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Derrick kisses his Omega again. “I love your quick brain.” Then he puts his phone away. “I should probably change into something a bit less formal, and pick them up once school is over. Unless there’s an immediate threat?” He nudges Timothy, who shakes his head.

“Nothing immediate.” He looks up, seeming to struggle to pull his attention away from the constant updates from the tech team. “Nothing immediate that we’ve seen. We don’t need to pull them out early.”

He blinks as Derrick leans close to him and gives him a quick kiss, before he lets out an embarrassed laugh. “Sorry, I was listening. I promise.”

Then he hugs his Alpha, before pulling their Omega between them and hugging him close too.

They’re so amazing together. When you see the three of them, it’s hard not to envy their bond and their trust in each other. Then again, they’ve been together for longer than even Vera and I have been together.

I guess that from the outside, Vera and I also always looked like that. A strong unit with an even stronger bond. People who seem to know each other so deeply that they don’t need words, like they can communicate in ways that are almost supernatural, even when they aren’t.

Without a word, but somehow all at the same time, the men step apart.

Timothy looks at his two mates. “I’m going to join my team in the security room. I’m not good at reading this stream of updates from my phone. As soon as the little ones are back from school, I’ll keep an eye on them until one of you gets off duty. I’ll set myself up in the study, for the time being.”

Looking after kids and running the tech side of the security team seems a little much for a single guy. “Vera and Luca probably wouldn’t mind keeping an eye on them, if you need people? I’m also happy to look after them if you’re in a pinch.” The kids are sweet and I love their curiosity.

Derrick gives me a flat look. “I’m sure they’d be interested. Only, between getting ready for the attack on the brothel, and now this, I don’t know how much time any of you will have to babysit. Work doesn’t stop just because we’re in lockdown. But, thank you for the offer, and we might still take you up on it.”

Right, because things are never quiet and easy here. At least, not lately.

The person who took the pictures of us wasn’t anyone of notice. She was some small-time pawn from an organisation that Mathew does business with from time to time.

She recognised Mathew, realised the significance of the location, his clothes and how he looked and realised she could make some good money from selling the pictures to interested parties. Which she did.

She apparently spotted us as we were walking into the hospital, had waited for us to come back out, took some pictures, and then followed us to lunch and took more pics there.

None of us had noticed anything, so she was pretty good at staying hidden. But not good enough to make sure to hide her identity when she sold the pictures later.

Which is why she ended up dead and stashed in a trashcan, in front of some high-end restaurants this morning. Well before the article about Mathew started showing up all over the media.

The trashcan had been purposefully dragged to that spot, creating a display for her body, so as many people as possible would see her.

This wasn’t just a killing, this was a warning.

We have no idea if she got killed because she was asking too much for the pictures, if she got caught up with the wrong people or if someone was trying to protect themselves or Mathew.

But the end result is the same, we can’t ask her any questions about who she sold the pictures to, so we don’t know who saw them before they showed up online.

Timothy and Jorge are trying to get their hands on her financial information, her social media and anything else that could give us more insight into who she spoke to and what she might have been up to.

We need to know if she just took and shared the pictures or if she knew more, and if so, who she shared that information with.

The author of the article was a dead end. They got the pictures from an anonymous source and when they’d shared them with some rich people Mathew had done jobs for, they’d been more than happy to provide quotes for the article.

They promised that they had nothing to do with what happened to the photographer, as they’d received the pictures this morning, well after the photographer had been killed.

That the author managed to get quotes bashing Mathew so easily makes sense. Mathew’s good at his job, both his public-facing and his real job, and him being handsome and young was already enough reason for plenty of people to hate him.

That he’s also an Omega is a perfect excuse to drag him through the mud.

And it’s not like Mathew is some entirely unknown person, he’d been rubbing shoulders with rich people for years, so there are plenty of articles about him. But to have the rest of us so prominently visible in the pictures, that’s making me worry more.

People who knew Vera and me when we were on the run, will now find out that we’re not two Betas, as we used to claim, but an Alpha and an Omega. I have no idea if that’s going to have any impact.

Though, I suspect most people will be smart enough to realise that with Mathew’s high status and rumoured —but never confirmed— connections to organised crime, it’s probably a good idea not to reach out to anyone to gossip about us.

Vera’s family and the pack she was supposed to marry into might have other ideas, but we’ll deal with that if the problem arises. We already know that the Hearts are connected to them, so if they try anything, it wouldn’t be a surprise.