14. Cas

Even after whatshe'd seen, Lucy had reached out to me first. She'd reached out to me – trusting that I'd protect the only person in the world she seemed to care about.

Frankie was silent next to me in the front seat of the Explorer, her chin resting on her fist as she stared out the window. The Lopez pack had land on the east side of the city instead of the north. Their compound wasn't as big as the Valor pack's but they had more international dealings than we did.

Odd that Lucy would ask me to take her to see Francisco without telling me anything. She'd known I would do it too, and that I wouldn't ask any questions if it meant I'd get into her good graces.

She was so much like Liam it scared me sometimes.

Could I really handle both of them? I wasn't sure, but the idea of losing either of them made it hard to sleep. I couldn't fucking do anything about it after she'd left either. Other than watch her through the cameras.

Even that hadn't been enough.

I'd followed her like a psycho stalker with my laptop, phone, and tablet displaying her location, the phone we'd mirrored, and the footage from all the cameras we had access to. That almost hadn't been enough when I was forced to watch her spiral before and after meeting with the doctor.

My omega was freaking the fuck out and she wouldn't let me help her. There was nothing in the world more agonizing for an alpha than that.

Frankie probably knew what that felt like. She's been dealing with Lucy for almost two decades now.

Not that I wanted to ask her about it.

I should be asking why she thought we could get into the Lopez compound to make it seem like I had no idea who she really was, but I was pretty fucking sure we were way past that now.

"How much do you know?" Frankie asked as she peeled dry skin off her bottom lip, eyes on the cars that flew by.

"About what?"

Her tired sigh gave me a tiny twinge of guilt, but not enough to make any of this easier for her. We were bound by Lucy and the case. That was it. Watching my omega choose her over me again and again was starting to get to me.

I had no idea how Liam was dealing with it.

"About me." Frankie turned and gave me a look like she knew I was being dense on purpose. "My sources tell me you've been looking into the Lopez pack."

"Did they also tell you I kidnapped your cousin?" My raging alpha instincts were making me say and do shit I normally never would and I mentally cussed myself out for openly admitting something that could make all this a thousand times worse.

"No. Lucy told me that." Frankie turned back to the window like it wasn't a big deal and I shook my head. Everyone from a legacy pack always liked to remind me just how fucking different they were from the rest of us. "Just make sure Arturo suffers."

The pure hatred dripping from those words made me wonder what he'd done while they'd all lived in the same compound, but I didn't ask. I was pretty fucking sure I wouldn't be able to handle it on top of everything else.

I knew without a doubt I'd turn right back around and go right back to where that asshole was being kept. I'd pull every bone out of his body while he watched and we didn't have time for that, but Frankie would appreciate my work. That told me more than all the digging I'd done into the Lopez pack did.

"I am curious why we're going to see your father though," I admitted as I flicked on the blinker to make a left turn. "How is this going to help?"

"He had to have recognized Lucy in that photo with Liam at Bite. She lived with us for a long time. My father was always trying to hook her up with me or my cousins, but it never panned out." Frankie shrugged like it didn't bother her, but she started pulling at the dry skin on her lip too aggressively to make it convincing. "Now that we know what she's truly capable of, it makes me wonder if he knew what she was."

I pulled over so I didn't get us into a car accident and tried to focus on not snapping the steering wheel off the goddamn car. "He knew?"

"My father never made it obvious, but I've always wondered why he was so pushy about getting her to pick an alpha from our pack. For a long time I thought it was because she'd declined his offer to adopt her. Bonding to one of our alphas would have given her that name in a different way."

I leaned back and eyed Frankie – really studied every part of her. Especially the way she wouldn't look at me.

"My father knows more about the outlier designations than almost anyone in the world. He went through a whole research phase and still funds a lot of different studies as well as various drug developments. I wouldn't put it past him to know what Lucy is and then keep it to himself."

"How could he have possibly known?" I demanded, running my hand through my hair so aggressively I nearly ripped it all out, but I didn't like imagining what kind of experiments Francisco Lopez might have done on my omega.

Frankie cleared her throat and dropped her hand into her lap, the tips of her fingers covered in blood. "Sometimes, Lucy can be…difficult. When she asked to be emancipated, he was furious. Who would protect her if she moved out so young? She was only sixteen at the time so it was a big deal. An omega living alone at that age? It was unheard of, but Lucy convinced him she wasn't going to move out. She just wanted to be responsible for herself instead of having to ask him permission for everything."

That sounded like Lucy alright.

"But before a sixteen-year-old omega convinced the alpha of an entire legacy pack who was thirty years her senior to sign a contract with her, he tried to force her to obey like all alphas do." Frankie waved her hand like that was obvious and expected, but there was a bitterness to her tone that seemed to match the dried blood under her nails.

"Let me guess. It didn't work?" I sighed and slammed my head back into the headrest. I needed to see her or I was going to go back right now and force my way into whatever room she was in just so I could feel that strange calm her scent gave me.

"Everyone in the room was choking at his feet, their faces purple, including me." Frankie laughed but it sounded hollow. "Lucy stood there with her arms crossed over her chest and raised an eyebrow at him like she was the legacy alpha. Then she told him to stop throwing a temper tantrum and listen to her offer. Shockingly, he did."

