24 Kit
Getting the text from Mandy felt weird because I wasn’t the best person for campaign stuff.
Yet again, I knew she didn’t have very many people on her side in those offices.
Politics were always cutthroat, especially when you were going up against someone who kept winning elections.
Most of these things came down to power, and her competition had the most.
Knowing Anika wouldn’t like the conversation, I sent her down the road to get us other supplies.
We needed to make a food shipment, and the butcher we used was right down the street from the restaurant I met Mandy at.
Going our separate ways, she pointed to her cell phone to indicate I needed to call her if shit hit the fan.
A right solution because Mandy sent me a text that she felt like she was being followed.
Having our lunch inside a public place made it so if we did have enemies, they wouldn’t try touching us out in the open. Anika would be here before I left, so the fear of being kidnapped during that time lowered. Even if there was a minuscule fear of it, I knew I couldn’t let it get to me.
Mandy was already seated, studying over the menu with a pile of papers next to her.
She looked worn out and tired, and I knew this job couldn’t be easy on her.
Having a new fear of being hunted didn’t make it easier.
She probably thought Goodwin wanted to remove her as competition.
Taking my seat, I didn’t need to look over the menu to know what I wanted because broccoli cheese soup sounded good with a steak panini.
When Mandy picked up on my presence, she jolted just a little in her seat.
Her eyes were skittish, moving toward the window.
Now I was beginning to question if someone had threatened her.
Letting my hand travel across the table, I took hers in my hold to let her know I would support her. “Is everything alright?”
“Fine,” she answered too hastily. When she realized her mistake, she waved my worry away with her hand. “I’m sure you know how it goes for people like me when others don’t like the competition.”
“Did someone threaten you?” My hackles were already rising because I didn’t like her feeling unnerved.
“Not in the sense you’re thinking,” she started. “Their attack against me has been more subtle than that.”
My mind immediately began to understand her words without trying. Whoever stood against her right now, they were doing it in a way to not get caught. “Is that why you texted me? Because of whatever problem you’re facing?”
“You’ve always been good at reading between the lines, Kit.”
The waitress handed me my water then, so I took a few gulps from it to ponder what she meant by that.
There was this slight rudeness in her stare that made her look discreetly menacing.
It was like she tried to be nice to my face, but she didn’t have enough energy to fully mask what was being revealed.
“Mandy, I’ve been your friend since middle school. If I did something to upset you, you can tell me what I did.”
“Oh, I think we both know what you did this time.”
Before I could respond, a massive amount of tiredness took over me.
When the room began to spin, I looked down at my glass, aware of what was just done to me.
Trying to fight through the haze, my hand slipped into my pocket to my reach phone as fast as possible.
I held down the number one because that was Anika’s speed dial.
Before I could get any words out to make a cryptic SOS, the darkness took over me.
Mandy’s smug expression was the last thing I saw before everything went dark.
***
Groggy, my head lulled in half-moons as I tried to gather enough strength to lift it up completely.
Groaning, I felt like too much fog clouded my brain to fight through, telling me I had been drugged.
For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out what Mandy’s game plan was with it.
What did she have in the works for something like this?
I immediately began to question if she figured out who I was and what I’d been doing.
But how would she be able to figure that out?
Finally being able to open my eyes with the heavy pull that made them want to close, I looked around the room and saw I was in some kind of antique sitting area.
Built-in bookshelves sat all around a fireplace with a Persian rug on the floor, but the room was completely void of what I felt like should have been a study.
With two high backed chairs made in embroidered patterns of gold and green, I found myself staring at the fancier, empty seat across from me.
The fire had been kindled, showing the dancing flames that crackled for my ears to hear.
The small scent of smoke also fumigated my nose, making it hard to smell anything else.
There was one window across from me, but I could convey we weren’t on a ground level from seeing the flourishing branches of a tree. The branch was too thick, telling me the tree had been old enough to be standing that tall.
When the door finally opened, Mandy made her way in wearing her formal business wear. She was in a pleated skirt and matching jacket with her hair in a French twist again. As always, her face was painted in heavy makeup.
“Oh good, you’re finally awake. It only took you a few hours.
” She made her way into the room, taking the empty seat across from me.
Even through the smoke, I could scent just a little blood in the room from the copper hitting my nostrils.
A small whiff of bleach told me that they tried cleaning it up too many times, but they must have kept killing in this room because it didn’t help.
“Mandy, what’s the meaning of this?” I tugged on the bindings that held my arms behind my back.
My chair matched the one across from me, but it wasn’t a fancy sitting chair having wooden boards across my back instead.
The only luxury I was afforded was the embroidered, cushioned seat that matched hers.
Scoping out everything in the room, she knew I was trying to figure out an escape.
“Do you remember at lunch before you drank the water?” She admitted to how she drugged me, and it told me that place was under her thumb already. Never once did I believe Mandy to be corrupt, but I did now from seeing her like this.
“I’ve never worked against you,” I nearly growled.
“A couple weeks ago, I asked you if you knew where Ryatt and Kayos were. Do you remember your answer?”
Swallowing hard, I knew I needed to keep my mouth shut. I had too many Alphas and their packs in my home to let any detail slip. Locking my jaw, she noticed and only grinned wider from it.
Opening the satchel in her grasp, she lifted a picture. It was of me and Kayos at the cabin where I killed the lead we had. Her undeniable evidence wasn’t looking great for me, but I still knew better than to say anything.
“Looks like you’re pretty cozy with them after all. Have you been their pet these last seven years?”
“What does this have to do with being against you?” My hands kept trying to undo the knots behind my back, but they angled my arms too tight to even twist.
