Page 14

Vincent

I read from the textbook as my students take notes.

My monotone voice fills the room, an endless drone that goes on and on.

Last evening, three unknown men abducted Delilah Farrow from the Haven Academy visitor’s parking lot.

This morning, cops were still combing for evidence, and the faculty meeting was subdued.

A girl is missing, abducted from outside the school gates, but Ms. Arkwright had said…

What had the head of the school said that had pissed me off so much?

“I believe it’s in the best interest for all the omegas to continue as though all is perfectly well at Haven Academy.”

“Shouldn’t we send the students home?” Mr. Willoughby, the professor of music, had suggested with a furrowed brow.

“And cause more disruption to the students? I think not,” she’d said firmly.

From the knowing glances around the faculty office, what she’d meant was that she had played down what had happened to the parents, or just plain not told them at all.

“And Delilah Farrow?” I’d asked at the faculty meeting. “What about her?”

Ms. Arkwright had smiled tightly at me. “It’s in the hands of the police. They can do their jobs and we can get on with ours. Now, the end-of-year ball is only weeks away for senior year, and…”

I hadn’t intended to say the same thing to Levi and Xavier, but I had washed my hands of Delilah, turning my back on her just like Ms. Arkwright.

Not my responsibility. Not my problem to fix. Let someone else deal with it.

“Professor Vincent?”

I lift my eyes from my open textbook.

A room full of omegas stares at me.

Delilah isn’t an omega from a wealthy and influential family, the type Ms. Arkwright panders to.

She isn’t an omega at all.

With no money behind her, she doesn’t mean a thing to the head of school, who excels at kissing ass like no one I’ve ever seen.

And because Delilah was here pretending to be something she’s not, no one will know she’s even been abducted.

If she had been wealthy, this math class, where I bore the students and myself with knowledge they will never use, would not be happening. A wealthy parent of an omega would have had this school shut down if their child went missing.

How can anyone find Delilah if she was here using a fake name?

No one will find her. Not even the police.

Not in time.

“Uh, Professor Vincent?” A female omega who smells of sweet chestnuts clears her throat, her expression wary. She must have heard about me humiliating Delilah in class. “You, uh, just stopped talking. Should we?—”

I snap my book shut, place it on the desk, and walk out of the classroom, pulling my cell phone out of my pocket as I close the door on the staring omegas.

Last night, I struggled to sleep, tossing and turning in my bed as thoughts of what could be happening to Delilah tormented me.

I do something I should have done the moment I learned someone had taken her.

I dial a number from memory as I walk down the hallway.

Three rings and the phone clicks.

“Lucas Security?”

We’ve spoken twice, but I know exactly who I’m talking to. “Garrison Brewster?”

“Speaking.”

I check my pocket for my car keys. “You find people. I need you to find someone for me. I’m on my way to you.”

A door snicks open behind me. “Professor Vincent?” One of my students calls down the hallway. “I?—”

I hang up the call as I leave the building.

From what I know of Garrison Brewster, he rarely leaves his home. That works for me. What I need to discuss is best done face-to-face.

I cut across the quad to reach the staff parking lot, whistling when I spot Xavier raking leaves.

We’ve worked hard to get to where we are in this investigation, and I have no idea why I’m throwing away years of work for a beta I don’t know.

He takes one look at me, drops his rake, and jogs toward me. His eyes are as red as mine, a sign he got as little sleep as I did.

“I knew you’d finally see reason,” he mutters, scratching his beard.

“Where’s Levi?”

“Fencing lesson, I think.” He yawns. “We're going after her?”

We rarely argue, but last night, we got into a heated argument about Delilah. Despite my warning him not to attract the cop’s attention, he was down by the gate trying to find out what he could. That led nowhere, since even the cops didn’t have any leads.

Mercy, the omega that Delilah saved, didn’t stay on campus. Her father came to collect her, and she left soon after the cops had spoken to her in the nurse’s room.

“We are,” I say.

“I’ll text him.” He pulls out his phone, sends a message, and returns it to the same pocket when he’s done. “We could tell the cops she wasn’t who she said she was.”

We reach my car, a matte black Audi, and I open the door, turning to face him. “By the time we’d finished explaining what we were doing at the school and what we knew, she could be dead. We need professionals who will make her a priority.”

When Levi jogs toward us from the wellness center, I’m not sure if he abandoned his lesson the way I did, or if he didn’t have to teach at all.

“What changed your mind?” he asks, immediately moving to climb in the backseat as I slide in the front and Xavier takes the passenger seat.

“I remembered how useless cops can be.” I slam the door shut and start the engine.

Delilah is not our omega. She is not an omega at all. But that doesn’t mean she isn’t worth saving.

I put her in harm's way.

I need to be the one to pull her out of it.

“And the investigation?” Levi’s sleepy green eyes meet mine in the rearview mirror.

I start up the engine. “Delilah is alive. That means we still have time to save her.”

I hope.

That’s all any of us can do right now.

Hope that we’re not too late.

