Page 201 of Knot Baked Out For This
"Proud of you," Miss Bea whispers.
"About time someone took that man down," Mrs. Chen adds.
"You're a badass," Tommy says, then blushes. "Sorry. Is that inappropriate?"
"That's perfect," I assure him.
The party continues into the afternoon, bleeding into evening, people coming and going as the news spreads. My phone won't stop buzzing—messages from customers, interview requests, one very enthusiastic email from the modeling agency about "capitalizing on this publicity."
"Make it stop," I groan, shoving my phone at Reverie.
"Never," she says cheerfully. "This is career-making publicity! You're the Omega who stood up to her abuser and won! That's a brand!"
"I don't want to be a brand, I want to be a baker!"
"Why not both?"
Eventually, the crowd thins. The sun sets. Halloween properly begins with trick-or-treaters who've heard about the "courthouse lady" and want to see if I'm real.
I hand out candy—full-size bars because I'm emotionally exhausted and making good choices is beyond me—while my pack hovers.
"You okay?" Rowan asks for the seventeenth time.
"I don't know," I admit. "Is this real? Is he really gone?"
"He's really in jail," Luca confirms. "Nash says with the evidence we have, he won't make bail. And the insurance fraud alone carries serious prison time."
Prison time.
Korrin in prison.
The man who made me feel worthless, trapped, small—facing actual consequences for his actions.
"I can't process this," I whisper.
"You don't have to process it tonight," Levi says gently, pulling me against his chest. "Tonight you just have to exist. Feel what you feel. Eat too much cake. Let us take care of you."
Let us take care of you.
For the first time in my life, that doesn't feel like a threat.
It feels like freedom.
We close the bakery early—even though it's Halloween and I'm probably losing money—and retreat to my apartment, where the nest in the barn is calling, but I'm too exhausted to walk that far.
So we built a nest on my living room floor instead.
Blankets and pillows and three Alphas who arrange themselves around me like I'm something precious that needs protecting.
"I verbally destroyed him in court," I say into the comfortable silence.
"You did," Rowan agrees.
"In front of the whole town."
"You did," Luca confirms.
"While wearing a thrift store dress."
