Page 33 of Fallen Omega

Further down the alley, there’s a clang and another door opens. It’s well-oiled, and bolted from the inside. The route is for clandestine and highly illegal meetups, and for us to come and go when we don’t want anyone who might be watching to see us go. Julien pokes his head out.

And I head for the main door. “Put her in the suite, and then lock the door and get back to your posts. I’ll be down when I’m ready.”

By tomorrow, this is going to be nothing more than a nightmare ready to be forgotten.

Precautions. A new moon. Another fucking night. Life on the cutting edge of society. Take your fucking pick. But with everything going well from this vantage point, where I like to keep an eye on things—the club on the floor below isn’t open tonight, thank fuck—I take her bag from the bartender and go to my office.

Knight’s door is closed, which makes me roll my eyes to the ceiling.

I get it. She’s phenomenal in her scent. And he’s young enough to make mistakes.

Or, considering he’s actually early thirties, he’s lucky to have us to guide him from making the mistakes an alpha’s dick might get them into.

Until now.

I stare at her bag. Cheap leather. Old. Well-used from the worn creases and the softness. Yet I’m loath to open it up and I don’t know why.

Maybe it’s the hat that sits in there. It is clear the thing’s beyond personal to her. I don’t want to tie myself anymore to the situation than I am—thanweare. Right now, we have a girl who’s in heat, one who stirs the blood, and one who’s in no state to go home by herself tonight.

Or maybe it’s just her and everything she represents.

Innocent or complicit, I do know she’s been untouched. As untouched as a girl can be before Knight finger fucked her.

I suck in a breath.

Reaper’s poking into things, and between him and Knight, we’ll get a good picture of her. But banning her from coming near our places should be enough.

Girls like her will be mated within the year.

Something claws into me, deep.

“Get it together,” I say as I empty her bag.

Hat, makeup, wallet. Odds and ends that I assume women carry with them.

But it’s got a heavy base that most wouldn’t think twice about.

Except smuggling small things is part of our business and secret compartments are a must.

A bag this cheap should be light now it’s empty. Even taking in the base.

I feel around inside. It takes a little longer than I’d like to find the hidden zipper, which tells me this isa custom piece, made to appear cheap, and made to smuggle. I undo it and take out the contents.

A tablet I can’t open without a thumb or fingerprint. An old-fashioned, worn book full of names, numbers. The writing’s basically chicken scratches in notes and dates jotted down like little reminders from over the years.

Chicken scratches, that is, until I reach the names and numbers. They’re written legibly.

Important?

Next are polaroids of Lizette and her dad. And he really does look like the man who saved my ass, along with Reaper’s, almost twenty years ago.

There’s money, wrapped in a band. Not crisp and new, but old, like it’s been painstakingly saved.

It’s a piteously low amount.

There’s an external hard drive I set aside, and some jewelry. Simple, old and not expensive. I won’t say cheap because the simplicity brings it class, but there aren’t any expensive stones.

I pull out one more thing.

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