Page 24 of Wild Omegas (Wild Skies Ranch Omegaverse #1)

Brooks

“Tell me what you know, Tommy!” I shout into the phone. I bang my fist against the dresser in my bedroom.

Static shuffles along the line. If it drops, so help me, I’ll track Tommy down myself and wring the answers out of him. “Brooks, they’re locked up tight. I told you that. You know that. I saw your name on the database logs. That alone will get you in deep shit.”

“You think I care?” I growl. “My omega is being tracked by an asshole alpha with a vendetta. I won’t let her or my pack be in any more danger. Open her file, and if you get caught, blame it on me. Say you did it under duress.”

“I basically am,” Tommy says under his breath.

My eyes narrow. “Please, Tommy.”

Finally, he sighs in resignation. The sound of keys tapping fills the call and then he grunts. “Okay, done. Wait—shit, man.”

That’s never a good sign. “Just tell me.”

“You may regret that,” Tommy mutters before affixing a far more professional tone to his voice. “Damien Malova. He’s a huge crime lord in New York City. He did a great job keeping his real identity under wraps until the bakery fire at your omega’s place.”

My head spins. So that’s why he’s got such a vendetta against Josie. Josie put him in the spotlight, unveiled his identity, and put him on paper in a police investigation even if it was as a victim.

My omega is indeed in dangerous waters.

Malova. The name does sound familiar though. It twists my gut in a way I know isn’t coincidence.

“Why does that name sound familiar?” I ask.

Tommy scoffs. “It should, although we thought he was much lower down in the hierarchy. Remember Project Aurora?”

My stomach sinks to my feet. Project Aurora. The reason I left the force. Serendipity was the worst omega trafficking ring I’ve ever seen or heard of in my life. “What about it?”

“There’s new evidence here, Brooks,” he says. “Damien’s at the top of it. He owns Serendipity, but law enforcement hasn’t been able to track him down after that fire at your omega’s bakery. He went to ground.”

The crime lord alpha Josie screwed over is one of the most dangerous men in the entire country. She’s lucky Daimen is having fun taunting her instead of just showing up to kill her.

It was obvious Damien wanted her to suffer, but knowing this information, I can see so horrifically clearly how Damien wanted this to play out.

He came here to taunt and terrify Josie. He discovered she has a pack.

Damien set fire to the barn—a distraction, but one that might take out her new alphas. He nearly killed Carson. But he didn’t succeed and our pack is stronger for it.

He will come for Josie next. And now that he’s been inside the ranch house, he knows we don’t have defenses or ways to monitor the grounds. Maybe that’s on us for not acting quicker to protect our omega. And anything we do now Damien will be expecting.

He’ll assume we’ll put up cameras.

If he’s identified us, he’ll know Carson has enough money to have the entire ranch grounds covered in cameras and security teams.

Which means Damien will have to wait until we leave the ranch with Josie to get to her.

Means we can use this to our advantage.

“I don’t suppose you can tell me if Josie’s on the hook for anything because of her bakery fire?

” I ask Tommy. I know that she set it on purpose, but I’m not certain that she told anyone back home that or any law enforcement.

Why would she? If she was hoping for insurance money they would’ve already pinned her for that.

Tommy clicks his tongue. “Even if she was, no I shouldn’t tell you. Lucky enough for you she’s not.”

Well, at least I won’t have to bargain for Josie’s innocence. Just her life. Because I have a dangerous, probably terrible idea.

“What if I can help catch Damien Malova?” I ask.

Tommy lets out a breath. “How can you do that?” I know he senses the motion of a plan working inside my head. Tommy and I were on the force together for a long time before I left.

I go over everything I’ve just thought through, including the final conclusion that we can use to our advantage. “There’s a rodeo coming up and Luke is participating in it. Damien’s somewhere in town. He was in the ranch house last night. Drugged me, got to Josie’s bedroom. He’s here, Tommy.”

A shuffling sounds as he shifts his phone and then the keys of a laptop start clicking again. “Let me get this straight. You want to use your omega as bait to get Damien off the street?”

“I want Damien off the damn street,” I clarify.

“This is the only time I can foresee letting Josie off the ranch for a long time. We won’t be cornered animals anymore.

We’ll be in public. That’s the best place for us to be knowing Damien is close— and for you to be with a team of investigators ready to take him down.

Then we close up Project Aurora for good. ”

“And take down Serendipity,” Tommy admits. “You think Damien will sell out everyone below him.”

