Chapter Six

Clay

Ever since Jordan left my office, he was all I could think about. I replayed every word. We hadn't said much to each other, me speaking more than him, but as far as substance, both of us saying nothing more than our names. Not really. And yet, my bear and I knew this man. We just couldn't pinpoint from where.

After he'd left, I managed to get absolutely nothing else done. All I did was hold the water bottle and pretend he was still there with me. I was a hot freaking mess.

And when I went home, my bear insisted we go look for the alpha. Like we would know where to begin, even if it was something I wanted to do…and it wasn't. I couldn't even trust myself to shift, fearing my bear would take over and try and find Jordan on his own.

At least at work, my bear settled down a little. Maybe he could still scent the man, something my human side could not. Or this place gave him hope the alpha would pop back into the room. Whatever the case, I was happy for the reprieve.

I took a long sip of coffee, knowing I had to amp up my productivity for the day if I didn't want my boss to ask why I fell behind. I could hardly tell him that I was distracted by the sexy shifter who accidentally came in here and who I was hoping would make a reappearance. There was no way they'd have wanted him in the office. They'd made that pretty clear by my lack of interaction with anyone except my boss.

As much as I wanted to see him again, something about Jordan didn't fit quite right, and the more I thought about our brief interaction, the more evident it became. When he'd come in, I couldn't tell if he was scared or angry, but his emotions were high, and he wasn't fully in control of them. That lack of control seemed almost foreign to him, like he didn't know what to do about it.

My guess was that it had something to do with this place. Not my office but this mansion as a whole. But what?

My mind wandered back to the influx of names that I'd been processing lately. I pulled up the last batch and read through them. It led me down a huge-ass rabbit hole. One document would link to the next, to the next, and then to a spreadsheet I hadn't filled out. That spreadsheet was the beginning of the end for me. I could no longer do this job with blinders on, not after that one silly little data tool that led me to…to the unthinkable.

When I clicked the link there, I nearly lost everything in my stomach. It was a list of omegas. That, in and of itself, wasn't great, but it wasn't extremely unusual either. Having names of people on a spreadsheet kind of checked out.

But this one was different. Not just a list of omegas—it was far more evil than that. On this one…this one called them breeders. I didn't need to know the details to know that it was bad. Very, very bad.

Breeder one: Noah, age seventeen. Fuck. He was just a kid. And not a young adult where people call him just a kid because he is new in his field. No, he was an actual child.

Breeder two: Frank, age twenty-two.

Breeder three: Jonathan, age sixteen. I hadn't thought it could get any worse than Noah, age seventeen, but I was wrong. At sixteen, I was still riding bikes with my friends, and this kid was labeled a breeder.

I wanted to run and never turn back. But I couldn't. The information couldn't be ignored. That didn't mean I had an answer for what to do next, but maybe if I made it all the way through the list, I'd find something, anything, I could use to make a difference.

One by one by one, I read their names, and I couldn't—I couldn't take it. I was going to puke.

Something had to be done, but what? Should I erase the list? Would that help? Should I make a copy of it? And, if I did, then what? Was there a special division of shifters who handled this kind of thing? I didn't even know.

But then I heard footsteps in the hallway, and the doorknob to my office clicked. I quickly closed out of that screen, pulling up the electric bill as if I were working on something as boring as that.

"Hey, boss," I said, not even looking up. Before Jordan, he was the only one who'd ever come in, and this was how I usually responded. As long as I acted as if nothing was different, he'd never know I was on to something, right?

That was with me assuming he was in on it and, given the data, he was. It was the only thing that made sense.

"Hey, just wondering how those files I gave you are going. You nearly done?"

"Oh gods, sorry, no. I got cross-eyed doing them After the first few, I decided to take a mini-break and I started on the bills. They sure do get us for electricity, don't they?"

"Tell me about it. Try to finish those files up before you leave today though, okay? I'm going to have a busy rest of the week and putting that behind me will make it easier. We've got some changes in the works here, and I have to get that figured out."

Changes? Busy? None of that sounded good.

"I got you, boss."

As soon as he left, I found a spare thumb drive and put the spreadsheet on it. I had to do something. There were children on that freaking list. Children.