Chapter forty-two #2
“You hurt her badly. She told you she loved you and you said you were using her for sex. She may not even want to come back. She may have already been claimed. Are you prepared for that?”
“If she’s been claimed, I’ll deal with it. I’ll figure it out. But I’m not going to sit in this nest and watch the best thing that ever happened to us disappear because I was too fucking messed up to hold on.”
Cyrus closes the space between us in three strides. He grips my shoulders, solid, his eyes locked on mine, demanding the truth.
“Are you sure?” he says. “Because you can’t fuck around with her again, Miles. She doesn’t deserve that. She deserves better than what you gave her. What we gave her. If we bring her home, you have to be better. Every day. You have to earn it.”
“I’m sure. I’ve never been more sure of anything. I’ll make it up to her. We all will.”
Cyrus holds my gaze a beat longer, then looks to Gabriel.
“Get her back.”
Gabriel’s on the phone in thirty seconds, dialing Lily. It rings. Rings. Voicemail. He tries again. Same.
Then he calls Jeremy. No answer.
He tries Leo. Nothing. Theo. Nothing. Michael. Straight to voicemail.
I’m shifting my weight from foot to foot.
“None of them are answering,” he says. He’s losing his calm. “Nobody.”
“Try the house,” Garrett says.
Gabriel calls the Carr residence. It rings until voicemail.
The room changes. Something is wrong. We all feel it.
“Call the registry,” I say. “Check the claiming paperwork. Alphas have to file before and after. If it hasn’t gone through, she’s still unclaimed.”
He looks at me. “Good thinking,” he says, and dials.
I can’t keep my hands still. Garrett paces. Cyrus stands stone-still, fists clenched.
Someone answers. He uses his official voice—the pack lead voice that gets results. Gives his name. Lily’s name. Registry number. Asks for the status of her custody transfer and any pending claiming documents.
I can’t hear the other end. I just watch Gabriel.
I watch his face go gray.
All at once. His mouth opens. Closes. His grip on the phone is tight.
He hits speaker.
“That can’t be right, ma’am.”
“It’s right here in the paperwork, Mr. Santos,” a woman’s voice says, bored, professional. “A Brennan Foster and pack have received custody of Lily Ashworth. Signed the same morning you transferred custody. Her agreement signature is on the form as well.”
Silence. Total. No air.
“That’s not right,” he says, and now he sounds like a man watching a building collapse with people inside. “I signed custody over to Jeremy Carr. That’s who was at the registry. Jeremy Carr.”
Papers rustle. “I can only tell you what’s in the file, sir. The receiving party is listed as Brennan Foster. The custody forms, pre-claiming documentation, and omega agreement are all signed and filed. Processing completed five days ago.”
“Pre-claiming is already filed?”
“Yes, sir. Which means a claiming bite can be administered at any time without further registry involvement. Post claiming has yet to be filed.”
No one breathes.
“Is there anything else I can help you with?”
He hangs up.
The phone drops to his side. He stares at the wall. Garrett has stopped pacing. Cyrus’s face—the face that never shows anything—is distorted, raw and terrible.
“That fucking bastard,” I say.
It comes out too quiet for the rage in me. It’s all through me, filling my chest, my skull, pressing against my bones.
“He tricked you,” I say. “He tricked Lily. The paperwork she signed at the registry—it wasn’t Jeremy’s. It was Brennan’s. Jeremy was there to make it look real, and Lily just signed it?”
He nods. Slow. “She was crying. She probably couldn’t even see the forms. I watched her sign and I didn’t… I didn’t check. And Jeremy—Jeremy must be working for Brennan. I assumed he’d signed the forms before we’d walked in.“ He runs a hand over his face. “How could I make such a colossal mistake?”
“You’re telling me that Brennan Foster has my omega.” I say it slow. Each word a stone. “Not the Carrs. The Fosters. And they’ve already filed pre-claiming. They can mark her whenever they want. Right now. Tonight. They could’ve already done it and not filed yet.”
He nods again. Nothing left to say.
A tear slips out before I can stop it. Only one.
I let it fall, because it doesn’t matter anymore.
Pride and walls and all the stupid things I built can’t help Lily if she’s in that monster’s house, waiting for no one to come save her.
She probably thinks we’ve already forgotten her and moved on.
She probably hates us for giving her over to him, even if we didn’t know.
I remember how I shoved her. My hands on her chest. Her body hitting the floor. The look on her face when she realized what I’d done. But she didn’t look up at me in anger or fear. She was only worried about me.
She never told anyone what I did. She just carried it because she knew it would destroy me.
Lily loves me.
And she’s stuck with that creep now. The paperwork is signed, legit and legal. This is going to be a real fight. But she’s Lily and she’s worth it.
“You have to get her back,” I say. My voice is climbing now—through the tears, through the fear, toward war. “Now. Before it’s permanent. Before he marks her. Fuck Gabe, I don’t even care if he’s marked her already, we still have to take her. You have to get her back from that fucking monster.”
The alphas move. All three at once. Pack-instinct kicking in—bodies acting before thought.
Cyrus is already at the door. Garrett pulls on his boots.
Gabriel straightens. His face is different now.
The guilt and shock are there, but underneath, the pack lead.
The alpha who built this family from nothing and will rip it apart before he lets anyone take it.
“Get dressed,” Gabriel says. “All of you. We leave in five.”
“Where?” Garrett asks, lacing his boots.
He looks at me. Then Cyrus. Then Garrett. His scent fills the room: cedar and smoke, the heat of an alpha done waiting. The scent of incoming war.
“We’re going to get our omega back.”