Page 43 of Captive Omega

He picks up the knife and delivers a masterclass in breaking and entering. Honestly, if I didn’t have my heart lodged in my throat from the shock he just gave me, I’d be more impressed than I am.

One firm motion upward makes something click. He pushes the door open with a flourish to reveal a small windowless computer room with three computers on one side, a round table with four chairs in the middle, and a corkboard with pins on another wall. “See?”

He pockets the knife and bounces his gaze between the computer room and me. “Did you want to use a computer?”

“Garrison said I could look around.”

“And you can.” He holds the door open even wider.

“Why do you have a locked room in your house?”

The only way I’d known it was a computer room was the glass panel beside the door, otherwise it would have been just another locked door in this masculine black wood and white marble mansion.

“Because this is home. It’s also Lucas Security headquarters. You’ll find we keep some doors locked, which will give you a clue which part you’re about to step into. It means you’re liable to walk into somewhere with confidential information.”

“So this is a part I should stay out of?”

He winks. “Maybe. I’m happy to bend the rules if you are.”

I chew on the inside of my cheek as I consider what—if anything—I plan to tell him. I need to track down Dexter Pieter and I’m wasting time creeping around trying and failing to break into rooms when I have a grinning beta eager to help me.

The sooner I tell Dexter Pieter everything the Asylum has been doing to omegas in the city, the sooner alphas like Nathaniel Lang can spend the rest of their lives rotting in a rat-infested cell. Then maybe I’ll get another step closer to changing this world into one that treats omegas better than it does.

But that’s going to involve a level of trust. Anything I tell Vaughn has a high probability of working its way back to the alphas in this house.

Just enough information, Resa. But not too much. Nothing that exposes any vulnerabilities.

“The phone you gave me doesn’t have the internet and I don’t have the Wi-Fi code. I’m trying to find Dexter Pieter. I need to talk to him.”

Whether he wants to talk to me is going to have to be a tomorrow problem. Five minutes. That’s all I need with him. If he doesn’t want to listen? Well, then I’ll know he’s part of the problem, as rotten as the alphas in the city.

I’m not sure what I’ll do then. That can be a next week problem to chew on.

If I make it to next week.

“Well, why didn’t you say so?” He motions me into the room. “Come on. Grab a seat.”

I hurry to catch the door before it slams shut.

Vaughn doesn’t notice as he thumps into an office chair and boots up a computer. “I’ll leave the door unlocked from now on and the password so you can come in whenever you want.”

So maybe he does notice.

I hover at the round table in the middle of the room. “I thought you said you locked some doors.”

He tosses a grin over his shoulder. “I don’t mind bending some rules.” The computer beeps and he turns to face it. “A man like Dexter won’t be easy to track down, but I guess I could?—”

The door swings open. Garrison gives me the briefest of glances and, instead of ordering me out of a place I shouldn’t be, turns to Vaughn. “Vaughn? What are you doing?”

“Tracking Dexter Pieter. Resa needs to speak to him.”

I brace myself for Garrison to question why I want to speak to the head of the Council.

Garrison walks over to the computer and leans over Vaughn’s shoulder. “You wouldn’t find him there. He rarely works in his office.”

Frost wanders in, sipping on a mug of coffee with fumes strong enough to bring someone back from the dead. “Ooh, new project. What are we doing?”

I back out of the way of a rapidly filling room that’s a little too small for me to be comfortable in with so many men.

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