Page 87 of Curvy Quirky Omega

I thought I had time – that this person wouldn’t go as far as stabbing me in the neck – damaging my larynx in the process, but since I didn’t bleed out right away or die due to respiratory issues, they left the knife in.

Dropping my head to the floor, I could see the door, but my voice was ruined. I couldn’t call my brother. I couldn’t call anyone. I couldn’t even scream.

Had to be a small knife if it didn’t kill me right away. Less than six inches long. Shorter than the ones being put through my calves.

All this so they could stab me in the back – so I could experience a slow death…

Dead because I was confident this person couldn’t, or wouldn’t, hurt me.

They wanted someone to find me. They wanted it to hurt the ones I loved most and make them afraid they’d be next.

My death was perfectly orchestrated and viciously effective.

CHAPTER 33

Lucy

I lay there for a minute as I considered the possibilities, and rubbed my ring finger with my thumb, deciding I’d definitely taken it off before being killed or there would have been evidence it was removed as I was bleeding out.

Pushing up from the floor like I was doing one of Frankie’s awful burpees, I went back around to where his office chair was, resetting the scene in my mind back to the beginning.

If I had my wedding ring on when I came in here, what would I do with it? There was never a picture of me without it, and no one said anything about me not wearing it, so I would only be able to take it off here, where there were no cameras.

I sat back down and slid an imaginary ring from my finger, setting it on the desk next to the picture frame.

The picture was still here but the ring was missing.

Mentally, I paused the scene and decided to go back a little bit farther. I got up from the desk and went back to the coat rack, putting my imaginary blazer on it once again as I inspected the books on the shelf next to the hook.

Pausing the scene again, I considered the items on the shelves as they all watched me.

A leather-bound book by Herodotus caught my eye. They called him the ‘father of history.’ I pulled it off the shelf, taking note of how heavy it was. I opened it anyway and flipped through the gilded pages before setting it back where it belonged, disappointed there was no hiding place among the pages.

“Does my omega know about this door?” I asked, tapping the base of the Valor statue.

“…no, she doesn’t.”

I glanced back to see both Liam and Cas watching me with dark expressions, as if they found this whole process disturbing.

“It would be somewhere around here,” I told Frankie as I stared at the books in front of me. “Liam, can you come here for a second?”

Immediately, I felt his presence at my back.

“You’re only a little taller than us,” I explained to him. “Can you reach for a book on these shelves? Whatever would feel the most natural and comfortable – one that wouldn’t force me to move from this spot after hanging up my blazer.”

I was too short to know which one might be the right one, and Frankie was tall, but not quite tall enough to see what would be at eye level for Liam or Gideon.

Liam reached out just like I had, hesitating for only a second before pulling out a book bound with green leather – Aesop’s Fables. “We used to read this book all the time as kids. ‘The Crow and the Pitcher’ was his favorite.”

“And yours?” I took it from him and flipped through the pages, stopping at the story about the frogs who desired a king. It looked a bit worn on the edges, like we’d read this story in particular a lot.

“I don’t really enjoy fables,” Liam admitted. He ran a finger over the smudges I’d noticed, seeing the same desperate hunger to understand that I did. “I was the kind of kid who skipped to the end of each story to see the summary of the lesson I was supposed to be learning, since that was what everyone considered important, not the actual tale itself.”

But Gideon—I liked reading the stories, especially the one that taught a specific lesson. This one…this one taught you that when you tried to change your situation, you should make sure it’s for the better or you could end up just as dead as these frogs, devoured by a stork for daring to ask for more.

Frankie took the book from me, and I refocused on the shelves. The phone would have to be somewhere close – somewhere easy to access, and yet unnoticeable by anyone, even the police.

I pulled the coat rack aside and considered the shelf directly behind it.

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