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“I found my mates,” I mumble as I drop my eyes to the table and start tearing apart the wet napkin in front of me.

“You what?” Eve asks.

So I mumble a little louder, “Found my mates.”

“What was that? I don’t think I heard you right. It sounds like my best friend in the entire world just said that she found her mates but that can’t be right. Can it?”

I glance at the three of them, relieved when I see their smiles but it doesn’t make this any easier to say.

Not because I’m ashamed of who they are or how we met.

I could never in a million years feel anything but proud of the men I’m lucky enough to call mine.

Proud and full of so much love for them I might burst, but that’s why this is hard.

I love the four of them so much more than I knew I was capable of but not only is our future as a pack sketchy, I’ve been legally contracted to be with someone else.

Both of those things are obstacles I’m still trying to move out of my way but it’s not going as smoothly as I’d like.

“Oh, Maggie,” Evie says with a sniffle, her eyes welling with tears as her hands shoot across the table to grab onto mine. “Maggie, you really found your mates?”

I nod as tears sting my nose and hold her hands tightly. “I did.”

“And it’s plural?” Maddox asks as he and his twin grab hold of us too. “More than one mate?”

“Yeah.” I nod like a bobble head and blurt, “Four. Four mates. Two scent matches, two fate bonds.” A tear rolls down Evie’s face, framing her smile as it widens, and I can’t help it when one slides down my cheek to match. “Four perfect, beautiful men that I get to say are mine.”

Hendrix wipes away another few of my tears before he sits back in his seat and raises a glass full of ice. “Then we toast to our Magnolia and her soon to be pack.”

I raise my glass but bite my lip, trying not to smile too wide as a blush stains my cheeks, and apparently that was my biggest tell yet.

“Oh my god, you already mated,” Evie gasps before she tries to take a swing at me from across the table. “You bonded with your pack and didn’t even bother to tell me?”

“Maybe.” I shrug. “Probably.”

“Well, now we need all the details, Magnolia.” Maddox flags down a waitress and promptly orders two more drinks for each of us. “Don’t leave anything out. I want names, descriptions, positions, all of it.”

“That’s my cue,” Drix says with a grin as he stands.

“Maggie, I love you and I’m happy as fuck you found your pack.

No one deserves it more, especially since it means you’re finally out from under your dickhead dad’s thumb.

” If only it were that simple. “And while I mean that with my entire chest, I do not need all the details. I’m going to go find someone who fits my favorite description so I can fold them into an equally favorite position, and preferably without ever knowing their name. ”

Then Hendrix leaves us with a grin and a wink before lumbering off to disappear into the crowd of dozens who would be more than happy to oblige him.

“One day he’s going to swing his dick at the wrong person and when he finds out they’re his fated match, he’ll be sorry he didn’t take all of this more seriously.

” Evie wipes the tears from her cheeks as she watches then turns back to me with an evil grin.

“Now, spill it, Magnolia. I want to live vicariously through you for the next few hours.”

I chuckle as I look down into my drink, stirring the ice again because I have no fucking clue how to do this.

Which she knows and it’s why she starts the conversation for me.

“Where did you meet?”

”At work,” I say slowly.

“All four of them?” Evie asks and I nod. “Do they work there?”

“Do we know them?” Madds chimes in.

I tilt my head from side to side as I think about my answer. “No, I don’t think you know them.”

”But they work at brI?” Eve gives me an exasperated look when I glance up at her. “Maggie, you are driving me nuts.”

So, I decide to rip the bandaid off and rub lemon juice in the wound by telling my best friend and her cousin all about my pack.

I start at the beginning, telling them about the instant attraction and pull I felt, how I fantasized to no end because they were all I could think about.

How things started to fall into place slowly before they seemed to race toward biting and bonding.

When I finally manage to give them the specifics of each of my men, sharing that one does work at the asylum while the rest live there.

Permanently. Because they’re convicted felons with life sentences.

Life sentences and huge dicks, but the latter isn’t a crime.

I go on about the secret rendezvous, from Des and Vin breaking into our apartment all the way to the most recent one this morning where I was stuffed so full it’s a miracle I’m walking at all.

