Page 127 of Retribution

“Tracy, no one is here,” a woman says nervously as the other woman paces back to her.

“Well I don’t want to lose my job because I need to talk about the skank that the boss is dating,” Tracy hisses. “My God, is she pinning this baby on him too? Mr. Reid has been goo-goo over this kid. We have never seen either of them before.”

Rolling my eyes, I remain in my very awkward position because this is a train wreck I can’t seem to stop listening to.Lucas hasn’t formally announced who I am because it’s none of their goddamned business.

It’s one thing to be transparent with your employees, and another to parade your personal life in front of them. He’s never been one to do that based on my previous research.

Why would he begin now?

“Her clothes are atrocious. Who braided her hair, the baby? If she’s trying to keep up with an alpha like Mr. Reid, she’d better step it up,” Tracy complains.

Chewing my bottom lip, I begin to wonder if Grant will clean up my murder scene if I were to kill Tracy as my ass gets cold. I need to clean up and get the fuck out of here before I scream.

“She’s pretty,” the other girl says slowly. “I also think there’s something odd about her.”

“Maybe she’s messed up in the head and Mr. Reid feels sorry for her, Miranda! Or she’s a gold digger and we need to save him,” Tracy screeches way too excitedly.

Since there are serious things wrong with my brain from my past trauma, this hits too close to home.

Pulling toilet paper loudly, I clean up and stand as I flush. Pulling up my pants and buttoning them, I slam out of the stall.

“Oh shit,” Miranda breathes, seeing me. “You’ve been here the entire time.”

“Even if I wasn’t,” I say, pushing Tracy aside so I can pump soap into my hands from the dispenser. “Lucas knows everything that goes on in his building.”

Scrubbing my hands viciously as if it’ll rid me of the awful words these girls have been saying, I rinse my hands under the water.

Embarrassingly, I can feel heat building behind my lids. I’m clearly getting soft while being with my pack. I should be angry about that, but I’m not.

I am learning to heal from really shitty things that these two betas will never fucking know about. No one wants to abuse them, and there’s some privilege to that.

Pulling paper towels as I shut off the water, I attempt to take a deep breath and find that I can’t. Fuck. Just your friendly neighborhood psychopath having a panic attack.

Drying my hands, I suck oxygen into my air starved lungs to control how much my anxiety is riding me.

“One last thing, chickadees,” I say, taking one last parting shot before I leave. “In order to be a gold digger, you’d have to be poor, and I make more than both of your yearly salaries together in one job.”

I don’t know if that’s exactly true since I don’t know their salaries, but damn does it sound good. Facing them, I toss my paper towels in a controlled manner into the garbage can because I really want to throw them in their faces.

I’m better than a rabid dog. I will not lose my shit in this goddamned bathroom. These girls are the ones in the wrong. The moment I overact is when none of that matters.

“I hope you enjoy the last hours of being employed, ladies. Lucas is my alpha and we are bonded. He probably already knows what’s happening as we speak.”

I’m shielding as hard as I can, though I have no idea if it’s actually working. The bond is too new for me to be able to use it effectively. They either hear every thought and emotion, or nothing at all.

However, based on the horror on Miranda and Tracy’s faces, they don’t know any of that. How could they when they’re no one special?

My life revolves around my alphas and Leila. Everything else doesn’t matter unless I’m contractually obligated to give a fuck.

“It takes zero effort to be kind, ladies. I hope that lesson tastes really bitter.”

Walking past them, I pull open the restroom door to escape. I hear them call out for me to stop, but since they never bothered to learn my name, I refuse to.

Let’s be honest, I’d probably ignore them even if they had.

I refuse to make any eye contact with those around me as I walk. I need time and space to think. I feel out of control and know I’m a liability at this time. All of these feelings remind me of one of Lucas’ experiments. If I don’t work through the anger and frustration from the past few minutes, then I’ll explode on someone who doesn’t deserve it.

I’m feeling murderous, and I can’t think of anyone who needs to die at the moment.