Page 1 of Now Their Starlet

CHAPTER 1

Andi

The world around me feels like it’s moving in slow motion.

My mom is sprawled out on the hardwood floor at the bottom of the stairs, her wrist twisted at an unnatural angle. She looks even frailer than she normally does. The constant diet she’s on and hyper-fixation on unachievable beauty standards are doing her no favors.

Her robe has slipped from her shoulder because of the fall, showcasing her protruding collarbone. It reveals the black bond marks where her shoulder meets her neck. The product of her dissolving the bond between her and my dad.

A man she’d tried to convince me was an evil, abusive monster. Successfully, too. I never thought to question her at all these past two decades. But after visiting him for the first time in my adult life and meeting him? He’s nothing like I imagined.

Neither is my mother, either, if her throwing herself down those stairs is any indication. Looks like not even I’m safe from Gina Sterling’s cunning and willingness to do whatever she has to in order to get the outcome she wants.

Stuart is on his phone, typing away as he “files the paperwork.” I’m still not sure what my mom meant by that, but I have a bad feeling.

My pulse is racing through my veins. I can practically feel each heartbeat thumping against my temples.

The only comfort that’s keeping me remotely together is Beck’s hoodie, soft around my shoulders. But it doesn’t even smell like him anymore.

I reach into my back pocket and grab for my phone. I should call someone for help. Obviously, because my mom is hurt and Stuart is just standing there, but also because I don’t feel safe here.

“Don’t,” Gina snarls, glaring at me. Her eyes are surprisingly sharp, considering the amount of pain she must be in from the fall. Looks like not even that can stop her when she’s as determined as she is.

Her glare is so much sharper than the wild, crazed look her expression took on at the top of the stairs, when she revealed that she knew I’d gone and visited my dad behind her back.

A second later, two unfamiliar alpha scents hit me. They’re faint, almost as if they’re wearing some sort of de-scenter, which is unusual. Normally, it’s only omegas that wear that sort of thing.

My head jerks around as I stay kneeling beside Gina’s prone form.

Two alphas wearing dark slacks appear from the same hallway leading to the garage Stuart had emerged from, almost like they were waiting for this whole incident.

One of them snatches my phone away from me before I have a chance to react.

“Hey! Give that back!” I say, reaching for it.

“Take her to her room before she has the opportunity to hurt herself or anyone else,” Gina says, her expression transforming into that of a distraught mother.

She’s always been a good actress. She’s played a very convincing role for the reality TV show she’s been a part of for a couple of decades now, The Real Omegas of Beverly Hills.

One of the alphas with broad shoulders and a shiny bald head grips my arm, tugging me to my feet.

I jerk away from his hold, my chamomile perfume turning bitter in the air around us.

“Mom! What’s going on?”

“We’re going to get you help, sweetie,” she says, wiping a solitary tear making its way down her cheek.

“Mom!” I cry out when the other alpha, the younger-looking one of the two, grabs my other arm. “I’m not going to hurt anyone!”

My mind races.

What the hell is going on?

Everything starts to click into place with sickening clarity.

Gina always told me, growing up, that the final straw that led to her leaving my dad was that he pushed her down the stairs. But when I brought it up to my dad, he told me he never did that. That she fell down herself.

Considering how insistent Gina was about her own narrative of events, it would make sense to doubt my dad’s recounting of things.