Page 86 of Never Bet Against A Hockey Player

Blood stained the concrete around her. She’d curled into herself, barely moving. Her mother stood over her wild-eyed and breathing hard.

Time slowed and instinct took over. I pulled my phone from my pocket and hit record. Every second of this needed to be documented. Conrad was already moving to our omega and I was going to let him.

Before he could reach her the monster let out a feral scream and drew her foot back, kicking Dhara one last time.

Dhara didn’t even cry out. That broke something inside Conrad. His feral roar was followed by a bark.

“Get back and sit your ass down before I kill you for this!” he thundered. She didn’t follow the alpha’s orders, instead launching herself at him. Sharp claws raked down his arms, drawing thin rivers of blood.

He barely noticed. The alpha slammed his arm into her, sending her sprawling across the concrete floor with a sickening thud. He didn’t hesitate to scoop Dhara into his arms.

Nothing else existed to us now. Only getting our omega out of this hell.

I kept the camera trained on her mother. “I’d like to see your connections fix this, bitch.”

Her head snapped toward me. Pure hatred burned in her eyes that were shockingly similar to Dhara’s. Only they lacked a single ounce of humanity.

She opened her mouth and screamed. The sound was so animalistic it barely sounded human. Heavy footsteps thundered down the stairs as the officers finally flooded into the basement.

One moved straight toward her and she jerked away violently. “Don’t touch me! Do you know who I am?”

The officer met her glare without flinching. “We do.” He pulled a pair of handcuffs from his belt. “And you’re under arrest.”

As he began reading her rights, she continued screaming.

But for the first time in Dhara’s life, no one was listening.

Chapter

Twenty-Four

Dhara

Earlier that Evening

My mother was in rare form today. She’d been gone overnight again, but this time Gavin and I hadn’t bothered searching her room.

Instead we’d enjoyed the peace. I made homemade pizza and we watched a movie. It was a night without screaming.

Like always, it felt like the calm before the storm.

It had been over twenty-four hours since I’d passed my findings to the guys through Lydia. I hadn’t heard a single thing back.

I shouldn’t have been surprised. Mom had cut off my phone days ago. Just another way to isolate me from my pack.

I’d listened to hours of her screaming about what an ungrateful daughter I was. She threatened to take Gavin and disappear again if I didn’t fall back in line.

Today she’d been eyeing me but holding something back. I assumed it was another way to keep me from fighting back.

Now she sat across the diner watching me work.

Her eyes tracked every movement I made. If I lingered too long with a customer, if I smiled or looked happy, I could practically feel her irritation growing.

She was suffocating me.

I knew I was pushing my luck just by speaking to Lydia. There wasn’t much either of us could do and I knew Lydia was at her wit’s end.

“They’ll figure it out,” Max said quietly as he handed me another plate.