Chapter 17 I can’t escape

The morning I’m set to return home, I wake up with dread sitting heavy in my stomach. I don’t want to leave, but I can’t exactly stay either. Even though I want nothing more than to just hunker down here for the rest of my days, it’s just not possible.

The pack must feel it too because the morning is quiet and unusually somber, with less laughter, longer lingering hugs and kisses, like they don’t want to let me go either. We spend the morning on the couch, the four of them passing me around like a security blanket, so each of them has a chance to snuggle me.

Tic makes me one last lunch, and then I go upstairs to pack. Ren will be here at two to take me to her house, where I’ll wash off the scent of the Calloway pack and replace it with the more familiar scents of the Karlin household. I’ll also leave every single one of my birthday gifts with her. I can’t risk my father finding them and wondering where they came from.

There’s no chance Ren and her family could afford that diamond necklace.

Tic wanders up when I’m almost done, a plastic bottle in his hands. He leans against the door frame, watching me for a moment, before he says quietly, “You sure we can’t convince you to stay?”

Tears prick my eyes, but I blink them away. “I want to say yes, but I can’t.” Moving in with them, with a pack, will definitely go against my father’s longest standing command. We wouldn’t be able to keep it hidden forever, and then I’d embarrass him.

He sighs and pushes away from the frame. “In that case, I want you to take these with you.” He holds out the plastic bottle and I take it without question, but I frown down at the label less bottle.

“What are they?”

He tucks his hands into his pockets. “Vitamins. Supplements. Essentially, all the same things I put in your smoothie every morning.”

My chest warms, and I smile up at him. “Thank you, that’s really thoughtful.”

He runs a knuckle down my cheek. “I just want to be sure you’re being taken care of. Getting the right nutrients. Two a day will do it.”

I toss the bottle into the bag and nestle into his chest, inhaling deep. He buries his nose in my hair and does the same. Like we’re storing up for when we can’t just do this, which is coming far too soon.

“I’m gonna miss you, angel,” he says, sounding slightly surprised by it.

I snuggle closer, fingers digging into his skin. “I’m gonna miss you, too. So much.”

“But we’ll be able to text and talk on the phone, right?”

I nod. “Yeah. I might not respond right away. My father has some… rules about my phone usage during his campaign. But I um… I’ll be able to talk more when I’m free.”

He pulls back and looks down at me. “And we’ll see you at some of those fundraisers and stuff, right?”

I nod and smile up at him. “Absolutely. I can’t escape those.”

“Surely he doesn’t make you go to every one?”

I hesitate, testing out answers in my head to find the one that is the most truthful, but also will hurt me the least. “A few days before the Fourth of July this year, I caught the flu. I was sick for a week and a half, couldn’t keep anything down.”

I wait to see if he puts it together. His brow furrows. “But you were at every one of his events that week.”

I nod. “I was.”

“He made you attend?”

I lick my lips, uncertainly. Now we’re getting into dangerous territory with how I can answer. “It’s what’s expected of me.”

“It’s bullshit is what it is, angel.”

I shrug. He’s not wrong. I was miserable all week, lightheaded from lack of food, exhausted beyond reason. I slipped away multiple times to throw up, especially during the BBQ portion of the event, where I was supposed to smile beautifully and serve hotdogs and hamburgers to the donors.

“Ren’s here,” Creed’s voice calls from the hallway, begrudging as hell. I think if he could, he would tie me up to keep me here.

Tic sighs and loosens his grip on me, letting me finish throwing things in my bag. When I’m done, he zips it up for me and slings it over his shoulder, lacing his fingers through mine to walk me downstairs.

The three other alphas are waiting in the foyer, arms crossed, glowers in place. Even Jude looks unhappy and it’s very… unnatural.

“Please don’t be upset,” I say as I come to a stop in front of them. “We’re going to see each other tomorrow.”

“It won’t be the same,” Jude mutters, tucking his hands in his pockets. “I won’t be able to hug you or kiss you. Hell, we’ll probably barely even be able to acknowledge each other.”

My stomach sinks. Everything he just said is exactly right. I won’t be able to do any of that with them, not in public. “Maybe we can sneak away for a bit?”

