Page 2 of Worth Fighting For

He didn’t breathe easy until he felt the boat turning as they left the dangerous waters of the Mississippi. Only then did he leave his perch, watching for any lights that might show they’d been discovered.

“We should be good,” Lowen told him, although he hadn’t missed that they hadn’t turned back on the lights yet. It wasn’t exactly safe, and he hadn’t used the Missouri in his lifetime, so he had no idea if there was anything that might run them aground.

It wasn’t the first time, but he was wondering why he’d been so intent on being the one who went on the trip. Hell, Damon would have been a much better option, as he was experienced with ships and navigating rivers. But, as they needed to make repairs on two ships they’d been able to salvage further along the Des Moines River, it had been decided he should stay behind and get them up and running.

“You two should take turns getting some shuteye,” Lowen murmured. “It will be a long night and we still do not know what we’ll encounter along the way.”

That much was true. “I’ll take first watch,” he told Gulliver. The Omega nodded and headed to one of the two cabins on the ship. They weren’t much, but the beds were comfortable enough to suit their needs.

“I’ll be turning on the lights in another fifteen minutes.” Lowen had gone over the plan several times before they’d made the trek. There was a natural bend in the river that should shield their lights from the Mississippi. But just because they would be hidden and safe from those still looking for the Omegas, didn’t mean there might not be people along the Missouri that would try to harm them.

Nodding, he went to back out on deck, infrared binoculars in hand. He started scanning the shoreline on both sides of their boat. When he was satisfied they weren’t being watched, he headed back onto the bridge. “All clear,” he told Lowen.

They waited another couple of minutes before Lowen flipped on the lights in front of them so they could see what was coming. It wasn’t until a few minutes later when they both exhaled loudly that they’d chuckled as they realized they’d both been holding their breaths in anticipation of something going wrong.

“Do you think we’ll make it back?” Coleson feared just asking would bring them back luck, but he was too terrified of what they would encounter out there not to voice it.

“Yes.” There was zero doubt in Lowen’s tone

Glancing dubiously at the Alpha, he wished he had just a fraction of his faith. But Lowen’s eyes blazed with fire and determination. “There is no way I’m not getting back to Ford and our unborn child.”

Coleson understood his need to believe they would return. That didn’t mean it would happen. Did that make him a pessimist? Probably, which was not something he’d ever considered himself to be. It had been Coleson’s drive to find a better life that led him to their new home.

He’d been the one to tell his friends they could not only make the trip without being caught by Alphas, but that they could forge a new life in an unknown world. It was his belief in what they could do that convinced his friends and fellow Omegas to take a chance.

Yet, when they’d went further west in order to hopefully find parts they desperately needed to help rebuild their town and food supply, something inside of Coleson knotted up. And no matter how many times he’d tried to tell himself it was no different from crossing the Mississippi to start their lives over, he couldn’t shake the dread that filled him.

He just prayed it was nothing more than nerves. Because he’d never forgive himself if Lowen couldn’t return to Ford and their unborn child.

CHAPTER 2

“No. I won’t do it.” There were times Renzo Grealy wanted to kick himself for getting into this mess. He was a doctor, for fuck’s sake. Graduated from Harvard Medical School, yet there he was, a prisoner of a human trafficking ring that operated in the wilds west of the Mississippi River.

He wasn’t certain what was the worst part of his life at the moment. Having to treat abused Omegas knowing they are going to be abused more by their captors—or, and this was an eventuality unless they died, they’d be sold. But it was as he looked into the eyes of a terrified Omega, who had unfortunately gotten pregnant by a guard, and been told to abort the baby, despite the Omega’s plea to save his baby.

It took a strong person to be raped repeatedly, get pregnant and still love his child. Admittedly, it wasn’t as if it had been the baby’s fault, but it had to have taken an amazing capacity to love someone who was forced upon him. He admired this Omega, as well as too many of them in the past year he’d had to perform this operation on against their will. Then again, he also understood those who were more than willing to have the abortion because they didn’t want the reminder of what had been done to them.

Those Omegas rarely made it to the time they were to be sold. They had so much taken from them and they’d survived. But when they’d had their baby taken too, it had been too much, and they’d given up the will to live. Twice Renzo had tried to get pregnant Omegas safely away, but they’d been caught.

Only because they’d needed him had they not done anything to him directly. But they’d punished the Omegas in front of him by beating them until they’d lost their babies before losing their lives. It had killed him to witness this, and Renzo would no longer try to help them.

That didn’t mean he didn’t give them the best care he could. Even that made him feel guilty because the better they were, the more they were used and abused. He just didn’t have it in him to not ensure they were taken care of while in his small medical center.

But he’d had enough. If it meant he died, so be it, but he wasn’t about to take another baby away from an Omega.

“I don’t remember giving you an option,” Bujar snarled out. He’d been the one to get the Omega pregnant and didn’t want to have a kid on his hands. Not that any of them would actually have to take care of him or her. The Omegas would gladly do it, but that would mean trying to sell an Omega with a baby. Something no one was about to take on.

That was the thing. Renzo no longer cared. Oh, he worried about the Omegas not getting treated for their injuries, but he could no longer have any part with doing anything against their wishes. Too many came to him begging to let them die, but he’d always found that too abhorrent to allow to happen.

But now?

Now that he’d seen what happened to them when he tended their wounds. More bruises. More cuts. More rape. More torture. It was pure hell and even though he hadn’t taken part in any of that, Renzo had made it possible for them to have to endure it longer than necessary.

If he couldn’t get them away from their captors’ clutches, the least he could do was take himself out of the equation. He wasn’t naïve. There was zero doubt it would get him killed, but he also gave an oath to not cause harm, which he was complicit with so long as he allowed those under his care to continue to be abused.

“There is nothing you can do to make me abort that baby.” He stood firmly on his feet, squaring off against the burly guard with the gun. It was those weapons that hadn’t allowed Renzo to even attempt to fight those who held him as much of a captive as the Omegas they were using and selling.

Renzo might have been a doctor, but he wasn’t weak. As an Alpha, he’d prided himself on one day finding his Omega. In their world, that meant he’d also need to protect him. In high school, he’d wrestled. In college he boxed. Every damn day he spent hours in the gym lifting weights and learning to defend himself and, he’d hoped, one day, his Omega.

---