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My brother occupied a large room in the compound. It was his while he was there. There was a large chair in the middle of the room and a water featured. There were sofas, directly opposite him where I sat, right beside Naja. It was a converted bedroom where several soldiers would’ve been bunking together. He had a separate room to sleep in while he was here as well. This was a make shift throne room, and it worked magic on his ego.

“We’ve got to send a party out after that fucking omega,” he said, rapping his knuckles against the arm of the chair.

I tried paying attention to everything he said, but I was more concerned with what was going on with Naja’s tablet of information. All that access to the cameras, and not one sign of Soren on them according to her.

“I wish I’d been there when he killed those soldiers,” I said. “I don’t know how long after I’d left it happened. Seems like something to do with my bite pulled him from the coma he’d been in.”

“It’s no surprise,” Naja said. “He seems resistant.”

“Anything I can do to find him, I’ll take it,” I told them. “Nobody has ever not taken to my venom. I definitely want to make sure it wasn’t my fault.”

Drakon stared at me and nodded. “I highly doubt this was because of you,” he said. “That omega was actually found wandering the compound. I don’t know how they got in, or how they got out. We think someone on the inside might be helping them.”

It was me. I was the one helping, but if he was telling me that, then he didn’t suspect me currently, even if he knew. And I knew that he knew it was me. My brain was spinning to keep up the act that I was actually going to do any harm to Soren when he was found.

“Do you have any recordings?” I asked, turning to Naja. “I’m assuming it’s something you’d have access to. Right?”

She rolled her eyes back. “We know he’s an omega who can shift,” she said. “What we don’t know is what form he takes. We could be looking for a fucking ant. We don’t know. Now, if someone did know, I’m sure they would tell us.”

I looked to my brother on his throne. “Do you think it’s possible to have ant shifters?” It was a genuine question. I hadn’t heard of them before. I wondered how it all worked considering how ants were as part of the animal kingdom. “I don’t think he is. Maybe a spider. I’ve seen those types of shifters before.”

Drakon placed his forefinger and thumb to his eye socket, massaging him. I’d clearly not been giving him any good information. And I wasn’t going to. The whole plan hinged on me keeping my brother occupied for as long a possible. It was better since Naja was in the room with us, and she didn’t want me seeing the cameras, so her tablet stayed at her chest.

“Do all the soldiers know who they’re looking for?” I asked.

“No,” he answered with a huff. “They’re all already panicked from the alarm. I don’t want them all trying to become superheroes. This omega, whoever it is, has trained.”

“An omega assassin,” I snort-laughed. “Isn’t that a bit far-fetched? Omegas aren’t really the violent type.”

Naja coughed into a fist, seeming she wanted to add to the conversation but lulled her head. The corners of her lips were turned up into a smile. She feared my brother as much as the rest of us. Except, I knew him as my brother. I never saw him as the Apex, even my mom. I saw all of them as who they were over the roles they played.

“Naja,” he said. “Please. You’re the head of intelligence. What stories have you heard about violent omegas?”

“I’d like to hear it as well.”

“Apex, Sir,” she said, pulling her tablet nearly in front of her face. “There is the Valenti family operating out of Chicago.”

“Valenti,” he said, his tongue flickering. “Why does that name sound familiar?”

“They warred with the Salinger family, a famed serpent tribe,” she said. “Not much is known about the Salinger family anymore, all of them thought to be wiped out.”

“By omegas?” I asked.

She shook her head. “No, no, the current Valenti family, wolf shifters, are made up of the father, an Alpha, his husband, an omega, and their three omega sons. Those three sons have a reputation. I heard they slaughtered several Alphas from around local gangs.”

“Well, the omega we’re looking for isn’t a wolf, are they?”

“No, Sir. Well, another thing about them,” she said, the light of the tablet glowing in her face. “None of those omegas can shift. Partially, maybe, but they don’t possess any real abilities, other than a reputation.”

Drakon shrugged. “Coming all the way here from Illinois doesn’t sound likely, but I’m intrigued by them.”

As was I. It felt like I didn’t know anything anymore. I’d never heard of those omegas, or what they were doing in Chicago, but everyone else seemed to know they had a reputation. I wondered just how far back my family had been fucking around with my memories. The front of my head began to twinge with stabs of pain.

“There’s something odd about this entire situation,” Drakon continued. “I’m curious whether you should go out and see if you can smell him. It would mean a lot to the Syndicate to have him found and taken in.”

I nodded. I couldn’t let this plan happen. There was far too much on the line if I left this room. I knew Naja would be on those cameras and trying to throw me under the bus at every turn. Or maybe not, she must have known it wouldn’t work. The only thing he would do it—

“Also, don’t forget to keep drinking that cocktail,” he added, finishing my thought for me. He would force me to drink more of that poison mind controlling cocktail. I still didn’t know what it contained.

“I have been,” I lied. “I’m more curious now about whether the omega got out. Have you checked the security footage?”

Drakon leaned forward on the throne chair, his elbows on his knees, propping up his chin. “I am curios about that, actually,” he said. “Or have you been inviting those men from the bar into your bed again?”

The only person I felt could talk to her like that and not get a tongue lashing, myself included. “Are you jealous?” she asked, and proved me wrong, my brother wasn’t above her sassy response. “The last time we mated was months ago. You can’t seriously assume I’ve been out here waiting for you to return, or following you around like a lost omega, because I’m not.”