He brightens a little. “Yeah? Sneak away and make out like teenagers?”

I nod and he grins, hands clamping over my cheeks to hold me in place so he can kiss me. Even though I wasn’t planning on going anywhere, anyway. I think he might have kept me there for a lot longer, wrapped up in his arms with his mouth on mine, but Creed lets out a grumble and pulls me away from him.

I smack into his chest with a small oof, and then his mouth is on mine. Devouring me, consuming me. I love it, so I just tilt my head further, resting it in his big palm as he kisses the daylights out of me. When he pulls back, he takes my bottom lip with him, scraping his teeth over it in the most delicious way. “Text when you get home so we know you’re safe, ‘kay, baby girl?”

I swallow and nod. “Promise.”

With one more peck to my lips, he passes me over to Hale, who loops his hands under my thighs and lifts. My limbs wind around him as naturally as breathing, my body trusting him implicitly. He won’t drop me. His fingers flex on my ass as he kisses me, slow and deep. “Be good for me, mouse.”

“I will,” I say against his mouth, kissing him as the sound of an approaching engine reaches my ears.

“Kiss me again,” he demands. I do so fucking willingly. He groans into my mouth, cock pressing against my core, making me whimper in pleasure.

“You’re going to send her home smelling like sex,” Tic says, like it’s not a bad thing. But it would be.

And if I was going directly home, I wouldn’t indulge like this. They don’t know I’m running to Ren’s first to shower and pick up my Frederick Bell approved clothes.

There’s a knock on the door and I reluctantly let my legs drop from Hale’s waist. He slowly lowers me to the ground, his mouth on mine the entire time, like he can’t bear to not have his lips on me.

I don’t know how I’m going to manage either. Not after days of being able to touch them whenever I want.

But I’ll have to. There is no other option.

Ren is here, and it’s time for me to go.

There’s something wrong. I know it as soon as I set foot in the house. There’s a chill in the air. A stillness that’s eerie. I pause on the other side of the door in the grand foyer my father loves so much, but that feels cold and lifeless to me.

My hand reaches behind me, seeking the door handle, tempted to retreat outside, call Ren to come back and pick me up. I don’t want to be here. I never want to be here, but now knowing what a real home should feel like, this is even worse.

But as the cool metal brushes my finger, I hear the buzz of the automatic electric lock turning, clicking into place.

Shit. I glance around as panic takes root in my chest. I don’t smell my father. His scent lingers in the air, but it’s stale. Not fresh. He shouldn’t be home. Which means he must be watching from one of the security cameras. Or he’s doused himself in descenter and is hiding somewhere in this house waiting to strike.

I wouldn’t put it past him.

My fingers move from the door to the handle of my suitcase, intending to hustle up to the relative safety of my room. But at my first step farther inside the house, his voice cracks out. “ Come here. ”

Swallowing thickly, I leave my suitcase where it is. My footsteps echo across the floor as I make my way into the living room. I pause just inside the entrance, taking in the way the furniture is pushed back, the coffee table that usually sits between the two couches gone entirely.

He’s sitting on the sofa on the left, a laptop on his legs. The chemical smell I associate with descenter clings to my nostrils and I know he wanted to take me by surprise, to have me on my back foot.

I force a smile to my mouth and link my fingers together to hide that my hands are shaking. “Hi, daddy. You’re back early.”

He hums his answer, types something on his keyboard and then closes the computer, setting it on the cushion next to him, pinning me with a hard look. “Where have you been?”

“With Florence.”

His head tilts as he stares at me, trying to make me spill my secrets. I’m telling the truth, though. I was just with Florence.

He points to a spot in front of him. “Stand here.”

I move to comply, even though it’s not a bark. I have nothing to hide. I have nothing to hide. I have nothing to hide.

I come to a stop facing the ornate fireplace, big enough that I could almost stand up inside it. It’s ugly as sin. I hate it. The clock on the mantel tick, tick, ticks as he sits in silence and I stand in front of him.

He pushes to his feet and I turn my head to watch him, wanting to keep the predator in my sights, but he tsks. “Face forward.” Reluctantly, I turn back to that ugly ass fireplace.

