Page 9 of Royal Omega

“I know it’s been so hard on you, Conrad,” Henry says gently. “But you have to move on with your life.”

“Easy for you to fucking say. Your parents are still alive.” Conrad whirls back toward the kitchen, grabs the pot off the stove and pours its contents directly into the trash. He yanks off the apron and throws it on the floor. “I’m going out,” he announces as he pushes past us. A moment later, we hear the front door slam.

Henry sighs deeply as he walks into the kitchen and picks the apron up off the floor. Shaking it out, he returns it to the hook by the doorway. “I’ll order some pizza,” he says, pulling out his phone.

“What should we do about this, Henry? Really. Do we tell him we won’t be part of this damned show?”

Frowning, Henry rubs a hand through his short blond hair, like he always does when he’s stressed. “He’s not wrong, is the thing. The show might get us closer to finding an omega. We’d be breaking the bank if we tried to buy into the Omega Ball season, and it’s almost over anyway. Not many better ways to meet someone, if you really think that’s what we need to do.”

“But aren’t we sending the wrong message if we give in to this? Christ, he didn’t even ask us. What was going to happen if I didn’t check my email? Was he going to chloroform us both and we’d wake up in theOmega Girlsmansion?”

Henry snorts. “I honestly wouldn’t put it past him. But at the same time, this has to end somehow. He’s started stalking her. I tracked his phone to the Jorrus Mansion on Friday. There was an Omega Ball that night, and she was there.”

“How do you know she was there?”

“It was in the paper. The society pages. I found it when I did an internet search for her name.”

I curse under my breath.

“At least if we’re with him, we can keep him from going off the deep end. And he’s not dangerous or anything. He just wants some kind of... reckoning. After everything that happened to him, don’t you think he’s justified?”

“Justified in destroying some girl’s life because she was an asshole to him when they were teenagers?” I arch an eyebrow at him.

“It wasn’t just teenage antics, though. What happened to Conrad had very real consequences, as you know. And this girl was part of it. Don’t you think she deserves what’s coming to her?”

“You sound just like Conrad,” I say with a sigh. “Ok. We’ll go along with it. But if we do this, we have to be focused on our goals, too. Not just his.”

“I agree,” Henry says. “And I think we’re smart enough to do two things at once, don’t you?”

I grunt in response because the truth is, I’m not so sure.

Chapter Five - Carissa

We pull up in frontof the mansion. I look up at it from the street, trying to swallow my anxiety.

“You ok?” Lily, the associate producer asks. She came to collect me at my parents’ house this morning, dressed in a black polo shirt and black slacks. If I didn’t know better, I’d say she was going to a funeral.

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