18. Resa

Chapter 18

Resa

B efore I put one foot on the ground, the front door swings open.

Everleigh is wearing a knee-length black lace dress with her white-blonde hair French-braided. She bounces in place, as if she can't stand still for even a second.

In the cells where they kept omegas, ready to trade for the auction, she was terrified, her skin flushed, green eyes panicked, and her omega pheromones growing stronger from the drug the Asylum staff inject to trigger heat.

But this Everleigh?

The Everleigh standing at the front door of Pack Ashe's mansion is a different version of the one I met in the Asylum's cells.

And despite my unshakable belief that the only good alpha is a dead alpha, I can't help but notice the way three certain alphas are smiling down at her, as if her happiness is infecting them with the same. She doesn't see the way they're focused on her, but I do.

Pack Ashe.

It seems like they named Ever Safe after her. I left the TV on in my room as I flicked through the Jerome Walker case file while I waited for Lex to bring me clothes. If I can believe everything I saw on TV about the city's newest free heat clinic, Pack Ashe haven't taken one step inside it since it opened its doors. They have a beta managing day-to-day operations.

I have a feeling a certain flirtatious beta is the one in charge.

"Resa?"

I get three steps closer to the front door and that's about as much as Everleigh can take. She throws herself at me, hugging me so hard she nearly knocks me over. Only Vaughn's hand—don't ask me how I know it is his—on the middle of my back stops Everleigh from tackling me to the ground.

She was slim before, maybe a little too thin. Now she feels softer and a little curvier than she was before.

My eyes briefly connect with the three big alphas in the doorway as soft classical music drifts out. They nod once, but don't stare. Almost as if they know I have no love for alphas and never will.

"You got out," Everleigh breathes, tightening her arms around me.

Not knowing what to do with my arms, they just hang there, as awkward as I feel.

"How about we take this inside?" the big alpha with the southern accent suggests. Rune Fontenot. A reporter said he was the previous CEO of Ashe Investments. Makes sense the biggest alpha would be the one in charge. "And, cher, you're squeezing the stuffing out of our guest."

Everleigh releases me in a rush, eyes wide with apology as she backs up. "I'm sorry. I didn't hurt you, did I?"

Hurt me?

"No."

But hugs are… new.

They didn't use to be.

When I was Theresa Mora with a fiancé, parents, friends, and a life that wasn't all that exciting, hugs weren't anything new at all. I didn't appreciate what I had until that first week when I lost everyone I loved.

Conscious everyone is watching me, I drag a smile to my lips and nod at the house where the music has transitioned from classical to jazz. "Has the party started?"

The alpha with the quiet, serious demeanor nods once. Cian, I think, is his name. "Just about. Did you want to talk to Everleigh somewhere quiet?"

"The office," Everleigh declares, snagging my hand and tugging. "Come on."

"Resa?" Garrison's voice is low, but it cuts through the music.

I twist to face him.

"You're safe here. And we'll be in the next room. If you need us, call. One of us will be there."

"All," Vaughn says, capturing my attention. He winks. "He meant all of us will be there."

And it's the strangest thing. I've barely known these men for a handful of days, but I can almost believe they will.

As Everleigh leads the way to the office, Rune says, "Good to see you again, Blaine. It has been far too long."

I don't hear Blaine's response as Everleigh closes the door behind us. There's a big conference-style table and a wall of glass overlooking a pool.

"How are you?" Everleigh leans on the wall beside me as I stare out at the pool. The sun has gone down, and the patio lights cast odd-shaped shadows over the water's surface. "Garrison said you were staying with them when he called to say you were safe."

"I'm okay," I lie.

When the silence extends, I glance over at her.

She's staring at the door as faint music and bassy vibrations filter through the wood and the glass. "You're doing better than I did."

"How?"

She looks at me. "I wasn't okay for the longest time. You won't believe me, but I spent the first few days sleeping on the closet floor with a bedside table shoved in front of the door. I was so afraid."

