Page 133 of Curvy Quirky Omega

I stood next to Melinda and clasped my hands in front of me, the flowers dangling from my fingertips and we watched them lower the casket in silence. There may be tears but no one was sobbing or wailing.

That he was being buried as a Valor was almost an insult in their eyes after everything Gideon had done, but that didn’t mean they hadn’t loved him.

I stood by her side as everyone threw their white roses into the grave before heading into the reception hall for the wake.

Melinda didn’t have to stand here until the end. Yes, she was technically a widow, but everyone knew what Gideon had been planning to do now. They knew that her child wasn’t Gideon’s but Dane’s, and all the glances they gave her were full of pity and understanding.

I couldn’t imagine what their looks would be full of if she wasn’t pregnant.

After what had happened at the legacy event, everything was exposed. It was impossible to keep it a secret when the Tinley pack had tried to kill all the legacies in the city.

Nicolette had called an emergency legacy meeting and announced exactly what we’d discovered. She even went so far as to tell them when she’d hired the Genesis agency and how we discovered that Gideon was having an affair with Helen Tinley.

She also told them the Tinley pack has been spying on Valor, but she didn’t go into any of Gideon’s money laundering with Steele. That was a completely separate issue. One that River was able to confirm for us.

A week after the legacy event, she and Frankie met me, Cas, and Liam for coffee at a fancy hotel owned by the Lopez pack to give us the ‘blueprints’ for our townhome. We did officially hire her as our architect, but that wasn’t the only thing on the drive she gave us.

Randolph Steele and Gideon had made a deal almost three years ago to embezzle money from Valor. It didn’t have anything to do with Tinley other than Helen. She helped him because it was beneficial to their escape plan for them to have extra money.

It was amazing how much Helen was able to manipulate the alphas around her. She had Gideon wrapped around her finger, and always made sure to let him feel like he was in control of everything.

She had to have known how insecure he was about Liam or she definitely would have bossed him around like she had her pack. Helen had chosen the wrong alpha and I wanted to blame her for being so naïve, but she didn’t have someone to teach her the way my father had taught me.

That was something else Nicolette had decided to keep a secret.

Yes, Helen was responsible for Gideon’s death and we had the proof that she murdered him herself, but she was keeping the whole ‘dominant omega’ aspect of the situation quiet. I wasn’t sure why, but it was probably for the best.

We didn’t need alphas freaking out about something like this when they were already so dangerous.

I was pretty sure Liam said something about how his mother was framing one of the alphas who died as Helen’s accomplice to make the whole thing believable, but Nicolette had the rights to her life.

Helen Tinley wasn’t going to make it to prison and there was nothing the police could do about it thanks to pack law. All they could do was exactly what Nicolette wanted them to do.

I had to admit, it was nice to have the power of a legacy.

Cas and Liam were the last ones to come up and toss their roses into Gideon’s grave. They stared down at the casket while they waited for me and I could feel their emotions through the bond – full of melancholy and relief.

Both of them were sad but they were also glad this was finally over. That we had all the answers. They were upset but also relieved that they could finally, truly mourn before moving on from all this.

We would build a new kind of Valor then…one that answered to Valentine.

Nothing like this was going to happen again. Cas and Liam would make sure of it.

Gripping the stems of my flowers tighter, I wondered if everyone thought I was losing my mind or if they understood what black-eyed Susan signified. It didn’t really matter I supposed. The only people I cared about already knew.

I’d seen it on Nicolette’s face when she saw the flowers I chose, right before she turned away so I wouldn’t be able to see her tears fall. She knew what they meant.

A shame she wouldn’t let me see her cry. I liked it when alphas bled and cried. Made me feel like they were just as human as the rest of us.

“These flowers…” I looked down at the bright yellow petals with black centers. They almost looked like tiny sunflowers, or yellow daisies, but they were neither. “I brought them because black-eyed Susan’s symbolize justice,” I told Melinda. “For him, for you…for the babies. But I’d understand if you would prefer that I give him a rose.”

Melinda slid her gaze to mine, looking like a fallen angel with the way she cried without making a single expression and still, her eyes were rimmed with red. “Do you really think justice was served?”

Liam stiffened and then relaxed when he felt my interest instead of my anger. I may not like Melinda very much, but I did understand her motives. It surprised me she’d ask me a question like that though…and meant it.

I looked back down at the bright flowers that matched the bright spring day. “That’s a question that has a complicated answer depending on which definition you choose to use but…I do think he got karmic justice. Blood for blood, right?”

Per pack law, Helen had every right to kill him for killing her child, but it got complicated in these kinds of situations. He didn’t beat her physically or push her down the stairs so she wouldn’t have won that argument.

---