“What did you do for your birthday, Haven?”

Shit. Shit. Shit.

Swallowing thickly, I resist the urge to turn and look at him. I need to prove I can follow his orders without him barking at me. “I went out with Florence. To dinner.”

He hums. “With Florence,” he sneers.

My head whips to the side at the first blow. Blood trickles from my nose as I turn back to look at him with wide eyes. Now I understand why he ordered me into the living room and onto the carpet. The carpet can be removed, replaced. The Carrera marble floor, though? It would stain the second my blood hit it.

Can’t have any evidence left behind.

“What happened to not bruising my face?” I shouldn’t ask it and I already know the answer. He never strikes me in places where someone might see. And if I’m honest, he hardly ever hits me at all. But this is different. This is my father, filled with righteous rage. If he’s hitting my face, it’s because he doesn’t intend anyone to see me for weeks.

He ignores my question, gripping my hair in his fist and tilting my head back. “Do you want to explain to me, Haven, why you were photographed at a restaurant with a pack? Being treated as though you were on a date with them.”

I meet his eyes. “They’re courting Florence.” The lie falls from my lips easily enough that I’m pretty proud of myself. His grip tightens, my head bends back painfully. But I keep talking. “They know how much I mean to her and wanted to make my birthday special… for her, not for me.”

“ Do not lie to me. ”

I wince when the command takes hold. It’s not one he’s ever needed to use on me, or at least one he never thought he did.

“Now tell me again why you were photographed at a restaurant with the Calloway pack.”

I clench my jaw together and refuse. It’s useless. I’ll tell him, eventually. He’ll break me with his fists or his commands. But the idea of admitting what we are to each other, what we’re becoming? No, I don’t want to betray myself like that, betray them. He’ll have to force me.

And he will. He does.

“ Tell me. ”

“They’re courting me.” The words fall from my lips on a gasp. Tears fill my eyes at how quickly I gave it up, how easily he can rip the truth from me. I hate him. I hate him more in this moment than I ever have before.

And that is saying something. I’ve hated him for most of my life.

“ Courting you? You, the omega who acts more like a beta? You, the one who has said multiple times publicly that you will never be with a pack.” All true, but all things he’s forced out of me. “Why would they court you?”

The question stings, even though it shouldn’t. It doesn’t matter why, only that they are.

I shrug and glare up at him. “Maybe they can see through the bullshit you’ve forced on me.”

The second slap has my ears ringing. Strands of my hair rip from my scalp as my head whips to the side again, hang from between his fingers as he runs that same hand down his face. “See what you make me do, Haven? If you could just be good for me, if you could just listen, I wouldn’t have to hurt you.”

“You don’t have to,” I whisper, arching my brows like that will make my ears stop ringing.

Another weary sigh from him. “I do though. It’s the only way you learn. Barking at you only gets you so far. You find ways around the commands. Don’t deny it, I know you do.”

I wasn’t going to deny it. He knows how I feel about him and the shackles he’s placed on me. He’s made sure I behave in public, or when there are guests in the house, but he couldn’t give a shit how I behave or interact with him at home. Mostly because he’s almost never here for me to interact with.

His finger strokes down my throbbing cheek and I flinch away from the gentle touch. It makes my heart thunder louder, panic and bile crawling up my throat. If he’s being gentle now, it only means it’s going to hurt worse later.

“What did you tell them?” He asks gently.

“Tell them?” I don’t understand the question. What he wants from me. I told them a lot during our time together.

“About me,” He bites out the clarification. “What did you tell them about me?”

The command to not lie to him is still in place and so my frantic brain scrambles for something I can say that is good, that I sang his praises to them.

I take too long. The fist to my stomach lets me know that. I curl up, breathing deep through the pain. His hand comes to a rest between my shoulders, rubbing a soothing circle there. “You must have told them something, Haven, for them to think you’d be open to dating a pack. Which we both know you shouldn’t be. It would ruin my reputation, the reputation of our family.”

This, at least, I can answer honestly. “They approached me first. They told me they wanted to court me before I told them anything about you.”