Her voice is faint, and her green eyes haunted.

"I slept sitting on the floor beside the door with a knife in my hand. Was lucky I didn't stab myself in the night." I smile to hide the terror that probably equaled hers. That I slept at all was a miracle.

I consider telling her that my knife makes me feel safe in a way I haven't felt in so long. And that I'm terrified the moment I forget my knife will be when O'Brien grabs me, bundles me up and takes me back to a cell, and I can't go through that again. Now that I've tasted freedom, stepping back into a cage would break me.

"I remember the way you cursed the people at the Asylum. You didn't stop fighting, and you made me feel braver than I was. Thank you," she says.

"I'm not as brave as you think." Just good at pretending I am.

Some things are more important than fear. One of those things is making this world into one I want my child to grow up in. I would give anything, do anything, be anything to make that happen.

"Are you going to stay with them?"

I hide my surprise. I thought Garrison would have told Everleigh I'm his scent-match, but it doesn't seem like he has. If she knew, she would just assume that I would. Because who wouldn't want their scent-match?

In our world, it's something to celebrate, not something to reject.

"No. I have a life I have to get back to."

The door flies open with a thump and a petite red-headed woman tackles Everleigh even harder than she tackled me. She speaks so fast I miss most of what she says.

Something about a job and a credit card and not to worry.

When Everleigh hugs the woman, I tell myself this doesn't look like it's a stabbing situation so I can leave my knife where it is.

Then the woman is gone.

I stare after her as she sprints out of the front door. "Why did that woman attack you like that?"

"That was Della, my sister. She's like that sometimes." Everleigh's tone is thoughtful.

Della seemed to be in a real hurry not to let Everleigh get even one word in before she blew out of here. "I got the impression she might have been hiding something."

"That's because she was and she didn't want me to know it. Probably something about this new job she won't tell me about, which makes me think it's dangerous or illegal."

"And the credit card?"

"Is mine. I let her keep it after she lost her last job. She went from constantly trying to return it to saying she needed it for a little while longer."

I frown. "Do you think it's drugs?"

Everleigh blows out a heavy breath. "Knowing Della, it's something worse than drugs."

"What could be worse than drugs?"

"Whatever it is, I'll get to the bottom of it. Anyway, is everything okay with the baby? My mom…" Her voice trails off, and she swallows hard, looking away as she wraps her arms around herself. "Asylum took me from my mom and stuck her in a private hospital, then had another woman raise me. It was the man who I refuse to call my father. Sloane Eddiswood."

I stare at her in horror.

Her eyes flick to me, and seeing my horror, she smiles faintly. "Awful, huh? All the time we couldn't find you, I kept thinking that they would do the same to you and your baby."

I curve an arm protectively around my belly as I try desperately not to imagine someone taking my baby. "I hear it, but I struggle to believe it."

"I know," she says. "I wrote a victim impact statement for the prosecutor to read to the jury. Maybe when people hear what Sloane did to my mom and me, it'll mean he gets to experience, firsthand, what it feels like to be locked up."

I was terrified when I first found out I was pregnant. Not for me, but what it would mean for my child.

The odds of me giving birth to an omega are sky high. When my omega mom and alpha dad found out they were pregnant with me, everyone expected I would be an omega. An omega and alpha union only ever result in an omega child, or very rarely, an alpha.

I kept thinking about what would happen to my child if I gave birth while caged by an alpha like Nathaniel Lang, who viewed me as his appreciating asset.

"We should get to the party," I say, more so I have an excuse to stop thinking of such a horrifying future that could so easily have been a reality.

"Do you think he'll go to jail?" Everleigh asks before I can walk out. Her expression is distant as she looks at me. "I try to imagine him in jail and I can't. I keep thinking he'll get away with it."

So do I.

It's why I'm so determined to get to Dexter Pieter. He will change things in the city. And if he's involved? Then maybe when I meet with him, I should remember to take my knife.

Just in case.