Chapter 29
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Grant
The drive home was the longest of my life. We had to stop three times to calm Leila down, feed her, and change three poopy diapers. I’m willing to bet that her stomach is upset due to her emotions as much as our grumpiness.
Alphas’ emotions can be felt, and even though we may stomp them down, they can be smelled as well. The SUV smelled like shit and worries.
It feels wrong to walk into Isolde’s house, so Lucas and I trudge into the mansion.
“Welcome home,” Rita says, appearing sad. She has to have heard the news since she overhears everything. “Are either of you hungry?”
The last thing we both ate was the sandwich with Isolde during our carpet picnic. My stomach rolls in anger, and I shake my head.
“No, thank you,” Lucas says, shifting the baby in his arms. “I’m going to give Leila a bath to hopefully settle her tummy. She’s been very unhappy.”
“Poor thing,” Rita whispers. “I’ll take the diaper bag and toss whatever needs to be. I well remember the desperate days of infancy. It gets easier.”
“She’s worth it,” Lucas says. “Leila is reacting the way I want to but can’t. I’ll be back.”
Lucas takes off upstairs after handing over the diaper bag, and I scrub my face with my hand.
“I’ll put the car in the garage later,” I sigh. “Where are Oliver and Alesso?”
“In the living room working,” she says. “Give me the keys and I’ll take care of it.”
My lips twist as I hand her the keys and she rolls her eyes.
“I can drive,” she groans. “Off with you.”
Nodding in acquiescence, I lope off to find the rest of my pack.
They’re working on their computers as I step into the living room, and raise two fingers in greeting. I don’t blame them when there’s a pall over everything. Isolde exploded into our lives, and now everything is too quiet and nothing smells right.
I miss her scent.
“How is our bambina?” Alesso asks, frowning at something on his screen. “Would I be a terrible person if I just wiped all of Ophelia’s money out of her accounts?”
“At this point, I want her to attempt to sell Isolde,” Oliver grunts. “We’ll stand a better chance of hearing about the auction than waiting for something to happen.”
“Or hoping that she’s able to get out on her own,” I agree. “She doesn’t talk much about that time, but I have a feeling it was horrific based on her nightmares and fear alone. To answer your question, Lucus is giving our stinky baby a bath.”
“She’s a beautiful, stinky baby,” Alesso gasps, glancing up as he dramatically places his hand on his chest.
Ugh, they’re all so dramatic. I’m glad Alesso can still find a way to be himself because I need it.
“She is, but her stomach is very upset,” I explain. “It’s very difficult to not be angry about the situation around Leila, and it’s affecting her.”
“I understand,” he says, eyes flicking back to the computer screen. “So we all agree that Ophelia should have a very bad fucking day?”
“Yes,” Oliver and I say.
“Please don’t get caught,” Oliver adds.
“I won’t, amore,” Alesso says without thinking.
I saw the bite on Oliver’s shoulder. These two have been getting close, and I’m happy for them. It reminds me even more that if we lose Isolde, I’ll have nothing.
In my very logical mind, I know that’s not how the world works. We will all be devastated. I’m having a really hard time at the moment.
Forcing oxygen through my lungs, I get up and move to the couch where Alesso and Oliver are sitting so I can watch their progress.
“I’m hitting a lot of dead ends, but sometimes you need to before you can hit pay dirt,” Oliver says, his fingers moving quickly.
“No one is looking for an omega of Isolde’s description, but I just put out feelers to buy one.
If Ophelia thinks that she can make money off her now that she’s destitute, then she’ll jump at the chance. ”
“I would usually keep all this cash, but I’m going to give it to charity,” Alesso says. “Find me one that caters to omegas?”
“Make it one that’s in Minnesota. I have a feeling this cunt has wreaked havoc there since she probably shits where she eats,” I reply.
“Omega’s Haven,” Oliver says absently. “I’ve heard they do good work in Minneapolis.”
“Perfect,” Alesso murmurs. “I took every cent. That comes to fourteen million dollars over four different accounts. I’ll keep looking to see if there are any others that she’s hiding. Ophelia is either an idiot or has a benefactor who’s asleep on the job. This was way too easy.”
