Page 198 of Captive Omega

I’ve never felt like I was a victim. Just someone who made the wrong choice when I went looking for a free heat clinic and had my life ripped out from under me.

As I stand near the back doors, shielded on all four sides by Lucas Security, more and more people are noticing me. I don’t see them. I hear muttering, soft and faint spread. People wondering who it is, what this victim is going to say, and if it’s anyone they know.

Then Garrison strides forward. When he moves, Vaughn, Blaine, and Frost move too. And since I’m in the middle, I’m carried along by their momentum.

They walk right to the front.

Garrison pushes open a dark wood gate, and for the briefest of moments, my gaze connects with Sloane Eddiswood’s green eyes, identical to Everleigh’s.

He’s in a custom suit with how well it fits him, and three gray-haired men share his dark wood table covered with reams of files and papers. High-priced lawyers hired to prevent their client from dying in jail.

Sloane looks at me, then turns away. As if I’m not worth the least bit of his attention. As if he doesn’t see me at all, or care that what he did has wrecked lives.

As if I don’t matter.

My jaw firms and I throw my shoulders back, walking on until Garrison stops and turns fully to face me.

The entire court must be watching. It’s quiet. But Garrison looks me in the eye and asks, “Are you still sure about this?”

And I think if I were to say no, he’d walk me right back out of this, even if it meant trampling over anyone who tried to stop us.

I remember how it felt to stand shivering in a silk slip behind a big wall of glass as rich alphas haggled over me like a piece of meat.

“Yes, I want to do this,” I tell Garrison.

He nods.

Everleigh is there. I hadn’t thought she would be. So is Pack Ashe. That’s not such a big surprise. I can’t imagine they would have let Everleigh come here alone.

Everleigh is sitting beside a pale blonde woman who looks enough like her that they must be related. Her mother, I think. She is staring at the judge, her face angled away from Sloane as if she doesn’t want to risk even accidentally looking at him.

Vaughn lowers his head and his lips brush the shell of my ear. “How many people do you want to hear?”

What?

I stare at him, confused. “I don’t understand.”

“Reporters will write something up, but probably not everything. How many people do you want to hear you speak, beautiful?” he says.

“If I could climb to the highest mountain and have everyone in the world hear me, I would.” Everyone needs to know what alphas like Sloane are capable of. The more people who know, the more likely things will change. “Dexter Pieter, wherever the hell that sorry excuse for a leader is hiding, needs someone to light a fire under his ass.”

Vaughn smiles and nods. “Heard and understood, beautiful.”

“Miss….” The judge’s voice pulls my attention from Vaughn.

Everyone is waiting. It’s time. I walk to the witness box, sit down and fold my hands in my lap as I take a moment to prepare.

Blaine, Garrison, Vaughn, and Frost stay close enough to protect me if I need it, but they don’t block my line of vision.

For the first time in my life, I’m not terrified at the thought of public speaking. I look at Sloane Eddiswood, think of other alphas like him ruining lives and getting away with it, and I am so furious, I shake with it.

I lean toward the microphone attached to the witness box. “An omega has three choices.”

The whispers from the back of the room fall silent.

“They can go to the Omega Institute and be ‘guided’ to the alpha of the Institute's dreams. Usually, those alphas belong to the wealthy families who sponsor their balls and galas. An omega can go to Haven Academy, a place that has a glossy brochure and is vague about whether they can leave if they change their mind. Or they can live life on their own terms, choose the wrong free heat clinic, and mid-heat have a predatory alpha like Sloane Eddiswood abduct them, and spend the next two years raping them like what happened to me.”

Silence.

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