on me.

Not only is it societally frowned upon, but it’s also illegal to use in a lot of cases.

There used to be a time when alphas were allowed to use it against their bondmates all the time, but times have changed.

“This can’t be legal,” I murmur as we reach the top of the stairs. The two alphas have a far easier time maneuvering me now that I’m not fighting them anymore.

My mom’s cracked phone lies there, the screen shattered from where it hit the floor after it struck my face earlier.

“We’re just doing our jobs,” the younger alpha says softly. “Your mother signed off on all the paperwork.”

They manage to drag me into my childhood bedroom. It’s changed a bit since I moved out. The personal effects, pictures, and any signs of my actual personality have been replaced with sleek lines and drab beige furnishings. Picture—and reality TV show—perfect.

The two alphas set my limp body down on the bed.

I’m instantly irritated by the feel of the scratchy cover on the duvet, one of those fancy linen ones that has enough texture to show up on a camera. The throw pillows against my head are the harsh ones, so overstuffed to keep their shape, it’s like my head is lying on a brick.

I hate it.

I hate it, I hate it, I hate it.

It’s such a small thing, given this whole shitshow of a situation.

My gaze catches on the logo on the matching quarter-zips the two alphas are wearing. It’s the logo for a private offshoot company, the Omega Center Network, frequently hires. I’ve seen them around the OCN location I get my suppressant shots from.

I didn’t know they took jobs like this.

The two leave me there, still limp under the influence of the bald alpha’s bark, no matter how hard I fight against it.

The door clicking shut feels like a gun being cocked. The door locking behind them? That feels like the same gun being fired.

When the influence of the bark wears off a minute later, I throw myself off the bed and onto the pristine, white carpet, the fibers so densely packed it’s hard instead of plush. I stumble my way to the door, jiggling the doorknob and trying to get it open.

Locked.

From the outside.

Gina planned this.

She must have.

Most bedroom doors don’t lock to keep people in. This is something she would have had to replace and figure out before I got here.

My chest starts to heave. I’m trapped here.

I spin on my heel, my gaze darting around the room as frantically as a startled cat. I find nothing of use. No device I can use to contact any of the guys to get the hell out of here.

I bang on the door in frustration.

“Mom! Stuart! Let me out!” I scream.

I pound my fists against the door until they ache, buzzing with phantom impacts.

I feel dizzy.

My head is spinning.

I can’t breathe.

My forehead rests against the door, my dark hair falling around my face like a curtain.

What the hell am I supposed to do?

I whirl around, lurching towards the windows. I’m on the second floor so I’d have to jump down. But there has to be a way out.

I try opening every single one of them. Nothing. None of them budge an inch

I can’t fucking breathe.

They’re welded shut, or something.

Fucking useless.

Just like I am.

I fall to my knees, my hands dragging through my hair. I let out a frustrated scream, my scalp burning as I tug.

I can’t fucking breathe.