Two alphas and a well endowed beta crammed into my vag and butt while a relatively hung omega shoved himself down my throat calls for recovery time I didn’t quite get considering I was at work, but it’s fine.

I’d rather have that and take days to bounce back than not have my mates at all.

When I finish by gushing about how Vin and Isaak, Des and Calix make me feel, going on about how I have never in my life felt so loved or cherished by anyone let alone four people, Evie and Maddox are staring at me with wide eyes and slack jaws.

And they stay that way for what must be seconds but feels like days because I need them to say something.

Anything. Even if it’s yelling at me for falling in love with people I met at an asylum, I just need them to do something other than stare at me.

The longer they do, the more I feel like I should pay our tabs and run out of here like the crazy person they probably think I am.

“How are you getting away with it?” Evie asks seconds before I explode. “I know there aren’t cameras up there, and it’s a pretty tight ship with extremely limited access, but haven’t the staff noticed the five of you disappearing at various times during the day?”

I take a long drink from my glass and clear my throat. “About that.”

“Magnolia…” My best friend arches a brow. “You aren’t banging in front of everyone, are you?”

“No,” I say with a nervous laugh.

I trust these two with my life but telling them how we’re making it work for now makes them liable.

Guilty by association. There are already a lot of people risking their jobs and much more with their involvement, I don’t know if I want that for Eve and Madds, too.

If they don’t know, they can’t tell, and if they can’t tell, they can’t ruin their careers and potentially their lives.

The look on their faces says they don’t give a shit, though.

They don’t even know what I’m going to say but these two want in on it and they don’t seem to care if there could be repercussions from it.

“Well, are you going to tell us, or do I need to wait for a few more Jack and Cokes before you spill willingly?”

I start picking at my cuticles under the table, gnawing on my lower lip then answer. “They all know.”

Her brows shoot up as Maddox chokes on his drink. “Pardon?”

I nod. “Everyone except Nurse Jones. All the nurses on staff, the guards. O’Brien and Stevenson have been a huge part of making sure we can be together without any trouble.

Almost all of them are bonded themselves so they get it, and they all see a different side of the residents so they know my boys aren’t the evil monsters some people say they are.

” A grateful smile touches my lips and I don’t even bother hiding it.

“We still work the way we’re supposed to; therapy sessions and group, setting goals and working toward them for rehabilitation's sake. Everything runs the way Isaak and I intended, we still follow the treatment plans we put into place. Nothing has changed, really, and we’re still making a lot of good progress with the guys. ”

“Doesn’t that make therapy weird?” Eve asks. “For Des and Korvin and Calix. Don’t they have a hard time actually working through stuff with you and Isaak?”

I shake my head. “Honestly, no. Calix has opened up a ton since we got together. Des is always running his mouth and that hasn’t changed just because our relationship did.

Same can be said about Korvin, just the opposite.

He didn’t talk during his sessions before, and he still doesn’t now, but he’s a little more inclined to let things slip without backpedaling over them. ”

Maddox scrubs a hand over his hair as he blows out a breath. “What about the other three residents? They don’t have issues with any of this?”

“Not that they’ve voiced, and they’ve been just as helpful in making sure we can spend time together. They’re almost protective of our pack.” Which has been an interesting development in things.

The Rookers and Ivan have gone out of their way to be supportive and helpful. They haven’t exactly warmed up to anyone, it’s not like they all hang out as one big felonious family, but they’re alphas and I have a feeling that’s part of why they’re doing the things they are.

Des disagrees.

To an extent, anyway.

Based on the way he watches everyone, he thinks those three wouldn’t give a rat's ass either way—his words, not mine—about what happened to the five of us. His theory, one supported by the rest of my mates, is that their pasts have made them a little more inclined to work with me specifically, in turn creating a loyalty between us. One I can’t argue because I saw it the day Camden made a scene in front of them.

A strange almost familial relationship has developed on Ward C, not just between the residents, but all of us.

It’s weird since there is so much alpha energy on that floor that the few of us who aren’t of the designation get a bit overwhelmed at times, but it hasn’t been a problem.

Not at all, and I’m anxious to see how it grows and changes every time I go to work.

”So sorry I’m late.”