Page 61 of Claimed Omega

“Trinity, what are you doing with these pieces of shit?” my father sneered. “A Shchavlev is a name to uphold, not drag through the dirt.”

I lifted my chin to my father to show him I wasn’t a pushover while the rest of the greenhouse and the fight faded away.

“I’m here protecting the people I love,” I forced out. “And as a Shchavlev, Iwillfight for what is mine. I would rather die before I let you marry me to that fucking monster, Axel.”

A tornado of emotions threatened to consume me. My father had never been there for me. He’d confined me to the Institute for most of my life, starved me of love and support, and tried to sell me at auction. And now, he wanted to do it again to advance his own interests.

To hell with him!

His piercing gaze bore into me, his upper lip curling.

“You betray me for this?” He yanked Viper’s head back by his hair, lifting and pressing the barrel of the gun to the side of my lover’s head.

“Harder,” Viper muttered, defiance in his voice even if he was on his knees. “Make it hurt good, Daddy.”

“Fucking filth,” my father spat, slamming the hilt of his gun into Viper’s head, causing my Alpha to wobble unsteadily on his knees.

My insides crumbled, muscles tensing with the urge to rush to Viper’s side as he looked ready to collapse. His eyes were rolling back into his head, but my father held him upright by a fistful of his hair.

I gasped, the raw pain at potentially losing Viper stabbing into my heart. My father’s venomous words rang hollow. Tears threatened to spill, but I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.

His expression darkened, resembling the only father I’d known—brutal and cold-blooded.

“You ungrateful little brat,” he hissed, his words dripping with malice. “I’ve done so much to keep you safe in the Institute, and this is how you repay me?”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” I choked on my breath. “You want me to kiss your feet with gratitude because you’ve prepped me to be a doll you’re going to sell as a whore?”

Viper was blinking, still half out of it, and I hated seeing him that way. My heart shredded to pieces to see my father pointing the gun at him. Every inch of me trembled, and the desperate urgency to scream at him to stop left me crying. I stared into his eyes, at the pain, at the terror that this could be the last time we looked at each other.

“Trinity,” Father snarled. “Are you with me or against me?”

The weight of his words pressed through me like a crashing wave, and it became harder to inhale. I wrestled with the decision. I couldn’t live with my Alphas’ deaths… but if I accepted my father’s decision, would he spare them all?

The blast of a gunshot ringing in my ears from somewhere in the greenhouse tore me out of my frozen state. My gaze clashed with Frannie’s, who appeared to be slowly drifting closer but ducked and cried out each time someone released a bullet. I wanted to shout for her to just stay down and out of the way, but I doubted she’d hear me from across the greenhouse.

Momentarily, I glanced at the ongoing battle, at the tangle of guards with Aspen and Daniel, and Axel chortling like a hyena as a guard had Shadow on the floor, his knee on his throat.

My body went limp as dread clutched at my insides.

For the first time, I felt our fighting wasn’t enough. Too many things were stacked against us. The struggle against the wave of violence was going to swallow us whole. I fucking hated feeling defeated, but the sinking feeling in my gut was making me sick.

Staring at my men in battle being hurt, my chest constricted with a savage love for them, with determination to save them—even if it meant sacrificing myself. In that harrowing space of time where I prayed the world would crack open and swallow me, tears fell, and my heart splintered.

Letting go hurt to the point of disaster, but losing them to death was unbearable. With a deep, shuddering inhale, I steeled myself, yet I couldn’t stop shaking or crying.

“So, you’ve made a decision, I see,” my father mused, the sound of enjoyment in his voice.

I couldn’t bring myself to say the words, especially when Viper was coming around, blood dripping down his head from where my father had struck him. His gaze on me was huge, eyes whirring as though he caught up on our fucked up situation.

“Don’t you dare,” Viper growled at me. “I’ll die before I let you go.”

My heart was cracking as tears slid down my face.

“I want to hear it, now!” my father bellowed just as movement from the room entrance had me twisting my head toward Rusty entering with four much older men.

With every fiber in my being, I braced myself for interference, for his help. Shadow’s ally, Rusty, had his shoulders bunched up, fury on his face, looking ready to fight alongside us, but when he stepped forward, one of the elderly men with a short beard held out his hand, effectively blocking him from joining the battle.

What the fuck!

---