Page 21 of Caught in His Sights

“That’s a fairy tale,” Caleb mutters dismissively.

“Maybe it’s just what I tell myself in order to forgive him.” I watch the cars pass. “But I saw the way they looked at each other, how the spark went out of Papa after Dad passed away. He held on long enough for me to graduate from university, then… he joined Dad.”

“Sounds selfish,” Caleb says, his voice cold.

I rub the back of my neck, where tension builds. “I wouldn’t expect you to understand. You’re never seen with the same model on your arm more than once.”

He smirks. “Someone’s jealous.”

My cheeks heat. “Like I have any right to be.”

His hand lands high on my thigh, warm and possessive. “Jealous anyway, though, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” I confess, barely above a whisper. “I always thought, ‘Why not me?’ Even knowing it was unrealistic on so many levels.”

Caleb massages my leg. “Such as?”

“Gender, social status, lack of aesthetic appeal…” I list them off, each word heavy on my tongue.

“Those are all superficial things, Oliver,” Caleb tells me, his tone softening. “Just like the people I’m photographed with. I date them because they’re the opposite of what I’m attracted to, so they don’t distract me. But they’re not who I’m taking back to my home. And I’ve certainly never brought any of them to my family estate.”

The words fill me with a mixture of hope and disbelief, but I force myself to stay grounded. Caleb brought me along because I sparked his curiosity, not because he cares about me the way I wish he did.

I clear my throat, trying to move the conversation away from me and back to my brother. “Dylan moved into his own place as soon as he could afford it. He got busy with work, so he was sporadic about responding to calls and texts, but then they stopped altogether.”

Caleb squeezes my thigh in a reminder I’m not alone.

“When I went to check on him, his apartment was empty. All of his stuff was gone. When I asked the building manager, he said Dylan didn’t pay his rent and was evicted.” My teeth clench with remembered frustration before even that sensation slips away. “But I knew if that had been an issue, he would have asked to borrow money, or he would have moved back in with me. I mean, I lived right down the block.”

“Evictions don’t happen that fast, either,” Caleb says, more to himself than to me. “They generally take months.”

The words sound directed more to himself than to me, but I respond anyway. “Yeah, I had the same thought. I reported Dylan missing, but the police weren’t interested in a runaway Omega, and now ten months have passed with no leads on what happened to Dylan.”

“Your brother is why you launched the VanishingVoice blog,” Caleb says, connecting the dots.

I lean my head back against the seat. “Since the local precinct wasn’t doing anything about it, I investigated Dylan’s disappearance myself. That’s when I realized he wasn’t the first in our neighborhood to disappear and not the first from Sunrise apartments.”

“Really?” Caleb’s eyebrows shoot up in surprise.

“Over a dozen, just in the last year.” My voice gains strength as I share my findings. “I started noticing a high turnover rate of Omega renters, especially from the room on the third floor at the end. And moving trucks showed up late at night, at unusual times. Certain rooms received frequent visitors from Alphas, too, different men and women every day.”

Caleb’s grip on my leg turns painful. “Third floor at the end?”

“Yeah. That was Dylan’s room.” I take in his tense features. “Why?”

Caleb takes a deep breath. “My cousin’s fiancé lived in that complex, same room. He must have moved in after your brother disappeared.”

My lips part in a sharp inhale. I remember the little blond Omega, and how he had suddenly vanished a few weeks prior to the building being demolished. His name is in my file with a question mark on it, because he doesn’t have any social media that I could find. “Leo Daniels?”

“Soon to be Leo Rockford,” Caleb confirms. “He worked at a club my cousin owns, and the apartment manager got wind of it and ganged up with some unsavory people to kidnap Leo and attempt to blackmail my family for money.”

Caleb meets my eyes briefly before returning to the traffic. “That’s why we bought the building and had it torn down. He wanted to wipe away the bad memory and give Omegas a nicer place to live, as well as bring an Omega Outreach Clinic to the area.”

His lips tighten. “That’s not public knowledge, Oliver, so it better not show up in a gossip column.”

“It won’t,” I promise, while my mind works to fit this new puzzle piece in with what I’ve discovered.

We lapse into our own thoughts as Caleb pulls off the freeway and drives toward an affluent part of the city. Through the window, I watch the early morning traffic inch forward alongside us, the haze of exhaust fumes blending with the soft glow of the rising sun.

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