Page 18 of Knot Their Safe Haven (The Omega Rebellion Movement #3)

A WAR IS brEWING

~ALESSANDRO~

T he billionaire in this novel was apparently capable of making his Omega come seven times in a single night using only his tongue and what the author called his "throbbing manhood of destiny."

Ridicolous.

I turned the page with one hand, the other resting on the armrest of the uncomfortable hospital chair I'd been occupying for the past six hours. The protagonist was now declaring his undying love while somehow maintaining an erection that defied both medical science and basic human decency.

"You're mine, little Omega," he growled, his amber eyes blazing with possessive fire as he thrust his massive ? —

I snapped the book shut, pinching the bridge of my nose.

"Manhood of destiny," I muttered to the quiet room. "Christ, Alexia."

My pack member had insisted these novels would teach me about "proper Omega courtship" when I'd mentioned Velvet months ago.

Apparently, my approach to relationships was, in her words, "all dick and no heart, which works fine for club hookups but not for claiming a real woman."

The irony wasn't lost on me that Alexia— or Alex, as she preferred publicly —had given me sex advice when she spent most of her time pretending to have different equipment entirely.

The world wasn't ready for female Alphas in positions of power, so she played the part of Alexander during business hours and Alexia when we were alone.

"Read the whole series," she'd insisted, shoving a stack of paperbacks at me during our last pack meeting. "Learn something about romance that doesn't involve hostile takeovers or strategic mergers."

I glanced at the cover—a shirtless man with anatomically impossible abs cradling a swooning Omega against a backdrop of mysterious fog.

If this was romance, reality was clearly broken.

Real relationships involved medical crises, decades of waiting, and dealing with men too cowardly to sign their names on the dotted line when it mattered.

The heart monitor's steady rhythm pulled my attention back to the bed where Velvet lay, still unconscious but stable after six hours of surgery. They'd managed to repair the nerve damage, realign her spine, address the internal bleeding that had been slowly killing her.

She'd walk again. Live again.

No thanks to the men who claimed to love her.

My phone buzzed—a text from Dante, one of the twins.

Pack Chat - NOCTURNA

Dante: Status update?

Me: Surgery successful. Still unconscious. Paperwork filed.

Damon: The cottage in Regensburg is ready if you need it for recovery.

Alexia: I'm flying out tonight. The lawyer says the claim is ironclad.

Dante: Good. Media blackout still holding?

Me: For now. But the others know by now.

Damon: They should confront us.Would love to meet these "Alphas" who couldn't be bothered.

The twins—Dante and Damon Corleone, and yes, they found the name amusing—were forty-two and shared everything.

Business ventures, cars, clothes, and frequently partners who could handle both of them. They were also two of the most dangerous men in Europe, though you'd never know it from their public personas as art dealers and philanthropists.

Funny how legitimate business was often the best cover for less legitimate enterprises.

Not that our pack was purely criminal.

We'd built an empire that straddled both worlds—venture capital and violence, boardrooms and back alleys, all carefully balanced to maintain the appearance of aggressive but legal business practices.

The Noctuary Larissa Organization was our crown jewel, a massive conglomerate that touched everything from renewable energy to entertainment.

But underneath, in the shadows where money moved like water and loyalty was currency more valuable than gold, we were considered “lethal” in nature.

We were power without apology.

My phone buzzed again.

Alexia: Are you reading the books I gave you?

Me: They're unrealistic.

Alexia: Of course they're unrealistic. They're FANTASY. The point is to learn the emotional beats, not the mechanics.

Dante: What books?

Alexia: Billionaire romance novels. Our baby Alessandro needs to learn how to court properly.

Damon:

Dante: The same Alessandro who made three senators cry during that merger negotiation?

Me: I'm thirty-five, not a baby.

Alexia: You're seven years younger than us. You're absolutely the baby.

Damon: Baby who just claimed another pack's Omega without hesitation tho

Dante: Power move. Dad would be proud.

Dad.

I set the phone aside, not wanting to think about what my father would say about this situation.

Salvatore Devereaux had built his empire on calculated decisions and strategic alliances. Claiming an unclaimed Omega who was actively involved with three other Alphas wasn't exactly strategic.

