Page 120 of Captive Omega

I bite my tongue before I ask if that theory also applies to him.

I look at Garrison. “Are you sure I can’t kill him?”

“Do you really want to?” he surprises me by asking.

I think of the man in the photograph. I didn’t get any sign he was a bad guy. Nothing about him seemed cruel. Maybe he thought Resa wasn’t coming back or was even dead. It’s not the first time we’ve worked a case where someone disappeared and turned up months later to find the person they loved had moved on.

“No. But he hurt her,” I say. He should have waited for her. Resa is a woman worth waiting for. How could he not?

Something about that woman upstairs hurting makes me want to bury a throwing star in the neck of whoever hurt her. The more I get to know her, the more that feeling grows, and the more I want to do something—anything—that will make her laugh and smile.

It’s a strange feeling to have someone’s happiness affect mine the way Resa’s does.

I do things just to make her smile. Stupid things like extended stretches that nearly throw my back out because she does that half-smile, lip flattening thing that tells me she wants to laugh but is desperate to stop herself.

And she’s so beautiful I have to keep reminding myself to stop staring.

“Has she said anything to you about a nest?” Garrison asks me, frowning.

I shake my head. So does Blaine when Garrison looks at him.

“I know Sadie said not to overwhelm Resa with anything new, but?—”

“She needs a nest,” Blaine says, surprising me with his firmness. “She’s not going to ask for one, and we’ve waited days now. But she needs a nest.”

And if any omega needs the comfort of a nest right now, it’s the one quietly crying upstairs.

Garrison takes a long draw from his mug and returns it to the table, pushing his chair back. “Get up. We’re extending omega territory.”

I stare blankly up at him. “But where?”

Lucas Security has taken up almost every room. If not with computers, then equipment. A six-bedroom mansion with all the isolation and security we were looking for in a building, and it’s like a high-priced office the way we treat it.

A ballroom transformed into a meeting room and an elegant dining room we turned into a gym because we preferred to eat at the big dining table in the kitchen.

It’s definitely more workspace than home at this point. That was okay before. We all worked hard to grow Lucas Security into one of—if not—the best in the business.

Now I look around, and I can’t be the only one who sees a place not fit for an omega. It’s work stuff, hard edges, masculine furniture, and black. A whole heap of black.

Nothing bright or feminine.

Absolutely nothing soft and snuggly to bring comfort to an omega.

Nothing that would make Resa think this was a home. She wouldn’t when none of us do.

“The pool house,” Garrison says suddenly.

It takes a second to remember we even have a pool house. The last time I was out there was… a while. A long, long while ago. Way before I started using Ever Safe as an excuse to stay away from the tension in the house. Probably when Violet was still alive.

“It’s a space we don’t use, and no one is in danger of walking in and surprising her. I know it’s not much right now, but there’s no reason we can’t make it into something,” Garrison says.

It’s going to be a bigger job than any of us realizes. The walls were black. I think. Resa is pregnant. We can’t have her inhaling toxic fumes in there. So if we’re going to do something about all that black, we need to get odorless, fast drying paint.

At one point, we started using it as a dumping ground for stuff we didn’t want in the house. Tools and other stuff I’ve forgotten now. I used to oil the wooden handles of my guns with lemon seed oil before I started using the attic. The damp towels in there are probably musty and have stunk the place up.

Yeah, this is going to be a really big job. But that’s okay. Resa is worth it.

I push myself up from the table. “Let’s go. No time like the present. Lex can stay close in case Resa needs us while we’re out there.”

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