“What did you do that would make them think they could do that, Haven?” His hand slides back into my hair, yanking me upright so he can look in my face. “You realize I know these men, I work with them, have invested with Atticus Calloway on a project he’s working on. I’ve helped them get where they are today and they have helped me achieve more than I thought possible for my goals. They have told me multiple times that they want the dissolution of the designations the same as I do. That they live as a pack in name only because of family complications.”

I frown at the information he’s giving me. It feels directly at odds with what I know of the Calloway pack. Sure, the relationship between Creed and the rest of them is strained, and they have a strange competitiveness running through them that makes them clash every so often, but that’s just the reality of four alphas living together without an omega to ground them.

The longer I spent with them, the less that happened, the more they felt like a true loving pack. Even Creed.

“They told me they respected the way I’ve raised you. That omega instincts are shameful, turning our pretty little girls into whores .” I flinch at that, recalling how Hale had called me a pretty little slut, a whore. Is that what he really thinks? “So what exactly did you do to make them go back on all that, Haven? Did you fuck them? Hmm? Did you spread your filthy omega thighs for them?”

I choke on my shock. My father has never said anything remotely like this to me. Never once in all the years he’s kept me under control, buried under his commands. This situation with the Calloways has sent him over the deep end.

I want to lie to him. I want to deny what he’s saying, but the truth is, I had sex with them. Well, with Hale, but I did a hell of a lot of other things Frederick Bell wouldn’t approve of with the rest of them.

And he’s not asking if I did that before they said they wanted to court me. He’s just asking if I did.

I can’t lie. He’s made it so. “Yes,” I whisper.

Another gentle brush of his finger down my cheek. “You look just like your mother, you know that, right? She was a filthy whore too.”

I bite back my immediate need to defend my mother. It won’t do any good to speak up for her now. Besides, she left me with him. With this monster who delights in making me as small as he can.

He drops his hand and moves away from me. “You’re such a disappointment, Haven,” he sighs. It shouldn’t bother me. I hate the man and I don’t want his approval, but there’s still the niggling need of a child wanting their parent to be proud of them.

It’s the only reason I tip my chin down and whisper, “I’m sorry.” It’s what he wants to hear. But it won’t make him go any easier on me.

He hums and circles around behind me.

“ Stand in that spot until I say you can move. ” The command rolls over me and my feet immediately feel like heavy cinder blocks rooted to the floor. His footsteps retreat and I think maybe this is the punishment. He’ll leave me here for a few hours, maybe overnight. It’ll suck, standing that whole time, but I can do it, even with my throbbing face and sore stomach. It won’t be that bad.

I’ve been standing for two and a half hours when he returns. I know it was two and a half hours, because I’ve been staring at the damn clock on the mantle the entire time.

The hair on the back of my neck prickles as he moves closer to me, the tread heavy on the marble. I hear him move over to the bar, pour himself a drink. “Well,” he says conversationally, making the prickles only get worse. “I’ve just had a long conversation with the Calloway pack, and do you know what they told me?” There’s the slosh of liquid in a glass.

I lick my dry lips. I’m parched and hungry, but I know I won’t be getting food or water any time soon. “No, what did they say?”

He chuckles. “That they don’t give a shit what happens to you.”

It’s a direct hit. The jab slides right between my ribs and to my heart. But some part of me knows that’s not true.

“That’s a lie,” I deny. I want it to be true. I want to believe that they care.

Another chuckle. “Well, that’s true. In actuality, they didn’t say a goddamn thing about you, Haven. Your name didn’t pass their lips at all, no subtle requests for information about you. No asking how you are, which is something they’ve done every fucking time we’ve talked. After all, I am a family man. It’s only right to ask about my family. No, what they did was carefully avoid any mention of you.”

I swallow thickly, not liking where this is going at all. He sounds entirely too calm. Too relaxed.

“Hey, little mouse, hope you made it home okay,” he whispers just behind my ear, making me jump. Or at least I try to, but my feet stay firmly on the ground. “Send us a text so we can stop worrying, angel.”

“What?”