But then again, he'd also taught me that sometimes you had to take what you wanted before someone else did.

"Hesitation is death in business and in life, figlio. When you see your opportunity, you take it. Let others worry about consequences while you're already three moves ahead."

I'd been three moves ahead for seventeen years.

The first move had been those tutoring sessions, sitting across from Velvet in her cramped apartment while she drilled me on conjugations I'd mastered at age ten.

My family had insisted on perfect fluency in six languages—it was expected when your business dealings crossed that many borders and twice as many legal jurisdictions.

But I'd played dumb, stumbling over pronunciations and mixing up masculine and feminine articles, just to watch her purple-painted lips purse in frustration.

"Alessandro, we've been over this. 'La femme' is feminine. Always. How do you keep forgetting?"

"Maybe I need more practice," I'd replied in perfect French, then pretended not to notice her sharp intake of breath when she realized I'd been playing her.

She'd thrown a textbook at my head and threatened to quit. I'd offered to double her rate. We'd settled on one and a half times, plus coffee.

Those Tuesday and Thursday evenings had been the highlight of my week for six months. Watching her work through her own textbooks while I pretended to study, memorizing the way she bit her lip when concentrating, cataloguing every shift in her scent when I got too close.

She'd smelled like rebellion even then—black orchids and bitter wine, with an underlying sweetness that made my eighteen-year-old body respond in ways that required strategic textbook placement.

"You're going to be dangerous when you're older," she'd said once, catching me staring.

"I'm dangerous now," I'd replied, all teenage bravado and inherited arrogance.

She'd laughed, but there'd been something in her eyes— recognition, maybe, or warning —that suggested she knew I wasn't entirely wrong.

The second move had been disappearing.

University in London, then Harvard Business School, then the slow, methodical process of building something worthy of her. Because even at eighteen, I'd known she wouldn't accept anything less than an equal.

She needed someone who could match her power, passion, and absolute refusal to submit to anyone's expectations.

The boy whose family name opened doors wasn't enough.

I needed to become the man who built his own doors and then burned them down just to prove he could.

It had taken fifteen years.

Fifteen years of hostile takeovers and strategic partnerships, of learning which hands to shake and which to break, of building the Noctuary from an idea Alexia had drunkenly suggested into an empire that spanned continents.

The third move had been the donations.

Fifty million here, thirty million there, all routed through shell companies and anonymous transfers that even her best forensic accountants couldn't trace.

I'd been funding her revolution for three years, watching from a distance as she built her Haven, saved her Omegas, became the Rebel Queen that made powerful men nervous.

She'd never suspected. Why would she? The boy she'd tutored had vanished into the ether of European high society. She probably assumed I was just another rich heir, managing a hedge fund or sitting on boards, contributing nothing but taking everything.

She had no idea I'd been watching.

Waiting.

Planning.

Until now.

I reached out, unable to resist touching her. My fingers found the silver streaks in her purple-dyed hair, still vibrant despite everything she'd been through. Forty in eight months, according to her medical files. The age where society said Omegas became invisible, worthless, forgotten.

Idiots.

She was more beautiful now than at twenty-three. The years had carved strength into her features, turned pretty into powerful. The fine lines around her eyes spoke of laughter and rage in equal measure. The silver threading through purple said she'd earned every year, every battle, every victory.

And those men— those fucking cowards —had watched it all happen and done nothing.

I'd stood in that hallway six hours ago, listened to them argue about propriety and timing and what Velvet would want, and I'd wanted to put my fist through the wall.

Or through them. The urge to violence had been so strong I'd had to step outside, leaving them to their circular debates while her body broke down without the surgery she needed.

Knox, the gym owner with shoulders like a linebacker and all the decisive power of wet tissue paper when it mattered. He'd kept saying they needed to wait, to think, to consider all angles. Twenty years of considering, apparently, and still no conclusion.

Malcolm, the doctor who should have known better, standing there citing ethical concerns while the woman he claimed to love faced paralysis. He'd actually pulled out his phone to check medical regulations, as if bureaucracy mattered more than her life.

And Adyani— beautiful, transitioning, regal Adyani —speaking of Velvet's autonomy and choice while she literally couldn't speak for herself.