Page 29 of Knot All That Glitters: Part 2

The car ride to my father’s office is silent. I barely listen when he tells the driver to take me home and then come back to get him. I suppose I should be glad he’s not just making me wait, which he has done before.

We slow to a stop. The driver climbs out to open his door, and my father steps out without a word. Not that I’d expect one. We linger at the curb for longer than is normal. Car running, with just me inside it.

I don’t look up when the door opens again and the driver slides behind the wheel. As we pull away from the curb, I slump into my seat, my head lolling on the headrest as I continue to watch the buildings pass by in a blur. My brain wanders, flits from one thought to the next until it settles on the Calloway pack, as it does so often these days.

I’ve gotten pretty good at shutting those thoughts down. The pills my father makes me take help quite a bit, if I’m honest. Not feeling anything when I think of them makes it easier to disregard them entirely. But now, tonight, it’s hard to push them from my mind. Probably because once again Hale Calloway freed me from the shackles of an alpha’s command.

But he didn’t free you entirely, did he?He could have barked at me to ignoreallalpha commands, any but his own,and I would have been truly free from that threat. But he didn’t. Maybe that’s not how alpha commands work. Maybe he can’t make such an all-encompassing command and expect it to stay in place.

Maybe it works better when there're specifics involved.

I don’t know. All I know is that thanks to Hale Calloway, I’m free of the commands of the two alphas who have hurt me the most.

And I’m not really sure what to do with that information.

Does he actually care? Is that actually for my own safety? Because he wants me to be free to make my own decisions and choices?

Or is it just another manipulation? Another way to make me trust them? To pull me back into their orbit? Their game?

The more I think about it, the more my mind and my heart ache. Like the hurt I feel from them, the confusion is just too great to be contained by the chemicals in my veins.

I blink when I realize that while I’ve been lost in my thoughts, we’ve been driving in the wrong direction. I pull my eyes from the unfamiliar buildings and look at the back of the driver’s head.

I don’t recognize him. My father’s normal driver, Klaus, has light hair with gray streaks, a beard and wrinkles. This man has dark hair, faint stubble and, from the little I can see of him, doesn’t look much older than me.

Still, my father climbed into the car with him, ordered him to this office like he knew him. So he must actually work for him. “Excuse me?” I say, leaning forward to be heard over the rush of the engine. “I believe you’re going in the wrong direction. We need to go to 102 Crestline drive.”

I offer the information as straightforward as I can. Hoping he maybe just got turned around. But when there’s no response, not even a flicker of acknowledgement, the first creepy of uneasefilters through me. That only grows when he reaches down to the seat next to him and picks up a mask, which he slides over his face.

Fuck.

I need to call someone, alert them that I’m being taken. Where? I have no idea. And by whom? I am equally in the dark about. Only that this man is not the person who should be behind the wheel of my father’s car.

I need to call someone. Florence. The police. Hale. Jude. Creed. Tic. Hell, I’d even call Brian or my father. The devil you know, and all that.

I don’t have a phone.

I haven’t had one since I left mine at the Calloway pack house. My father didn’t see the point of getting me a new one, when I wouldn’t be contacting anyone ever again. Not even Florence.

And he has enough hubris that he assumed no one would dare go against him, kidnap his only daughter only weeks after he got me back.This is what happens when you assume things, folks.

I should do something. But I’m extremely limited in my abilities. Not only am I an omega, but I’m a drugged omega, drugged by something that makes me… not care, more pliable, biddable. More susceptible to the will of alphas. Hell, maybe even betas. It’s not like we’ve tested that. Though, I behaved extremely well when Caroline came to fit me for my dresses, standing with a closed mouth, following her every order. Was that because I just couldn’t bring myself to care? Or because I have to follow any orders given to me by anyone?

I scoot forward in my seat. “Excuse me, sir? I—are you kidnapping me?”

A choked laugh comes from the front seat and he very carefully doesn’t look at me or say anything. I settle back with a nod. “I suppose that’s answer enough.”

Because he would deny it if he wasn’t kidnapping me, right? He’d reassure me I wouldn’t be harmed or something, right? Unless this is some kind of punishment from my father? Maybe he wants me to be scared?

I think back over the night and the orders given to me by Frederick Bell and my unfortunate fiancé. Did I give away that I don’t have to follow them anymore? Did they figure it out? Are they whisking me away for the next thirty days to keep me locked up even tighter than I am in the house I grew up in?

Not my home.

It hasn’t been my home since my mother left.

I don’t have one of those anymore. The closest I get is Florence. I thought maybe the Calloway pack would be my home, but no…

I push away thoughts of them. I don’t have the time or the inclination to think about them, think about how much they hurt me. Even if I don’t feel much of it right now, I have more important things to worry about… like getting out of this car. Getting away. Getting help.

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