Page 106 of Knot Unwanted: Part One

The implication makes heat curl in my belly even as anxiety claws at my chest.

Ren paces. “We can find an apartment. A secure one. Take her there. Get suppressants. Get her a live-in carer until we sort this out.”

His words make me blink before I realize just what he’s saying.

“No.” I sit up straighter. “You can’t do that.”

Jax leans forward, his eyes intent on my face. He shakes his head slowly, brows slightly furrowed as if he can’t understand me. “Finn…we don’t…this is a strange, unexpected and hard situation. But…Ren’s suggestion. It’s the best choice.”

I continue shaking my head, the reality Ren painted turning into a horror story in my mind. I don’t want Hailey to leave. It’s selfish, but it’s how I feel.

Jax continues. “We’re not bonded to her, Finn. We’re bonded to you. We have to send her away until we can fix this. That way, we can protect you.”

My shoulders stiffen as my gaze hardens on his. “Protectme? Can’t you see? You’ve always been trying to ‘protect me’. Where has that gotten us?”

The silence that falls in the room is only broken by the sound of the TV.

Stone leans off the door, broad shoulders heaving with a sigh. “Finn’s right. Ren means well, but he’s wrong. We don’t solve this by running away or hiding Hailey somewhere else.” He comes closer, crouching before me. “This is our pack, and you’re our heart. Nothing changes that.”

“But her heat—” Ren starts.

Jax lets out a heavy breath and I catch a glimpse of his exhaustion. This is hard on them, too. “Our priority is healing what’s broken here, between us, Ren. With Finn.” He stares into my eyes and for a moment, I see a world of apologies there. Apologies he doesn’t seem to be able to voice. “We do what Finn wants.” He leans forward, throat working. “We’ve been so caught up in trying to protect you that we forgot to actually be there for you.”

Ren growls in the corner and I want to ask them exactlywhatthey’ve been trying to protect me from these past two and a half years.

“You’re not being replaced,” Stone whispers. “You’re not second choice. You never were. You have to understand that, Finn.”

Some part of me does. It’s not like they went out and searched for Hailey—even though that’s what I’d thought when I found her in that cabin.

“The scent match…” I begin, but Stone takes my hand in his, brushing his calloused fingers over my skin.

“Is just biology,” he finishes. “What we have with you? That’s choice. That’s trust. That’s years of building something real.” His voice drops lower. “We’ve done a poor job showing it, sweetheart, but you’re still our everything, Finn.”

The knot in my chest begins to loosen as I look between them. There’s no hesitation in their faces, no doubt. Just determination and that familiar protective love I’d been missing.

“So what do we do?” I ask softly.

“We fix us first,” Jax says. “And then we figure out how to help her, in whatever way is right for everyone.” His gaze drags over my face, lingering on my mouth before snapping back to meet my eyes, like he’s trying to memorize me and hold himself back at the same time.

I nod. “She’ll need help. Support. But if she’s not ready to know about…about this…” I gesture vaguely between all of us.

“Then we help her through it however she’ll let us,” Stone says firmly. “On her terms. Nothing more.”

“And if that means watching her suffer through it alone?” Ren turns to face us. “Will you be strong enough to stand by?—”

“Yes,” Jax cuts him off. “If that’s what we have to do, then that’s what we do. Because we have Finn and somehow, she’s also ours, but we’re not hers. Not yet. Not until she chooses it and not until Finn?—”

I shake my head. “I don’t hate her.” They all go still, so I continue. “If it wasn’t obvious, I don’t hate her.”

Ren makes another frustrated sound in his throat and I can’t tell whether he hates the direction this is going or if it’sHaileythat he hates. It’s such a strange thing, the thought of him hating her, that it feels just…wrong. Has he even seen her? How could he dislike her? Not even I can. There’s something I’m missing here.

“We need information on that Academy,” Stone says suddenly. “Where they’re located. Who runs it. What they’ve been doing there.”

Jax nods slowly. “Agreed. You’ve already started making calls, pulling strings. We’ll find out everything we can about that place and this ‘Widow’ person. Make sure no other omega ever goes through what she did.”

Ren stops pacing and takes such a deep breath it feels like he pulls all the air from the room. “Bad idea, boss. You have no idea of the shitstorm heading our way if we step on the wrong toes.”

It’s Jax’s turn for his jaw to clench. We all know he hates when Ren refers to him as “boss” in that dismissive way, like he’s deliberately creating distance between them. But there’s something else here, something in the way Ren keeps contradicting himself. One moment he’s worried about her suffering alone, the next he’s warning us away. His eyes keep darting to the door like he’s expecting someone to come barging in at any moment. Like he knows something he’s not saying.

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