Page 169 of Broken Omega

There are no chairs in front of the desk. She leans back in her high-backed leather seat and turns that vicious stare on Brooke.

“Brooke Corvina. I’ve known your father for a very long time. He’s a wonderful man, very ambitious and driven. I’m disappointed that you’ve chosen to hurt him like this.”

I can see Brooke pushing away her instinctive response to try and appease the administrator.

She fixes her gaze on Marissa and nods. “Firstly, I’d like to offer my condolences for the loss of your daughter, Mrs. Sawyer. Geraldine was a wonderful administrator I respected a great deal.”

The woman’s stony look remains unchanged. “Geraldine was an unfortunate victim of a psychopathic killer, and her loss will be felt for the rest of my days on this earth, but she isn’t relevant to your situation. Please keep any statements relevant to why you came here.”

Her voice is completely toneless. She doesn’t seem to give a fuck that Brooke’s trying to be sensitive.

It’s a bit strange for an Omega to seem so emotionless. She’s recently experienced the loss of one of her adult children, so I guess I could be looking at grief. People deal with things in different ways.

“Of course, Mrs. Sawyer. It was never my intention to run away from the academy. Everything just got out of hand, but as you can see, I’ve taken Kellan Mitchell as my mate, and we would like to file the relevant paperwork and get on with our lives.” Brooke leans forward, pulling back her hair to expose her mark.

“Mm hm,” Mrs. Sawyer mutters. “I’m aware that you’re claiming Mr. Mitchell here as your mate, but your father is not in agreement with this decision.”

No shit, but I guess we’ve discovered her father holds sway with the administrator.

“I don’t understand why my father wouldn’t agree to this,” Brooke says. “He told me he wanted me mated by the end of the semester. He got me to draw up a list of potential suitors …”

“Was Kellan Mitchell’s name on that list?”

“No. I met him after I made the list.”

“Now, that isn’t exactly true, is it?” Mrs. Sawyer asks, with a nasty smirk. “You met in the first place when you were a precocious thirteen years of age and Mr. Mitchell was fifteen. Your father was outraged at this older boy for making you perfume, something that can only happen if something deviant precedes it. I believe your father was justified in disallowing Mr. Mitchell a chance to court you. The fact that he immediately stole you away the first chance he got only tells me your father was right in his assumptions that this Alpha is unsuitable for his daughter.”

Brooke looks like she’s ready to explode. I shake my head when she meets my gaze. We need to stay on track here. The plan only works if we don’t veer off course.She knows. I know she knows.

“I don’t know anything about that,” Brooke says, shrugging. “All I know is this man is my mate and we intend to get married.”

“If this man is truly a suitable mate, then you’ll be able to fill out the forms and he’ll be able to pay the fine for marking a Goldcrest Omega before her guardian or parent agreed the mating.”

She pushes a pile of papers forward, and I pick them up.

“As you’ll see, our forms have been updated recently to reflect how elite our Omegas are. I can’t just hand a Goldcrest Omega over to any old Alpha off the street.”

The forms are fucked up. They ask for an address within an estate that the academy deems safe, a wedding venue taken from their list of acceptable choices, among other asinine details that basically amount to any mate would have to be a billionaire to check all of their boxes. The fine for becoming mated outside of their procedures is scandalously high.

We can’t fill these out without lying.

“Oh, and of course there’s the small matter of your donation,” she says, flashing me a bright smile. “You owe Goldcrest a half-million dollars for the extraordinary chance Edith, bless her heart, was so kind as to give you. You can settle up when it suits you.”

Brooke takes the forms out of my hands. She frowns as she looks them over.

“Take me back to my suite,” Brooke says. “I’ll call my lawyer, and we’ll have all of this done for you within the hour.”

Mrs. Sawyer raises an eyebrow at her. “You mean you’ll call your father’s attorney?”

“No,” Brooke says, shaking her head. “I have my own.”

“You can stop toying with me, Brooke. I know this man can’t afford you, and I know he’s not the only man you ran off with. Your father had a delightful chat with Henry this afternoon. He identified the man who took his gun as a Michael Frost, who was one of the EMTs who picked you up because of a burn that you got from soup?” She laughs. “In case you think I was born yesterday like Edith Merritt, I found your makeup case, hidden away in your walk-in closet. I know you faked an injury. I know everything, so you might as well be honest with me before your father gets here.”

“You have no idea what this man can afford,” Brooke starts. “Now take me to my suite and we can have all of this sorted out before my father arrives.”

“I think you’ve forgotten who’s in charge here. You will not be permitted to take this man as your mate. There are no circumstances under which that outcome will be an option. Nor will you be permitted to take Michael Frost as your mate. You can let both men go of your own accord, or you can allow them to be prosecuted by the academy to the fullest extent of the law. Either way, you’ll never see them ever again.”

Fuck.I can’t leave Brooke here, but there’s no way in hell we’re getting past all those guards without this woman’s say-so. There are too damn many of them. A single stray bullet could get Brooke killed. It’s not worth the risk to attempt to run.

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