“What will you do with it from here? Just deposit it into Omega’s Haven?” I ask. “That would be risky, right?”
“Correct. I’m going to run it through different investment accounts and deposit five hundred thousand dollars every three weeks into Omega’s Haven’s account,” Alesso says.
“It’ll be randomized amounts that equal up to that, easing any worry someone will find out where it came from.
The trickle won’t alert anyone outside of the organization.
Donations happen all the time. Ophelia the cunt deserves it. ”
“All that and much more,” I mutter.
“My program found something,” Oliver breathes. “Several cameras caught Isolde being removed from the trunk of a sedan.”
“They did change cars,” Alesso mutters. “Merde.”
“They did. Look.” Oliver twists the screen so that we can both watch.
One of the betas that kidnapped her is wearing a baseball cap, glasses, and a wig as he walks with her dangling over his shoulder.
The camera easily captures her face even in this position because her hair is back in a braid and the blood she was dragged through has stiffened it.
We basically just got very lucky, and I thank every deity in the world for that.
“See, they’re at an airport,” Oliver says, pointing out the concrete that shows they’re on a tarmac and then the plane. “They’re transporting her somewhere else.”
“When was this?” I ask. “Is this live?”
“No. That’s the drawback on this—”
“I don’t care, Oliver,” I say, my hand slicing through the air. “You found her and that’s what matters. Even a glimpse is more than we had before. I just need to know when this was.”
“Twenty minutes ago,” he says. “I’m going to find the flight plan that they had to file with air traffic control. I doubt they had the clout to skip it.”
Oliver downloads the video to his computer and then watches it again as he pulls the screen back to himself so he can continue to work.
“There are other men with them,” he murmurs. “God, are they hitching a ride on someone else’s ride?”
“Very scandalous,” Alesso grunts, rolling his eyes. “Oli, focus please.”
“It’s just so gauche,” Oliver says, shrugging. “They’re all wearing suits except for the beta punks, and you can see that one of them is sneering at the one carrying Isolde. Fuckers just held their limp dicks in their hands and let this happen.”
“Find the manifest while you’re at it and Alesso can hit them where it hurts: their wallet,” I suggest.
Oli smirks cruelly and bobs his head.
“Now we’re talking. Anyone willing to stand witness to our girl’s kidnapping and not help her is also going down,” he agrees.
“Speaking of which: these assholes got into the Reid building somehow, right? I’ve been looking for other angles to try to capture the person’s face but I haven’t been able to. ”
“The door was in the way,” I say. “All I can see is that someone swung it open when they knocked. Nothing more. They were careful. It could have been security or someone else.”
“Lucas isn’t safe there either until you find out who it was,” Alesso says, shaking his head. “If they’re willing to break protocol for head hunters, odds are that they'll be desperate enough to hurt him in other ways.”
“Feels like I’ve been stabbed in the chest as it is,” I sigh. “I failed her. I fucking want to respect her autonomy and I didn’t tag her ass with a tracker.”
“We’ll fix that as soon as we have her back. Our pack bonding experience will be all of us getting trackers,” Oliver snorts. “We will get her back, Grant. Our girl is tough.”
She is, but at what cost?
Isolde
I wake up to what feels like freezing needles all over my skin.
“Ahh!” I scream, rolling on the cold cement floor to attempt to hide from it. My hands are tied again behind my back, but my legs are free as I try to push myself away from the water.
It’s difficult to open my eyes since there’s so many water particles clinging to my face and eyelashes, so I can’t see anything more than snatches of the room.
Gray cement floor, dirty tiles, and an endless stream of water directed my way. I’m also naked and completely exposed.
“Rise and shine, Little Slut!” Ophelia shrieks. “Covered in blood and with a baby? Your pussy better not be ruined.”
Maybe it’s better if Ophelia believes that Leila is biologically mine. I won’t dissuade her as long it doesn’t affect my baby. All that matters is that she’s happy and healthy.
Biology doesn’t make you a mother if you can’t properly care for it. Cats can do that too, and they’re the worst mothers.
I curse Ophelia out in my mind, gasping as she walks over with the high powered hose and grabs my braid to pull me to my feet. Turning off the water, she rips out the hair tie holding the end and begins to unwind the braid.
