Page 205 of Captive Omega

I yank my hand down. “He deserved it, Mom,” I complain. “And he nearly ran over my foot.”

I knew he was lying.

At the dining table, we gather around the contents of the envelope.

“I’m not sure I understand what this is, exactly.” Dad frowns at the papers. “I’ve heard about Ever Safe, but why is someone giving you this?”

I know exactly why someone—or, more specifically, why Pack Lucas would.

I’m not ready to share the details of my drug induced heat with my parents when they’re still dealing with everything they learned from the trial, so I give them a condensed, trauma-lite version of the truth.

“It’s my own suite.” I skim read Garrison’s letter, countersigned by Rune Fontenot. It explains that when the new Ever Safe clinic opens east of the city, one room has my name on it. No matter what, that room will only ever be mine.

And I have the only key for it. “Lucas Security knows I don’t trust heat clinics anymore after what happened.”

My parents are silent for a beat. They know what happened to me, know I’m pregnant because of those things, and have been gently nudging me toward speaking with a therapist. And I will.

“But you trust this one?” Dad asks.

“I do.” I’ve seen how much Pack Ashe care about Everleigh, and this heat suite comes with three men who are ready and willing to take me to it whenever I need it. Night or day. One year from now. Or ten.

I will never have another desperate, panicked search for a free heat clinic like before. I will always have one waiting for me. And I will always have Lucas Security to ensure nothing can or will happen to me in it.

I won’t need it yet. After I’ve had my baby, and my heat comes again, I have a room waiting for me.

“You have three men under this roof who will wait forever for you, Resa,” Vaughn told me when I was grieving the loss of my future with Henry.

I am looking at tangible proof they mean it.

Chapter 57

Blaine

I’ve been thinking a lot about Resa facing down Sloane Eddiswood in the courtroom.

I don’t know how long I stand in the middle of the gym, lost in the past, staring at the punching bag and not seeing a damn thing.

That isn’t right. I see Resa sitting in that witness box, back straight, a stare so visceral it punched through Sloane, and he looked away.

He looked away from her.

“You discover another universe?”

I give myself whiplash, spinning to face Vaughn’s grinning face.

He looks from me to the punch bag and back again. “It’s like you’re staring into another dimension. Is it interesting?”

“I was thinking about Resa,” I admit, rubbing at the twinge in my neck.

He loses his smile. “Probably not a good idea unless you want to drive yourself crazy with the thought that we should have locked her in her room and refused to let her go.”

I look at him.

He drops his gaze. “Right. Just me then.”

“I’m not sure she’d have appreciated you doing that.” She never opened up about what happened to her. Not until the courtroom. Locking her in a room would be something she never forgave us for.

Two years of hell, and she walks up to the witness box, sits down, and makes me so fucking proud of her and so fucking furious that she suffered at all.

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