Francisco Lopez was notorious for his capriciousness, so I understood why Frankie was shocked. I would be too, but this was Lucy we were talking about. I just didn't understand why Francisco cared so much about an omega who could pass as a beta.

"Why do you think he listens to her?" Understanding the effect she had on me and Liam was one thing, but I needed to learn what kind of an effect she had on other powerful alphas or I wouldn't be able to keep her safe.

Before Liam settled into his designation, Francisco Lopez was the strongest alpha in the city of Acheron. So, what could he possibly want with a ‘defective' omega?

That was probably why Frankie assumed her father had some idea of what Lucy was.

"I think Lucy draws powerful people to her because she's very capable regardless of her designation," Frankie admitted, knocking her knuckle on the window when it started to rain. "She's fucking crazy and whenever it rains she disappears. She'll be standing right next to me, but I might as well not exist. She's the smartest person I know. And the strongest. Not even a legacy alpha can stand up to my father, let alone a beta. Then there's Lucy, staring at him like he's a child throwing a tantrum. I can't tell you how satisfying it was to see him humbled by a teenage omega."

Whether Frankie was close with her family, or not, I couldn't tell. She didn't seem to hate her father, but she also didn't seem to give a shit if Arturo lived or died.

I turned on the windshield wipers and merged back into traffic, reminding myself Liam was watching over Lucy. I didn't need to check the footage while I was driving no matter how badly I wanted to.

The silence in the car wasn't exactly uncomfortable, but it was tense and I didn't know how to ask all the things I wanted to know, or if Frankie would even want to tell me the answers. Liam and I had essentially stolen her omega from her.

It had to sting to see the omega you've been taking care of for fifteen years respond to two virtual strangers who did nothing to earn that kind of response.

"This is the last thing I can do for her," Frankie muttered as she started picking at her lip again. "It's the one thing you and Liam can't do. So…just let me have this."

What the fuck was I supposed to say to that?

"I'm under no illusion," she went on. "That Lucy is obsessed with you two."

I couldn't help my feral grin as I got onto the freeway.

"As much as everyone assumes I've been pining after her all this time, she's my family. Not someone I want to bond and marry one day. She's my little sister. Nothing more. Honestly, I'm relieved there's an alpha, two alphas, who've caught her fancy. I've been so worried she'd be isolated for the rest of her life with only me to take the edge off of her instincts and we both know I've barely managed that."

I glanced over at her as I pressed down on the accelerator, wanting to get this meeting over with already. "You've done a better job than you think."

Frankie scoffed and dropped her hands in her lap. "If I was a real alpha, I would have been able to do more for her."

Both of them were fucking crazy. "I was listening to what the doctor told you two," I reminded her. "Without you around, Lucy would probably be dead. You're the only alpha she trusts."

I kept my eyes on the road, but I could see her whip her head around to stare at me in shock and outrage. Frankie's red hair flared, catching the small rays of sunlight and for a second I could smell the sweet, yet tart scent of tangerines and something that reminded me of ice cream.

"You really think she would have killed herself if she didn't have me?" Frankie scoffed again once she'd recovered from her shock. "I highly doubt that. She's the strongest person I know. If it weren't for her, I'd be the dead one."

I shook my head and glanced at the GPS before getting over so I could take the exit ramp. "You two have a really fucking weird relationship. Did you know that?"

"Oh, like you and Liam are any better."

She had a point.

I shrugged and checked my phone to see Lucy was in her apartment with Liam's blinking dot was right on top of hers. I tried not to think about what he might do if provoked. I couldn't worry about him right now.

Meeting Francisco Lopez without having to go through all the red tape was a small miracle and we couldn't let this opportunity pass us by.

We needed to know how the Lopez alpha reacted to the news of what we'd done to his heir and if we needed to immediately restructure our employees.

But if Frankie was right, I had a feeling Arturo was going to rot without any consequences because his alpha valued Lucy, not his heir.

"For what it's worth, I think you've done better than any other alpha could," I muttered as I headed toward the private road that would eventually lead to the Lopez compound. "Every single thing she's wanted to do, you've facilitated. Even going so far as to make sure she can defend herself and use a weapon as well as any beta. Not only that, but you also created the Genesis Armed Detective Agency. For her. Because the police wouldn't hire an omega. She looks comfortable in her own skin and doesn't try to conform. You gave her the space to do that and still feel safe. I highly doubt most alphas could give her that safety and structure without limiting her freedom. But you did."

I did the polite thing and turned the music up loud enough to make my ears hurt, pretending like I couldn't see the tears pouring down Frankie's face.

Hearing her call Lucy her little sister had settled something in me that was difficult to acknowledge when I've been ignoring my instincts my whole fucking adult life, but I knew what it was.

An alpha with a younger omega sibling was even more protective than a bonded alpha to their omega. Frankie would kill for Lucy – she'd do anything, because Lucy was her family—her's to protect. And always would be.

Liam and I weren't her rivals, we were the alphas who'd help shape Lucy's pack along with Frankie.

As long as we were all on the same page, we'd figure this out and Lucy would never have to be alone, or choose between us.

Now all we had to do was figure out what her life was worth to the only legacy alpha in the city who was as powerful as Liam.