Chapter 18 In which I kidnap my girl’s mother

I

probably shouldn’t be doing this. No. I know I shouldn’t be doing this, but I don’t really give a fuck.

Someone has answers for my cherrybomb, and I’m going to fucking find them. Even if I have to torture every person in this goddamn city, I’m going to figure out what was done to my omega when she was a child.

But I’m going to start with the most likely person to give me the answers I need.

Sadie’s mom.

Danielle Pierce.

Ethan already did a background check on her, the same way he ran one on Sadie.

This is what we know.

Danielle Pierce is forty-three. She had Sadie when she was eighteen and the fucker who donated sperm has never been in the picture. Single teenage mom struggling to make ends meet. She lived with her parents until Sadie was seven and then moved out.

To this place. A cute two-story house with a white picket fence and a good sized yard.

At the time, Danielle was working as a barista, and yet she could purchase this little slice of heaven… in cash. There is no way she would have made enough tips at the local Bean and Brew to afford that, even if she saved every fucking penny she made.

Six months after the purchase, Sadie turned eight and she started seeing the man who lied to my girl and called himself Dr. Schwab.

All of this was relayed to me by Ethan, a low murmur in my ear as he hurriedly explained what they’d discovered with Sadie. Which wasn’t much.

I don’t really give a fuck about Danielle’s history. I just care about my cherrybomb. About how she spent half her fucking life sick, and now she’s scared because she doesn’t know what the hell was done to her.

I’m going to figure it out.

Right the fuck now.

I hop over the low fence, not bothering to be stealthy about it. If someone looked out their window, they would see my white blond hair bobbing around the side of the house, where I peek in the window and find a woman who looks exactly like I imagine Sadie will look in twenty years.

Still young looking, still beautiful. They have the same full lips and the same pert little nose. Sadie’s hair is just a little lighter, a little wavier than her mother’s, though I don’t know if that’s because she’s more likely to let her hair air dry than blow dry it to a smooth sheen. The only actual difference is the color of their eyes. Where my girl’s are a shiny silver, her mother’s are a dull blue, like faded denim.

I’m sure whenever they go together, people comment about how they could be sisters.

I’m sure Danielle fucking loves that.

She’s on the couch in a matching pajama set, pink with white polka dots, still in a full face of makeup, even though she’s obviously in for the night.

Maybe she’s expecting a late night visitor, a little nookie, but what she’s going to get is me instead.

A wicked grin curves my lips, anticipation singing through me. I don’t know that my cherry bomb would approve of this course of action… in fact, I kind of doubt that she will, but I can’t bring myself to care.

This woman took her daughter to a false doctor for years. She refused to answer a scared kid’s questions about the sickness they’d told her she had. She kept Sadie in the dark for seventeen years and now she’s going to shine some fucking light on the situation, even if I have to cut into her flesh to do it.

I’m about ninety-eight percent sure it won’t come to that, though.

I watch as Danielle sips from her wineglass and then settles back again, eyes fixed on something on the TV screen.

Certain that she’s not going to move in the next five minutes, I check my pocket for the capped syringe. Grinning even more, I pat it like a cat and round the house.

This is too fucking easy. I don’t even have to break in technically, since Sadie still has a key to her mother’s house. And I lifted her keys out of her purse before I left the penthouse. She won’t mind, not when I can get her answers.

My grin grows when I think of Sadie, my cherry bomb, my omega. Mine. Mine. Mine . I love the fucking sound of that.

I’ve known her for all of three days, and most of those Maddox has made us keep our distance from her, but I can already tell she’s going to be ours forever. I won’t let her get away.

I know she’s new to being an omega, which is the only reason I’ve given her space. Well, that and the jobs Maddox has sent me on have satisfied my bloodlust. I think he knows it’s the only way I would be apart from Sadie. If he just sent me on a bullshit errand, like babysitting a shipment, I’d have stabbed him and then gone to find my cherrybomb.

A happy laugh spills from my lips that I have to stifle as I make my way to the back door of Sadie’s mother’s house. Killing for my bloodlust, the sexiest omega in the fucking world for my fuck lust. I’m a fucking lucky alpha for sure.

Things are slotting into place.

Once I knot and bite and bond our pretty slice of cherry pie, I’ll finally have everything I ever wanted, only better. Because Sadie is better than anything I could have imagined. Truly.

The smile falls as I think of what happened this evening, someone trying to take her from us. Someone hurting her, leaving bruises on her body, and a haunted look in her pretty silver eyes. I’m going to find out who that was too, and eviscerate them over the course of many, many years. I’m going to keep them locked up in my playroom and make them hurt. Then have Logan nurse them back to health, so I can make them hurt all over again.

I’ll see how long we can keep a person alive while slowly dismembering them, taking pieces of them to give to my omega as courting gifts and then bonding gifts and then anniversary gifts. They’ll regret ever laying a finger on Cherrybomb.

My phone buzzes in my pocket with an incoming text, pulling me from my vision of blood and torture. I growl at the interruption, and almost don’t look at it, but then I realize it might be Cherrybomb, and so I eagerly pull my phone from my pocket.

Maddoximus Prime:

Do not, under any circumstances, hurt Sadie’s mother.

Boo. Not my sexy little omega. Just my sexy big prime alpha.