“I can’t stop thinking about your mouth on my cock, baby girl.” He says and I feel sick, sick, sick. “Miss you already, button.” I sway on my feet and he laughs, holding my phone in front of me, letting me see the texts they sent not long after I left their house. “Should I keep going, Haven?”

I shake my head. “No.”

He moves out of sight again and the panic in my body rachets up. “You know I can’t have this, Haven. You know you can’t be seen gallivanting around town with a pack. It undermines everything I’m trying to do here. Everything I’m building.”

“What you’re doing is wrong,” I whisper.

“Maybe,” he concedes. “But it’s not going to stop me from doing it.”

I feel him move closer, feel the air shift, then the sharp sting of something cracking across my shoulder blades. I cry out, but it’s not loud enough to cover the sound of his bark. “You will not talk to, text or email any member of the Calloway pack.”

“No,” I gasp out in protest, but it ends on another sound of pain as he hits me again.

“ You will not seek out the Calloway Pack. ”

Another blow. “ You will not ask Florence to speak to them on your behalf. ”

Smack. “ You will not entertain any proposal from any pack that approaches you ever again. ”

On and on it goes, a blow to my body with what I realize is a cane, and then a blow to my heart, my brain, my emotions with another command heaped on top of those he’s already given me. So many that I lose track. Eventually they fall on my ears like rain falls on flowers. I soak them up, but don’t comprehend the limitations he’s putting on me. Not really. The pain in my body is too great for me to track them all.

And I can do nothing but stand there and take it. I can’t even fall to my knees in agony, curl around my stomach protectively. The command for me to stand in place is still in effect.

He’s breathing heavily by the time he’s finished, like beating his daughter is a workout for him. He moves to stand in front of me, the cane clenched in his fist. I keep my blurry vision lowered, focused on his feet. I am well and truly cowed. There is no fight in me, nothing left.

“Look at me, Haven.” I don’t want to. I don’t want to look into the face of the man who should love me more than anyone else but doesn’t. I don’t want to see the cold mask I know will be on his face. “ Look at me. ”

Technically, I am looking at him, I could probably ignore that command, but I know what he wants so I lift my eyes to his, noting that he’s taken his white button-up shirt off, so he’s only in his undershirt. The sleeves are bunched around his shoulders like he needed them out of the way for a better range of motion. I stared dazedly at his upper shoulder, a piece of skin I’ve never seen on my father before. Which is odd, but Frederick Bell is always perfectly put together in a suit and tie. Ren once joked that he probably slept in a suit.

“Now.”

I pull my gaze away from his shoulder and up to his face, meeting his muddy brown eyes, wishing I could spit in his face, but knowing I don’t have it in me. He tucks a strand of sweat slicked hair behind my ears and lays down one more command. “ You will not give me a reason to repeat this lesson. ”

My eyes drift closed as the command shivers over my skin, taking root. Tears swell behind my closed lids before spilling down my cheeks. His lips press into my forehead in a mockery of fatherly affection.

“Good night, daughter,” he says before walking away, leaving me standing amidst blood splatters on the living room area rug.

He returns just before five a.m., already dressed for the day in a suit, and tells me I can move. My knees give out immediately, falling to the floor with a cry of agony and relief. One and the same after hours of keeping my battered body upright.

As I hit the floor, I hear his footsteps retreat. Then the front door opens and closes. My eyes drift shut as my body shuts down. I’ll move up to my room in a couple of hours, but right now, the idea of dragging my limbs even an inch away is impossible.

No, I’ll sleep here for a bit. Then move, lock myself in my room to recover.

As I drift off, the memory of my father’s shoulder filters through my mind again, that always carefully hidden piece of skin. I’ve never understood why he was so uptight about keeping his chest hidden. When he goes to the beach, he always wears a swim shirt. Says it’s to protect him from the sun.

But now I know better.

My father’s been keeping a secret from me, from the entire world.

Because last night, while he was doling out my punishment, too distracted by teaching me a lesson, he slipped up and let me see it. There on his shoulder were two perfectly formed and healed crescent moon scars.

My father, the man who rages against designations and instincts and packs, has a mating bite. Which means he has a bond.

Or he did at one point.