Page 51 of Defiant Beta

Xavier is watching this whole operation, eyes bright with curiosity.

Blaine, Vaughn, Garrison, and Resa pass laptops back and forth, rise to scrawl fresh information on the whiteboard, or pore over a map they spread across the table. Resa occasionally casts a hostile glance at Vince.

She couldn’t have made it any clearer that she doesn’t like him.

He’s aware of Resa’s narrow-eyed stare. He doesn’t care. Liked or not liked. Popular or hated. Those things never mattered to my pack brother. But getting results? Getting revenge? Those thingsdomatter.

“We got a hit on the car,” Blaine says, eyes on his laptop.

“And?” Garrison prompts as he lifts a white mug of what smells like industrial-grade coffee to his lips.

“It ran a light while headed west. We lost it near the industrial part of the city,” Blaine says.

“Why aren’t the cops announcing this to the press?” I ask. “Everyone would be trying to find her.”

“Omegas from some very powerful families attend that academy.” Garrison sets his mug of coffee down, and Resa wrinkles her nose, nudging the cup away from her. He smiles and pushes it even farther away, continuing, “They’ll lose whatever support they have with the city if this turns out to be another case of wealthy alphas victimizing omegas.”

Vince speaks without looking up from his phone. “People don’t believe cops did enough to save the omegas in the free heat clinics. If she turns up dead, it will be decades, if ever, they regain that broken trust.”

“Don’t you think you played a hand in that?” Resa asks tightly.

Vince returns his phone to his pocket. “I did what I could with the information I had. I am not omniscient.”

Her lip curls. “But you are still?—”

“Got something,” Blaine says. “The car ran another light, then disappeared.”

“Disappeared?” I sit up.

Blaine reaches over to point at the map. “Here.”

We all study it.

“That’s the middle of nowhere.” I frown.

“Not nowhere. That’s where I would go to dump something I didn’t want found.”

We all turn to Vaughn.

I don’t ask how he knows, but I think the beta’s friendly demeanor conceals more darkness than I had suspected.

“Like what?” Resa asks.

Nothing good.

I share a glance with Garrison, who stands up. “Let’s check it out.”

“A body,” Resa says, not moving. “That’s what you meant, isn’t it?”

No one responds.

“They grabbed Della. Took her to some factory, and they did something to her.” Resa’s eyes bounce from Garrison to Vaughn. “They killed her.”

“We don’t know that,” Garrison says calmly. “Which is why we need to check this out now. The cops will figure it out soon if they haven’t already.”

No one, not even Garrison, can convince Resa to stay at the house.

We pile into our cars to make the drive to the edge of the city, where people dump things they don’t want found.

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