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I can do the first, I’m not so good at the second...

But I’ll have to try. For Luca, for the pack, for our future together.

I’ll have to try.

5

Luca

I feel like I’m being torn apart on the inside, split into two. I’m so happy that my family is safe and that they’re here and that I can see them and hold them and talk to them.

For years, I lived with the fear that even though the Hearts told me that they were still alive and that they would stay safe, as long as I did everything they wanted me to, that those were all lies.

For years, I didn’t know if my family, if everyone I loved, was alive or dead. I didn’t know if they were out there, living happy lives, or if they were…

I swallow hard.

No. No going there anymore!

They’re here. They’re safe!

I can finally breathe again, stop carrying the pain of the unknown.

But also… My pack. The pack of contradictions and impossibilities.

A pack with a dangerous but cute female Omega, a dangerous and strong male Omega, a controlled and protective male Alpha, a female Alpha who seems to understand me without me having to tell her anything and a male Alpha who looks out of place with the others, though fits in with them perfectly at the same time.

From the moment I reacted to Mathew’s pheromones all those years ago, I already knew that if I ever found my fated mate or mates, that things would not be easy.

Life for people who get away from the Suits is never going to be easy, never without danger.

What I didn’t expect was how dangerous and complicated things would become.

I never expected that I wouldn’t be able to be around some of my mates, not for some ‘expected’ or ‘common’ reason, but because of things that the Hearts did to me. I never expected that the Hearts would purposefully harm me in ways that would not just hurt me in the short-term but that would keep hurting me, years if not decades later.

And not just me.

That would hurt my pack, including Mathew, for a long time even if I ever did manage to get away from the Hearts.

There are so many people caught up, so many people hurt, just so the Hearts can get ‘back at’ Mathew for leaving them over a decade ago…

I have no idea how some people can be so cruel, I’ve never been able to understand it.

The door to the pack’s bedroom opens and I jump to my feet, feeling awkward for sitting in the hallway like some lost puppy.

Even though I feel exactly like that, a lost puppy who doesn’t know where he belongs, where he’s supposed to be.

Vera steps into the hallway, her puffy and red-rimmed eyes falling on me, a short spark brightening them, until she glances away, her gaze dulling. She looks guilty, like she’s somehow the one who put me through all of this horror, when she’s as much a victim of the Hearts as I am.

It’s not her fault.

None of this is her fault.

This pain I feel is not her fault…

I reach out to her, wanting to hold her, desperate to hold her, take away the agony in her eyes.

But when her soft honey pheromones reach me, darkness settles in my mind and my heart races in terror, my pheromones going even deeper bitter, my body shaking.