I send him back a middle finger emoji. It’s fucking great. He knows I got his message and that I’m not going to listen to his command.

My instincts are telling me this needs to happen for my omega to be happy, so this is what I’m going to fucking do.

Of course, he can’t leave well enough alone.

Maddoximus Prime:

Swift, I fucking mean it.

She won’t forgive you if you torture her mom.

I don’t think he knows Sadie as well as he thinks he does. But more importantly, I don’t think he realizes just how fucked up this situation has the potential to be.

He should, though.

If anyone should understand that sometimes parents treat their children so abominably that the only recourse is violence, it’s him. After all, his father was a fucking abusive asshole and Maddox had the happy pleasure of shooting him in his black heart.

Something tells me that whatever Danielle Pierce tells us happened when Sadie was a child, is going to change our girl’s opinion on the woman for the worse.

While I’d do almost anything to keep my omega from hurting, in this case, unanswered questions and half-truths are going to end up hurting her more.

I tuck my phone back in my pocket, leaving him on read. It’ll piss him off, but whatever, I have more important things to worry about than that.

The back door is unlocked. Lucky fucking me.

I move into the house on silent feet, an argument between omega housewives on the TV covers any accidental sounds I might make. But I know there won’t be any. I’m quiet as a mouse as I sneak through the house, eyes on my prey. Danielle tilts her head and laughs at something on the screen and it’s fucking eery how much that laugh sounds like my Cherrybomb. But it doesn’t make my dick hard the way Sadie’s does.

I’m right behind her, staring down at the pulse in her neck, my hand tight around the syringe. She doesn’t have any fucking clue there’s a monster in her house. None.

Its fucking thrilling.

She squeals when my palm slams over her mouth. A spike of terrified beta scent—lemon cleanser—hits the air as I lift the needle and jab it into her throat before depressing the plunger. With almost anyone else, I would shush them quietly as they fought the drugs entering their system. But with Danielle? I want to hear her whimpers and whines. I want the tears streaming down her face.

She deserves to be terrified. I’m sure of it. I’m sure she’s done enough shitty fucking things in her life to my Cherrybomb that this is just a small taste of what she deserves.

It doesn’t take long for the drugs to take effect.

When her body slumps down and her breathing relaxes, I round the couch and haul her over my shoulder, not being careful or gentle with her at all.

Her head hits the wall as I head back down the hall to the back door. Oops.

I hum to myself as I step into the backyard, feeling proactive as fuck because I’m going to be the one to get my girl answers.

By the time I get back to the packhouse, I have ten missed calls from Maddox and a shitton of text messages demanding that I call him immediately.

I don’t.

Instead, I drag Danielle through the garage and into the little hidden door, down a flight of stairs and into my workroom. I flick on the lights and survey my options.

I don’t use this room that often.

Maddox prefers if I do my business in places not so intrinsically tied to our pack. But this is a special occasion, and I want to be close to Sadie. I want to tell her what I figure out right away.

A giddy thrill of excitement moves through me as I flick my gaze back and forth between the metal table and the metal chair. Both have straps to hold down my victims. Both have drains under them for easy cleanup.

I briefly look at the hook dangling from the ceiling and consider hanging Danielle, but just in case Maddox is right and Sadie doesn’t want me to full on torture her mom, I dismiss it.

Chair it is.

I get the older woman situated, strapping her in tight enough that I know her fingers are going to turn a little blue. It’s fucking perfect, honestly. Start her out with a little discomfort right away.

By the time Danielle is situated just how I like, she’s beginning to wake. Eyes fluttering as disgruntled groans sound from her chest.

Damn, I am so fucking good at this. Have my dosage amounts just right, my timings down to a fucking science.

She shifts in the chair, head bobbing just the slightest bit as she comes to.

I sit quietly, waiting for her to realize that something is not right. This is my favorite part, if I’m honest, when they’re groggy and confused, when they have no clue what just happened or any idea of what’s happening next. That sweet moment when it all comes flooding back and their panic hits them.

I grin when Danielle jerks, tugging at her bonds, a terrified whimper pulling from her chest as she realizes she’s not going anywhere.

My low chuckle sounds through the room and her head shoots up, latching onto me with terrified eyes. I hold steady, meeting her gaze with my head tilted and my wide smile in place. Doesn’t help. She still flinches away from it, seeing the baring of my teeth for what it is. A threat.

“I thought meeting my girl’s mother would be under different circumstances,” I say, pushing away from where I’m leaning against my workbench. “I was thinking we might go out to dinner, and I’d ask for permission to court Sadie. Not that I need it. She’s mine and always will be, but you know, I thought I’d be polite and shit.”

“S-Sadie?” She stutters out. “What does my daughter have to do with anything?”

I ignore her question and stalk toward her. “But you had to ruin it by being an absolute garbage mother, didn’t you?”

She blinks those wide blue eyes at me. “W-what? I don’t understand what’s happening. Why are you doing this?”

I bend over her, bringing my face close to hers. “You fucked up when you hurt Cherrybomb.”

She shudders, her terror like a fine wine spilling into the air, making my inner beast fucking delighted. This is going to be so much fun. Then, like I summoned her by saying her name, the scent of cherry pie reaches my nose, a second before Sadie’s sweet voice says, “Swift, what the hell are you doing?”