Chapter 2

CHAPTER 2

SAM

I can't find her anywhere. The gym we've been going to for the past three months every morning is filled with the usuals, but there's no sign of Bella. Usually she goes straight for running track that circles the top of the weight room by now.

I've scoured the building without any sign of the blue-haired woman who drives me crazy in a way I've never known. For some reason I can't explain, my heart speeds up in my chest and my stomach tightens with dread.

She could just be late. Count on Bella to get distracted, especially since she shares an house with four men. Men who gladly fuck her at every available opportunity. The alphas are insatiable, and even Silas can barely keep his hands off of her. She could have easily gotten caught up again in another shower with Hector or stuck lazing around in bed with Dante.

We've gotten into somewhat of a routine over the last few months since we fled. We've come all the way to Canada to escape the De Luca pack until the Carbone alphas can reorganize the pack and get everything in place. Hector and Silas have been flying back in secret once a week and meeting with betas who are still loyal to them. I'd give it another month or so before we're comfortable with going back and establishing order again.

I suppose that makes me part of the Carbone pack. My stomach curdles. I never thought of myself as a traitor. But I can't go back to the De Lucas. Not after what we learned about Bella's sister.

Jogging over to Donny, the gym manager, who's standing over at the front desk looking through papers, I ask him if he's seen Bella today, but he just says no, and that she never showed up for her session this morning. She's been working as a personal trainer for a month now, teaching self-defense to teenage girls. It keeps her busy and her mind occupied.

Slipping from the stuffy room, I make my way to the locker rooms. Bella wouldn't miss a session, especially without giving the girls notice first. She'd spoken to Hector about wanting to start her own gym someday when everything calmed down. In her head, she probably thought that training women in self-defense was some sort of way to cope with all the bad in her early life, but a part of me thinks she wanted it to relieve her own guilt. Not that I think she has anything to be guilty of.

Bella opened up to us that day three long months ago—the day before the world fell apart. She told us about how she was raped in De Luca pack house by one of their own men, and how her fifteen year old self was forced to handle it all alone like a grown woman well before she should have.

I still shudder when I picture what my girl had to go through. Despite the fact that the bastard had his brains blown out, I'd give almost anything to bring him back just to kill him again… this time slowly. Or maybe I'd leave that part to Hector. He always was the one with the darker nature.

Bella never told the alphas about her even darker past, though. The one I only know of because it was my job as her bodyguard to know. The guys have no idea that Bella was once a killer. A pack assassin trained to hunt down her father's enemies and eliminate them. It was their compromise for not selling her off once she hit puberty. They thought her heat was latent, or even just delayed. They had no idea she'd orchestrated it herself with medications.

Bella is an unusually strong and capable omega. The De Luca alphas recognized that early on. She had the heart of an alpha female if I ever saw one.

I dial Hector as soon as I know the locker room is empty. He answers on the first ring as usual. "Yeah?"

"Is Bella at home?"

He's quiet a moment before answering. "No. She was gone before I woke up. Why, what's wrong?"

I sigh and run a hand over my face. I knew he'd know something was up immediately. "She was supposed to be at the gym already, but she's late. She even missed her session. I thought maybe you were distracting her or something."

Something shuffles on the other end of the line, sounding like footsteps on a hardwood floor. Hector's pacing, and that never means anything good. "Well she's not here, and Dante and Silas are both upstairs alone."

Something ugly blooms in my stomach. Something curdling and sour. "Stay there. I'm on my way." I click the phone off and rush from the room and out to my car.

"I don't get it. I didn't even feel her get up this morning," Hector grumbles, running his hands over his buzzed black hair as he sits on the couch with his elbows on his knees. He looks over at Silas. "Did she say anything to you last night?"

Silas shakes his head. "Not a word. My head is fucking pounding." He frowns as he pinches the bridge of his nose. "She's usually loud as fuck in the morning, but I didn't hear shit."

Come to think of it, I have a headache too. It'd been there since the moment I woke up, and I thought coffee would help, but it only seemed to make it worse. I scan the alphas, and notice Dante's bloodshot eyes and the paleness of Hector's normally tan skin.

Hector grabs his phone and walks to the other end of the room, putting his back to us.