“Simple. I told you I’m cleaning up the streets for my campaign. Do you think it’s been easy watching and following all those packs who run the underground? Though, I dare say you were the hardest to find.”
My nerves were shot, but I never agreed to anything she said, just in case she didn’t know. “You know where I’ve been this whole time,” I tried to remind her of what I had been informing her of. My life as a claimed Omega.
“Oh yes, this famous Alpha you never gave me a real name for. This luxurious life that gives you fur coats and pedicures, but you made some mistakes, Kit. You made enough errors that I finally caught on. Snapping her fingers, the door opened again to reveal a face I wasn’t prepared to see.”
Unable to breathe, Saul’s power exuded from him immediately. He began to target me directly because he knew what a monster he was to me. He was why nightmares came when I closed my eyes. Without trying to give my fear away, I knew if they touched my heart, they’d feel the pounding in my chest.
“Pussy Cat,” he greeted me with his Cheshire smile. Saul wasn’t a man many could stand against, and I hadn’t been victorious when it came to hunting him down either. The man was as elusive as the camouflage on my home. “It’s so nice to see my favorite whore.”
My eyes darted back to Mandy, hating that she brought this man in my presence. “How long have you been working with him?”
“Who do you think it was that helped him break those boys when they found out their precious Kit was gone? Someone had to be close enough to get pictures.” Her leer was devastating.
Finding out that one of your closest friends had betrayed you long before any of this happened was a tough pill to swallow.
“But why? We were all your friends!”
“Friends,” she hissed the word back at me.
“I was never seen as anything but a friend because I’m the Alpha female, and you’re the Omega.
Their most prized possession was you, but it should have been me.
I’m the one whose gained more power in this city than anyone else from our group.
I’m the one who could have offered them everything the world denied, but they still wanted you. ”
My mind began to warp because of all the lunches we had over the years. At least once a month we got together, and she had been lying to me this whole time. Mandy had been playing the long game, and I was too blinded by our friendship to see it.
“One picture of me and Kayos isn’t enough to link me to them. I have a life and a pack outside of this, and my Alpha will miss me.”
“Alpha,” Saul scoffed. This time, it was him who snapped his fingers for the door to open.
Unprepared, I saw my old lover that I got rid of after making him kill his secret girlfriend.
He looked too well to be under the thumb of the Sellers anymore, revealing to me that Saul was the one who bought him.
The little shit must have found his way out by speaking of things he shouldn’t have been.
“Drake, I should have killed you when I had the opportunity,” I growled at him.
“But where would this fun be if I was gone? You had too many delicious secrets to give away.” He started over to stand at the side of Mandy’s chair, laying a hand on her shoulder to show they were more than just an alliance working to ruin me.
“Saul bought me him as a gift, and I have to say, you gave up quite the lover.” Mandy let her eyes drift over his body, lingering over the hard lines of muscle.
A festering rage began to build in me because I knew this was going to be my end.
I just had to hope I could last through all the torturing they were about to bring down on me to keep my people safe.
Drake had only seen one entrance to the underground, and it was closed off shortly after we got rid of him and the Sellers who came into our home.
Without knowing the entry points, their people would die if they tried to go after mine.
Still, there was a heavy bout of worrying that came over me because I knew my people were in trouble.
“We know you’re an unclaimed Omega, Kit.
After all the things Drake was able to tell me, I was able to deduce what you had been doing this whole time.
I can only assume Anika was in on it, helping you pretend there was some savior Alpha in your life.
” Mandy sat back and crossed one of her legs over the other, knowing she really did get too much information on me.
“It doesn’t matter what I did to survive or to escape, but I can promise you right now that you will never be able to find who you think you will.” Without wanting to give names or packs away, I kept him on edge with my secret.
Saul walked over to the fire, letting his hand grab a stoke before placing it in the burning embers.
We watched as the tip turned orange from being so hot, and he leisurely sauntered back over to where I sat.
His hand fisted into my hair, pulling my neck into an arch for my pretend bites to show.
He let his nose drag down and scent me because everyone in this room knew I was unclaimed.
My secret perfume wouldn’t hold out this long if I had been here for a few hours, so I knew I was in trouble.
Without warning, he placed the stoke over the two small burns I had previously given myself as a branding.
I screamed in utter horror as he burned the flesh of where those bites were.
The searing pain pulsed down every nerve in my body in a warning.
Even though I revealed to him that this was excruciatingly painful, I knew I would never talk.
I also understood this was just the beginning of what he planned to do to me.
Stopping for just a second, he turned my head for the two others to witness the new mark he gave me.
There’d be no freedom now that he ruined what I had built for myself, but he didn’t stop there as he took the point of the stoke to draw a small symbol on my cheek.
It meant that I was a dud as an Omega, and I didn’t need a mirror to see it.
He wanted everyone in the world to believe that I was incapable of taking a knot.
Branding the mark into my skin, I made sure to give him a seething glare as tears spilled from my eyes.
Spitting in his face, I knew it was the last bit of power I had in this situation.
Slapping me across my cheek, he did it hard enough that the edges of my vision began to darken. I wasn’t sure what would come for me after this, but I did know nothing good would be in my future. With only haunting memories of the last time Saul had me, I knew what he would do to my body.
Mandy let her heels click over the floor as she came to stand in front of me.
Her pointer finger and thumb captured my chin, forcing my stare to meet hers as I tried to blink to stay awake.
“It’s too bad things couldn’t be different between us, but I know you’d choose them over me any day.
It’s that rage that helps me complete what I need to do in this city. You’ve been my purpose all along.”
With one final blow from her, the strength she hit me with was enough to render me unconscious. I knew waking up would be worse than if death found me in my sleep.