Mid-morning, the school is quiet. All the teachers will be teaching or in the faculty office. Our route out of the school is clear as I pull out of the parking lot and head down to the front gate, where a police car is parked outside.

The cop nods at me but doesn’t stop me as I press my fob to open the gates.

“What do you think she was doing here?” Xavier asks as I drive away from the school.

“Convincing omegas to leave,” Levi responds.

I wrench my eyes from the road the second it’s safe to do so. “What do you mean?”

Levi gazes back at me steadily. “I overheard some of her conversation with another omega. She said the school was a gilded cage. That it was best for an omega to decide their own future.”

“ That’s why she doused herself with perfume and risked getting arrested for criminal damage by setting fires?” I ask.

Levi nods.

“Shit.” Xavier sits back in his seat, the leather creaking. “I thought she was just here messing around or whatever. Not… that .”

A car horn blares as the red light turns green, and we continue to Lucas Security headquarters.

No one speaks for a long, long while.

“She was here to help omegas.” My fingers tighten around the steering wheel. She told me in my classroom when I threatened to expose her if she didn’t leave.

I thought she was lying, but she wasn’t.

She was here to help omegas, and I might have gotten her killed.

“We’ll find her in time,” Xavier reassures me.

“You mean like we found Aly in time?”

He doesn’t respond.

We reach their mansion on a quiet, tree-lined street in thirty minutes. It’s early. Most people are at work, so the lack of traffic made for an easy drive.

My phone vibrates in my pocket. I ignore it, slowing the car as we approach a gate I’ve entered before. I wind down my window, reach out a hand, and press the intercom button.

“Lucas Security,” a young male voice is tinny from the intercom.

“It’s me,” I say.

There’s a camera pointed at me from above the keypad and intercom. They can work out who ‘me’ is.

The intercom buzzes, and the gate slides smoothly open.

I drive past landscaped gardens and to the imposing modern white mansion in the distance.

No sooner than I’m out of the driver’s seat and slamming the door shut than the front door is swinging open.

A pregnant woman with dark eyes glares at me from the open doorway. “ You . I should’ve known you’d only come back when you want something.”

Garrison, a dark-haired man in his mid-thirties with amber eyes, rests his hands on her shoulders and gently squeezes. “Resa? Maybe let the man take a step inside before you unload.”

Garrison Brewster is the alpha owner of Lucas Security.

Her lip curls. “I am merely trying to remind Dexter Pieter of his responsibilities as Head of the Council, something he needs, given he spends so much of his time running away from them.”

If only she knew how right she was.

I walk toward the house, maintaining a neutral expression.

She swings around and strides into the house. She’s about four or five months pregnant. Not heavily so, but she tilts slightly, and Garrison steadies her, presses a lingering kiss on top of the angry omega’s dark hair, and murmurs for her to be careful.

It’s a more tender gesture than I thought I’d ever see from the head of a private security company.

Xavier huffs a laugh and bumps my shoulder. “You make friends everywhere you go, brother.”

Garrison blinks at the mention of "brother," and I give Xavier a warning look to be careful. I respect Garrison because he’s skilled at what he does, but I do not trust him with our secrets. At least, not all of them.

“You have someone you need me to find.” Garrison steps aside to let us into the entryway of their home. “Unfortunately, our priority is on another case. We can get to it when?—”

“Delilah Farrow doesn’t have time. She’s a student—or was a student—at Haven Academy until three alphas tasered her outside of the school gates and likely bundled her into the trunk of their car.

A girl who saw them said they looked and sounded wealthy.

They might even be the sons of the Asylum members looking for new prey, now that all free heat clinics are being so heavily watched. ”

Garrison frowns as he closes the door. “When?”

“Last evening. I thought it was best to leave the matter in the cop’s capable hands until I remembered how incapable those hands can be,” I say.

“This way.” Garrison leads the way through the entryway, past a cozy-looking living room, and toward a short hallway just past the staircase. “We’ll speak in the computer room. Our office has been overtaken by…”

I stop as Garrison continues leading the way.

“Dexter?”

There are days I hate that name, and this is one of them.

Resa, who rightfully resents me for not doing enough for the city, glares at me through the open office doorway.

Two men sit at a desk cluttered with papers, takeout containers, and bottles of half-drunk water.

Vaughn Potter and Blaine Webb, the other two members of Lucas Security, regard me with open curiosity.

Garrison said he was busy with another case and he wasn’t lying.

I point at the picture of a pretty redhead with big blue eyes pinned to a whiteboard. “Her.”

Garrison walks back to me and bounces his gaze between me and the picture. “What about her?”

“ That ,” Xavier nudges me aside to enter the room, “Is Delilah Farrow. The missing student from the academy. Why do you have her picture?”

No one speaks for two beats.

“Well, shit. This sounds like it has the potential to be messy,” Vaughn says.

I angle my head to face him. “Why?”

“Because that is Della Jackson. A beta.” Blaine nudges his black-rimmed glasses up his nose, old red burns on his wrist, briefly capturing my attention.

“Her sister asked us to find her when she disappeared after dropping nearly two grand in a perfume store. What exactly was she doing as a student in Haven Academy?”