Silent.

He laughed, startling me. “I’d never treat you like an omega. You deserve more than that. But, I don’t see you getting the same amount of pleasure from me as you would those others.”

Naja was an Alpha, and because she was also a woman, a lot of people took that to call her weak, and one of the reasons she was probably the way she was now, as a defense mechanism. I stayed quiet, watching the exchange unfold and trying to keep myself from analyzing them too deep. I had to stay here, and I wasn’t going to be forced out of the room by the potential they had to spring into action and start fucking.

“I saw her bring two men,” I said and could’ve slapped myself for getting involved.

“I need two men,” she said. “To replace you.”

He applauded the comment. “Well, now I’m ready to replace them,” he said. “But I want that omega found before I celebrate. And I might not even choose to celebrate with you, we’ll see how I’m feeling.”

Now, I was firmly getting into uncomfortable territory between the two of them. “So, let’s see the footage,” I said, almost wanting to tear the tablet from Naja’s hands. “It should be easy to spot him. He wasn’t wearing any clothes.”

They both looked at me, their intense glares digging holes in my skull.

“How do you know he wasn’t wearing any clothes?” Drakon asked.

“Because I wanted to see what the omega looked like before I bit him,” I said. It wasn’t technically true, I knew who it was from scent alone, and I only found out afterwards that he was naked. “And then I peeled back the cover. I didn’t know they were kept naked.”

“They’re not,” Naja said. “He had been wearing a—a—a soldier’s outfit.”

I knew that was a lie. I knew he’d been wearing my clothes, but I couldn’t let on that I knew. “Great. That would’ve been good to know,” I said. “It’s going to be difficult finding a soldier. I don’t even know their names. How are we going to line them up and see who is supposed to be here and who is trying to infiltrate us?” It was a good idea to misdirect them. “I think it’s somewhere we can start.”

They looked at each other. I hoped neither of them were clocking on to the idea that I was aware Soren wasn’t actually in soldier’s clothes.

The door opened, pouring amber light into the ambient purple of the room. Zito, head of operations walked in and bowed his head to Drakon. “We’ve discovered another body. This one was in the doctor’s office. We don’t know who did it, but the throat was attacked with such a force that the—” he paused to count me and Naja with nods of his head. “Doctor Payne died almost immediately. The jugular was severed.”

He’d gone back to the lab. He must’ve remembered seeing something there the last time we went.

“You think it’s the omega?” I asked.

Zito, like the others, didn’t seem to know what to tell me. It wasn’t like they could trigger me into remembering everything, I was already there. I was the one on the inside, infiltrating the Syndicate. “We aren’t sure who, but an omega couldn’t have possibly done that,” he said.

Naja pulled the tablet up and opened it with facial recognition. To all of our surprise, the cameras weren’t functional. Each of them on her screen had a black screen with no service in bold white across them. “I—” she shook her head. “I don’t know what’s going on with this. There’s no service for any of the cameras. We’ve never had this issue before.” She stood, stubbing her fingers on the screen as if it was making it work.

“I’ve not had any reports of cameras being tampered with,” Zito added. “But this does appear to be a situation we should all be wary of now. This omega, wherever he is, is probably still in the compound.”

All the work I was putting in to assert the idea that Soren had left was now in the trash. “Anyone have any leads then?” I asked. “I won’t show any mercy. You said it seems like a soldier’s work? I wonder if he’s got a mate on the inside doing all the grunt work.”

There was a moment where my brother appeared shocked by the news. His eyes settled on me, wide, nearly unbarely to hold contact with. “It would make sense.”

“Of course it would,” I said, trying my best to sow the seeds. “A soldier betraying the others would make all the sense. They gave the omega the outfit, and then they told him where to go. Nobody knows these tunnels like a soldier who has to walk them. I know I’m not one of your advisors, brother, but I would definitely take a closer look at the newest soldiers. Considering how all of this happened so quickly.” My logic was sound, and since I wasn’t a suspect because of all the mind control they thought I was under, I had to do everything to keep up the rouse I hadn’t found my memories again.

They all seemed to nod as if agreeing with me.

“It’s clear they’re working with multiple others,” Zito said. “If you’ve noticed anything, please, let me know and I’ll have them squashed with the full force we weild.”

Drakon stood and gestured for me to stand. We were nearly the same height. He had an inch on me, maybe from the shoes. “They are your soldiers, brother,” he said to me. “You are their lieutenant. I am hoping if you address them all, you’ll get somewhere. What do you think?”

“I can hold a meeting in the hall,” I said, nearly slipping up with reminding him I remembered he’d been in there when he arrived at the compound. “We’ll probably need to get it made up, I don’t know what kind of state it’s currently in.” I saved it.

With an arm around my shoulder, he patted me. “I think it might still be made up from my talk,” he said. “But it’s a good idea, we can take a count, see if anyone is missing, and then we’ll know.”

“I’ll need to reconfigure the cameras first,” Naja said. “I don’t want everyone moving out into the hall before I can get eyes on them.”

I didn’t want her to leave the room, but I couldn’t think fast enough for a reason for her to stay. “Are you all coming to watch me?” I asked. “I want to show you that I’m able to command these soldiers. And then I want to be responsible for killing the traitors.” The irony that I was traitor wasn’t lost on me, but it sold the narrative I was with the Syndicate, and they were all buying it.