"So we all woke up feeling like we've been hit by a truck or something?" I asked.

They shot me various frowns as they processed what I was saying.

"I thought it was just me," Dante groans. "Where the fuck is she?"

The four of us usually take turns watching over Bella, even though we know she hates it. I know she's a grown woman and can care for herself as well as the rest of us, but it's hard to ignore instincts. I might be a beta and not one of the alphas, but even betas could recognize how precious omegas were, and that they need to be protected at all costs. Especially Bella. Always Bella.

Hector hangs up the phone, plopping down on the couch.

"Anything?" I ask hopefully, but he just shakes his head.

"Nope, nothing. The car's gps was deactivated sometime last night. I don't fucking get it. Why the fuck would she go out of her way to do that?"

I can't give him an answer, but I refuse to think the worst.

"Did she seem off last night?" Silas asks the room. All eyes flicker to him in confusion. "I just mean did she seem weird or worried about anything?" He looks to me. "You picked her up from the gym yesterday, did you notice anything?"

I shake my head. "Nothing. She went through her sessions like normal, and then we grabbed some food before coming back."

The rest of the night had been pretty much a fuck fest. We'd each taken her one at a time until she was completely sated. Her heat cycle was over for the time being, but it didn't mean she didn't have cravings. We'd carried her to bed, dead to the world, and that was the last time I saw her.

It's been three hours since I got home and we searched her bedroom for any clues to where she could have gone. All of her worldly possessions seem to be in place, even her clothes, shoes and jackets are still here save for a pair of runners I know she favors over her others. We sit here now in the living room scratching our heads and we agonize over what to do.

A small sound filters through the silence of the townhome. The hairs on my arms raise, because this particular tune is not recognizable in the slightest. A buzzing noise. So faint it's almost nothing. We're on our feet in moments, the four of us rushing to the back of the house—following the strange noise until it leads us straight to Bella's bedroom.

Hector tears in ahead of me, going straight for the mattress. He flips it up and off the box spring, the sound getting louder. A small black flip phone sits in a hidden spot, vibrating over and over again.

We all stare at the offensive device, at an utter loss for words. The thing starts to ring again.

"Fuck this—" Hector snaps, before snatching the phone and bringing it to his ear. "Hello?" He says nothing for a solid thirty seconds. Clicking it shut with a curse, Hector looks up with a confused glare. "They hung up."

I gesture for him to hand me the phone, and to my surprise and relief, he does before he has the chance to crush the thing in anger. I flip it open, watching as the screen lights up with two previous missed calls. The numbers are private, but our tech guys will have no problem tracing it, but for now I click around until I find the messaging app.

The guys crowd around me, all straining to see what's on the screen. My eyes widen as I struggle to comprehend what I'm seeing.

My heart drops into my stomach with the force of a lead weight. Dread coils inside of me like a fucking snake.

There are texts on this phone dating all the way back to seven months ago. There must be hundreds of them.

Some contain pictures as well—pictures of the Carbone alphas, all in random places, doing random things in public and in private. The messages are outgoing, filled with coordinates, affirmations and some Italian phrases that I can't hope to decipher.

Something sickening churns in my gut the more messages I try to read.

"What the fuck are we looking at?" Hector growls.

He's visibly shaking. His face is red and there's a vein throbbing in the side of his neck.

My hands shake as I look through the call log. Dozens of outgoing and incoming calls, all around the same time on the same days of the week. It's like clockwork.

The messages are a string of instructions and responses, full of cryptic one-word confirmations, times, dates, and additional photos. The first message was sent on the day Bella and I were sent to town, confirming that she had successfully made contact with the "targets."

"She's been playing us the whole time," Silas hisses. "She's keeping tabs on us for her alphas from the first fucking day." His face has gone eerily cold and utterly devoid of any human emotion.

"The last message sent says:"

Mission complete, return to the pack house immediately.

Hector curses and the sound of shattering glass has us all watching as he proceeds to smash anything and everything in his path. "Fuuucckk!" Blood soaks his knuckles.

Dante rushes to Hector, trying to stop him from harming himself any further, but it doesn't do any good. Hector shoves Dante away, so hard the big man stumbles into the wall.

