Page 14 of The Night Movers: Season One

“Do you know what it would do to them if they lost control and hurt you?” Titus asked, gesturing towards the door. “Do you have any clue what they’ve sacrificed to be here? To do what we fucking do? Do you know how dangerous it is? What the government would do to us if we were discovered?”

Ridley’s nostrils flared. Where the fuck did he get off lecturing Ridley like he was the wounded party?

The New Guard would line the alphas up and put a bullet in each of their heads.

Maybe they’d beat the shit out of them first. If Ridley was thrown out, he would be beaten, tortured, raped, bred.

He would be, at best, a whore and, at worst, livestock.

No alpha would ever understand what it was like to never feel safe, even in your own home.

“No worse than what they do to omegas just for existing,” Ridley countered.

“Which is why we’re helping,” Titus said, like he was pleading with Ridley to understand .

“We didn’t ask for any of this,” Ridley reminded him. “The world wasn’t always like this. I don’t want to be hurt any more than you want to hurt me, but facts are facts and the fact is, I belong to you… all of you. You have a responsibility to at least keep me safe.”

Titus snarled. “We have no interest in ‘owning’ an omega. It goes against everything we stand for.”

Tears welled in Ridley’s eyes again, but they were tears of anger this time.

He blinked them away rapidly. Letting these men own him went against everything Ridley stood for, too.

How fucked up was the world they lived in where he was forced to beg a pack of alphas to turn him into their sex slave for his own protection?

Titus and his crew were out there smuggling omegas out of the city to these sanctuary towns, but nobody was trying to change the system itself.

Nobody was trying to wrestle power away from those who abused it for their own gain.

Ridley believed, deep down in his soul, that these men—these alphas—meant well.

But for every omega they saved, there were thousands they didn’t.

And it hadn’t even occurred to them that there was another way—a better way—to save omegas.

If Ridley had an army of alphas at his beck and call, he wouldn’t just be using them to shield the local omegas, he’d use them to free them for good. To give them back the rights they’d had torn away from them by a corrupt superpower.

“Why do you do it?” Ridley heard himself ask.

“What?” Titus said, startled.

“Why do you do it?” he repeated slowly.

Titus hesitated, then stumbled over his words. “I-I have my reasons. We all do.”

His tone of voice told Ridley he didn’t want the conversation to continue, but Ridley wasn’t letting him get away with that cop-out answer. He blew a breath out through his nose. “What I mean is, why do you do it the way you do?”

“I don’t follow,” Titus said, his eyes shiny in the tiny crack of light from the bathroom.

Ridley sighed. “You and your pack are out there, night after night, rescuing fish from the net, one at a time.”

“Yeah?”

“You must lose more than you win?” Ridley said.

Titus’s jaw tensed. “Better some fish are free than all of them ending up on someone’s plate or in their tank.”

Ridley sucked his teeth. “Did you ever even consider just sinking the fucking boat?”

Titus’s eyes went wide, and he opened and closed his mouth several times before he said, “It’s not that simple.”

Ridley studied him for a long moment. “I never said it was simple.”

Titus just blinked at him in the shadows, scanning Ridley’s face like he’d never seen him before.

Ridley sat up, propping himself up on one arm. “Maybe I’m wrong.” When Titus’s expression soured, he clarified, “About my vision, I mean.”

Titus looked like he was two seconds away from chucking Ridley down that grand staircase just outside his room. “Just like that? Now, suddenly, your vision was wrong?”

Ridley rolled his eyes. “Not my vision, necessarily. But my interpretation.”

Ridley chewed on his bottom lip as he watched Titus watch him.

Maybe he should keep this to himself. It was unlikely any alpha would want to hear what he was about to say.

Was it better to manipulate a pack of alphas for the greater good?

One look at the man in front of him and Ridley knew his answer.

Titus’s frown deepened. “I don’t follow,” he said again.

Ridley lifted his hand, letting his fingers gently trace the alpha’s scar. “Maybe I don’t belong to you…” He met Titus’s gaze head on. “Maybe you belong to me . ”

Titus’s lids fluttered. When Ridley cupped his cheek, he nuzzled up against it. When he realized what he’d done, he jerked away from him. “What?”

Ridley let his hand fall away from him. “You have a code. You don’t want to collar any omega. You don’t want to force them to bend to your will. So, don’t.”

“Meaning what?”

Ridley shrugged. “I’ll call the shots. I’ll be the one to tell you how I want it. When I want it. Where I want it. If I want it at all.”

“You call the…what?”

Ridley continued on as if he hadn’t spoken.

“Unfortunately, biology doesn’t allow me to claim you guys, you’d still have to claim me, but we both know the connection goes both ways.

Alphas force omegas into submission, but there was a time when they were equals.

If you truly believe that’s true, then put your money where your mouth is. ”

Titus ran his fingers through his hair. “That’s… I don’t… You want us to answer to you?”

Ridley rolled his eyes. “I’m not asking to run your operation, genius. I’m asking you to treat me like an equal, even if the world thinks I’m only your pack omega.”

Titus shook his head. “I can’t just…agree to that. The others will never go along with it. And I can’t have some omega coming in here and rocking the boat.”

Ridley had no idea where his boldness came from, but he leaned up enough to press a lingering kiss on Titus’s lips before pulling back enough to look into his eyes. “I already told you, Alpha. I’m not here to rock the boat. I’m here to fucking sink it.”