Page 20 of Verses and Blooms
“You’re asking me to gamble my omega, Ares. We barely know you.”
I flinched at the words. He didn’t look remorseful at all, and I really couldn’t blame him. They’d only known me a short time, the Alliance even less, but I’d more than proven my worth.
“That’s not fair and you fucking know it. If we turn on each other now, we’re fucked. I’m going in there to see what my team has found and then I’m going to follow that fucking lead. Ledger, you can either stick with me or you can stay here and be out of the loop.”
“Fine,” he bit out. What choice did he have?
We didn’t have time to go searching for the others. Ledger and I ran straight to Sanchez.
“This is one of the rings we’ve been working for years to bust,” Sanchez said as he pulled up the information on the screen. “They move every so often but we suspect they have a central location somewhere that remains under the radar.”
He clicked a tab and the auction site pulled up on the screen.
There was our omega. White tattered dress, crouched down, teeth bared. She looked downright feral.
“Fuck yeah, Wildling. Fight them,” Ledger whispered, eyes misting over.
They absolutely knew what they were doing with that picture. She was ready for a fight, to rip them to shreds the moment they tried to touch her.
What better game for an alpha than an omega who was going to put up a little resistance?
Sick fucks.
“Is this what happened to the Chief’s daughter?” Ledger asked quietly, not wanting the Chief to overhear.
“No,” Sanchez said. “I searched these sites for years for her. Unfortunately, we never found her. I even used facial recognition software because they love to use shitty disguises. Wigs, dye, anything to make it look like you’ve got the wrong girl. Never got a single hit.”
“They didn’t bother to do it with her,” I said, unsure what that meant for our mate. “Why didn’t they try to hide her?”
“She spent ten years in that place,” Ledger said. “They didn’t need to hide her. A high-profile girl like the Chief’s daughter? Oh yeah, they’d disguise her every way they could. But Audrey? Not her. They wanted those men to recognize the girl they tormented. She’ll go quickly to the alphas who used to buy time with her. They’ll do anything to get their hands on their prized omega again. If she survived ten years in that place, then it’s because she was an asset.
He looked sick as he said it, probably about as sick as I felt. Audrey had deserved so much better, and we’d failed her, let her fall back into the clutches of the man who’d spent over ten years tormenting her.
“Stop,” Sanchez said. “You don’t want to start that shit. You can’t go down that road blaming yourself. That’s not going to help you find your girl.”
“You’re right. It won’t,” I said. “Butyouwill. You’re gonna get us into that auction. I want us to make the highest fucking bid. One no one else could even attempt to make.”
“Already on it,” Sanchez said. “Like I said, we have our guy on the inside. These funds are never gonna go through, but they’re going to look legitimate. We’ve spent a lot of years fucking up a lot of sinister plans. That tends to earn you a penny or two.”
“And how the fuck do we know we can trust this guy?” Ledger asked. He had to stop fighting us but there was no point in reasoning with him.
“You don’t,” Sanchez shot back. “Same way you didn’t know you could trust us. Yet here we are, helping you guys out. You don’t know if you can trust me, either, but what else are you going to do?”
Ledger glared but didn’t argue. It was a fair point.
“Enough,” Sanchez said, waving his hand around as if to swat away the useless conversation. “We can’t waste time on this. Let me fucking concentrate.”
He was locked in now, eyes on the screen, ignoring any protest Ledger might put up. I knew I could trust him so I kept my mouth shut in that regard.
I put a hand on Ledger, forcing him to look at me. “Let him work. He’s got this. We can trust him.”
Blue eyes met mine. “With her life?”
I nodded. “With mine and hers. They’re good people. I know you haven’t had a lot of chances to trust anyone, but now is the time. You need to let me take care of this pack. I have the resources you unfortunately don’t. That’s not a dig at you, just the harsh reality of our situation here. You are strong, and you’ve kept her safe up to now. But it’s my turn now. And his.”
“He’s not her alpha,” Ledger argued. At this point he was just being stubborn.
“No,” I said. “But he might’ve just saved her fucking life. If we had missed this lead, we’d have lost her for good.”
