Page 76 of Beautifully Scarred Omega

I keep my mouth shut. Partly because I don’t share Max’s certainty, not quite. I keep thinking about the way she went still on the porch, the careful way she said it’s peaceful here, with that wistful look on her face.

And partly because I’m watching Max.

He’s on his third whiskey, arguing a little too hard and a little too long about a woman he insists is nothing but a con in a costume. Max doesn’t usually get worked up over women. Hell, he barely even remembers the names of the ones he’s slept with.

But I’m not about to point that out and hand him something else to be furious about.

I look at the clock. “We’re supposed to be at the club in an hour.”

Finn snorts into his glass. “Does it look like I’m going anywhere?”

Max glances at the empty bottle, at Finn sliding sideways into the cushions. “No,” he says. “I’ll cancel.”

He stands and pulls out his phone, then pauses over Finn and gives him a warning look. “Do yourself a favor. Stop looking for a woman who was never real.”

Then he walks off to make the call, and Finn stares into the fire, and I sit there with my whiskey and say nothing at all.

CHAPTER 21

Sophie

It’s been two hours of lying in the dark, and my mind just won’t stop. It keeps cycling through camera feeds and blind spots, personnel files and the faces behind them. Having narrowed it down to three suspects makes it easier, although at this point it could still be anyone.

But... that’s not really what’s keeping me awake.

I keep seeing three alphas in a living room that could only be described as homey and a little shabby, even. The question is, why? Why would they choose to live so simply when they could have so much more? I was expecting the kind of house you photograph, not one you live in. What I saw was more like the middle-class home of a family with three kids and a dog. It made no sense. I’ve been to plenty of wealthy homes, and somehow Pack Cavill’s made three absurdly rich alphas seem almost ordinary.

It’s peaceful here, I’d said, standing on their porch like an idiot. And what on earth possessed me to say that?

I get up and press my feet flat against the floor, hoping the cold will settle me. It doesn’t.

Fine. A run, then.

I change into leggings, a sports bra, and a hoodie and slip out into the corridor.

The building is quiet at this time of the day. I take the stairs down and go out through the front entrance into the dark.

The air is cold against my face, the grounds silver under a half-moon. I start running the moment I’m outside. I follow the perimeter path, gravel giving way to pavement as it curves along the tree line at the edge of the property.

My lungs burn and the cold streams past my face, but my mind finally, blissfully, shuts up. All I focus on is the rhythmic pounding of my feet on the ground, counting each step until there’s room for nothing else.

I’m rounding the side of the main building when I see it.

A shadow, moving where no shadow should be.

I slow my pace, watching. My hand goes to my hood on instinct, pulling it up and tucking my hair inside. The figure is perhaps fifty yards ahead, pressed against the wall of the building, moving with deliberate caution.

I follow, hanging back in the shadows and placing each step with care, so my feet make no sound at all. Ahead of me, the figure moves the same way, silent.

The figure is good, I’ll give them that. They check corners before moving. They stay low, keeping close to the building. They move like someone who has done this before, probably many times, in places far more dangerous than a biotech company.

Whoever this is, they know exactly what they’re doing.

I lose sight of them as they round the curve of the building. I curse under my breath and push myself faster.

I cut across the grass in a diagonal line, abandoning stealth for speed. They’re heading toward⁠—

My stomach clenches with recognition.