The room falls silent as the weight of what she's done crashes down on us. She's been betraying us from the very beginning. Not only the Carbones, but me too, her bodyguard who would gladly leap in front of a bullet for her.

Why wouldn't she have told me about this plan? Was it so top secret that even her protector couldn't be trusted? I wouldn't put it past the De Luca alphas to be that sneaky, but Bella?

I scroll through more messages, each one making the knot in my stomach tighten further. There's mention of a "extraction plan" and a set of coordinates I don't recognize. My mind races, trying to piece it all together.

"She drugged us," Dante says quietly, his voice cracking. "That's why we all feel like shit. So she could slip away unnoticed."

Hector slams his fist into the wall, leaving a gaping hole. "I'll kill her. I'll fucking kill her for this!"

"No." Silas's cold voice is low and dangerous, his golden eyes like molten metal. "She's mine. I'll deal with the little traitor myself."

I shake my head, still staring at the phone in disbelief. "We don't know the full story yet. There has to be more to this. Bella wouldn't just..."

But I can't even finish the thought. The evidence is damning. Our omega, the woman we trust and love… or at least I know I do, has been working against us all along. Leading us on like fools.

But then again, how well do I know her?

The guys turn to me, and Silas steps closer. "You didn't know what she was up to? How are we supposed to believe her own De Luca pack bodyguard had no idea she was sent here as a fucking spy?"

Hector glares at me, his eyes filled with suspicion and fury. "Yeah, Sam, how do we know you're not in on this too? You've been with her longer than any of us. Keeping her safe for your precious De Luca masters, huh?"

I bristle at the accusation, my own anger flaring. "You know damn well my loyalty is to Bella, not the De Lucas. I left the pack with her, knowing she never wanted to go back there. I turned my back on them, because I've loved her since the moment I met her."

A realization hits me, causing my heart to sink even deeper. It's Bella's secret. The one she never shared with the Carbone alphas. Suddenly, everything starts to fall into place, even though I desperately don't want to believe it. But it all makes sense now. Before moving to town, Bella was already a killer. She was the De Luca pack's assassin, hiding behind the facade of a sweet omega. No one would have ever suspected her of being capable of such cold-hearted brutality. It turns out that this is what her fathers trained her for, and this was just her latest mission.

I have to tell them the truth. They have to know. Even if I'm betraying her trust, she's the one who betrayed mine first.

I take a deep breath, my shoulders sagging under the weight of what I'm about to reveal. "There's something you need to know about Bella. Something she's never told any of you."

The alphas turn to me, their eyes narrowed with suspicion and barely contained rage. I meet each of their gazes steadily, steeling myself for their reaction.

"Before she came to town, before she met any of you, Bella was... she was the De Luca pack assassin." The words taste bitter on my tongue. "Her fathers trained her to be a killer, to eliminate their enemies without leaving a trace. That's why they never sold her off when she hit puberty like most omegas. They saw her potential as a weapon. Since she suppressed her heat cycle and they couldn't sell her off, they found other uses for her."

Silence falls over the room, heavy and suffocating. Hector is the first to break it, a harsh laugh escaping his lips. "You expect us to believe that? An omega assassin? This isn't a fucking movie, Sam."

But even as he says it, I can see the doubt creeping into his eyes. The pieces are starting to fall into place for all of them, just as they did for me.

Silas's jaw clenches, his hands curling into fists at his sides. "It makes sense," he grits out. "The way she fights… the way she handles weapons. It's not just self-defense training."

Dante shakes his head, looking like he might be sick. "So what does this mean? Was this the end game the whole time? Getting us to kill our fathers? What then? How the hell would that benefit the De Lucas at all?"

I wish I had an answer, but my mind is reeling.

Hector starts pacing, his alpha energy rolling off him in waves of barely contained fury. "We have to find her. Get some goddamn answers straight from the lying bitch's mouth."

Silas nods, his golden eyes hard as steel. "And when we do, she'll pay for this betrayal. Omega or not, no one makes fools of the Carbones."

As much as it pains me, I know they're right. We can't let Bella get away with this, no matter how much a part of me still wants to believe in her innocence. She's played us all for months, and we fell for it like lovesick pups.