“If you were mine still, I would trust you to wash your own damn hair,” she mutters, pumping shampoo into her hand and roughly lathering it into my hair. “You’re too independent again. All my hard work is ruined!”
“I was free,” I chatter. “That’s all I ever wanted.”
“And you’ll die here if I have my way,” she says. “I’ll have the men break you and fuck you while you’re mindless and feral with heat.”
My natural heat shouldn’t arrive without my scent matches for a while. They probably won’t be as frequent even if I was with them due to the medication Ophelia used to force on me.
“I don’t think this will go the way you think it will,” I taunt her. Maybe this isn’t smart, but my nerves are raw, my ears are ringing, and my head hurts still.
The fact that she’s yanking on my hair like she’s trying to make me bald isn’t helping either.
“Fuck!” I scream as the water hits my head at full volume.
It’s still cold, and my bare feet lose their footing and I slip onto my ass.
“May as well stay there with your foul mouth until I’m ready for you to stand,” she muses. “At the very least, it’ll limit the bruises.”
“Why did you hunt me down,” I yell. It’s my own form of screaming out my pain without her punishing me for it.
“Shhh, so damn loud,” Ophelia complains, turning off the water to begin running the conditioner through my hair.
The room feels as if it’s spinning and my stomach lurches uncomfortably. Swallowing hard, I beg it not to puke. My body really did not like whatever sedative that asshole injected me with.
“You made me look bad,” she says finally. “An omega that I sold killed an entire pack and disappeared into the wind. That’s not a good look for me.”
Swallowing again, I taste bile and gag. Gasping for breath, I attempt to pull words together. This may be the only time she’ll actually answer my questions.
“Is that the only reason why?” I ask.
“You were supposed to be fucked to death. Your fate was written into the stars by me and you escaped it,” she says. “I couldn’t allow that.”
My body shudders from cold and revulsion as her words roll over me like a bad smell.
“How?” I ask, unable to push any other words from my lips without spewing my long ago eaten lunch.
“How did I find you?” she taunts me. “It took forever. You have made a lot of enemies, Little Whore. Lucas Reid’s personal assistant doesn’t like you.
His attention is split from the company and she’s decided that you need to disappear.
Paula was even so kind as to let the boys in through the back door. ”
Unable to stop the vomit, it explodes from my mouth and across the cement floor and my body. All the while, Ophelia laughs at me as she holds my hair tightly away from my face and body. She continues to comb it out and wait for me to be done.
She’s patient like that.
“It would be really ironic if you choked on that vomit instead of a cock,” Ophelia says, turning on the spray of the hose to a slightly lower setting to wash away the smell and sickness coating my skin. “Your life is mine until I choose to end it or sell you. We’ll see which one comes first.”
I gasp in oxygen from the aftermath of how extreme my reaction was to her words. Lucas isn’t safe if his own assistant did this to him, which means our daughter isn’t either.
I’m lost in my head when Ophelia pushes me down flush onto now clean ground and chooses that moment to spray water up my asshole.
I can’t stop screaming that hurts so much as she moves on to my cunt.
I actually lose consciousness for longer than I’m willing to admit before two alphas lift me onto my feet.
I’m unsure why I need so much muscle when I’m clearly unable to walk, much less fight.
“She screams so prettily, boys,” Ophelia says, pleased. “See if you can make her scream so loudly that I can hear in my new office. May I suggest options she’ll heal quickly from.”
“Does this mean we have to keep our dicks in our pants?” the one with dirty blonde hair asks as they walk behind Ophelia.
They’re carrying me between them. My legs are shaking and feel like jello from the myriad of things she’s already put me through. The sedative, freezing water, and trauma of it being shoved up into sensitive areas.
In her mind, I’m now completely clean, but it’s left me exhausted.
“No,” she drawls, winking at me. “I need her to be very well broken in before we give her a dose of forced heat. I’ve been working on a new formula and want her to be the first person to use it.”
I will burn this and all of her “formulas” down if it’s the last thing I do. While Lucas uses his mind for good, Ophelia asks herself how much suffering she can wield on the world.