I nod although Tommy can’t see it. “If he thinks it might help him get off the hook, yes.”

“But it won’t.”

“It better fucking not,” I growl. “There’s a rodeo competition this weekend in Fairwater Falls. Be there with a team.”

Tommy is already typing so furiously his keystrokes could be mistaken for drums. “I will. You know, you land this, Brooks, and you could come back and really make a high rank.”

My heart is set and it’s not on police work anymore. “I appreciate that, Tommy, but I’ll be crediting you with everything. My life is here at Wild Skies not in the city. Police Chief would look good on you.”

Tommy chuckles dryly. “Yeah, yeah. Let’s catch the guy first.”

Which first means selling this deal to my pack… and coming clean to Josie.

I find Josie in the kitchen baking more cookies.

Luke went out early this morning with Carson to replace all our groceries right down to staples like flour and sugar.

I watch her for a moment from the hallway and wonder what her bakery must have been like.

It sounds like it was successful for a long time before things took a turn for the worse.

I can just imagine cases of delicious pastries crafted by Josie’s careful hands.

Vibrant walls and signs. Everything that is so her put into every inch of that bakery.

The way she’s slowly doing the same to this house.

It’s started with her nest and then the kitchen, but here and there all throughout are little touches of Josie.

Faerie lights hanging on the porch. Bright colored pillows.

More throw blankets than any of us know what to do with. A few new potted plants out front.

She’s really made this her home, too.

So it’s up to us to protect it. Even if it puts her in a little more danger first.

I make my way into the kitchen. “Hey.”

Josie flashes me a smile that feels like a hot summer sun after the coldest winter. Everything about her warms me in ways nothing else in this world can.

It makes me feel like shit knowing what news I’m about to tell her. “Can we talk for a minute?” Guilt gnaws me raw from the inside out.

Josie’s expression darkens immediately. Worry creases her brow. She reaches for me. “Of course. What’s wrong?”

I take her hand in mine and try to find the words. But all that comes out is, “It’s my fault.”

She shakes her head. “What’s your fault? Nothing is.”

I nod. “The barn, Damien. All of it.”

Josie pulls me in closer and takes my other hand in hers too. Flour powders on my skin but I don’t mind. “Brooks, what’s wrong?”

“Damien was a leader of an omega trafficking ring I was investigating.” Fuck.

Hearing those words from my lips feels even worse than I thought it would.

Each syllable is laced with failure. “Project Aurora was supposed crack his trafficking ring wide open, and it did. Serendipity was destroyed that night, but Damien is slippery. He got away and I… I left the force. I didn’t know what happened to him because at the time I didn’t care. ”

I lift my hand to brush hair out of her paling face. Every word draws tears to Josie’s eyes. I hate it. I hate that I’m causing these emotions, that I hurt her because of not catching Damien the day Project Aurora finally went off.

“It’s my fault, Josie.” My voice catches.

I had no idea back then that the worst night of my professional life, with every single horror I witnessed within it, would become the source of so much pain for my future omega.

There’s no healing this. No ignoring it.

And there was no way I could not tell her.

“The barn fire is my fault. Damien should be off the streets and in jail with the rest of the Serendipity leaders.”

The tears building in Josie’s eyes finally fall. I brush them away with my thumb and am grateful she lets me do it. That she wants me in the same room with her at all anymore. “Oh, Brooks…” She trails off and hugs me tight.

I wrap my arms around her and squeeze. If I have my way, I’ll never let Josie go. But that’s up to her after this information. A hole forms in the pit of my stomach, raw and aching.

If Josie and Wild Skies Pack let me go now that this information is out there I wouldn’t even blame them. The truth hurts, but it’s needed nonetheless.

It’s just happenstance that my darkest night is tied to Josie and hers. No one could have foreseen that.

Josie draws back and places a warm hand on my cheek. “None of this is your fault, Brooks. Damien is his own man. He’s at fault for the barn fire. For that trafficking ring. For all of it.”

There’s a hesitation in her voice. A practiced and forced stillness on her face.

“What is it?” I ask with a voice barely louder than a whisper.

Josie shakes her head. “More of the same, but if I’m telling you that Damien is his own man with his own choices and that you’re not to blame for any of this, then I also have to agree that I’m not either.

I set fire to my bakery. That was on me.

But I never intended to hurt Damien while doing it, just as you never intended for any member of Serendipity to get away.

Things happened. But we can become more than the sum of our darkness, Brooks. ”

Josie’s words soothe the raw hole inside me. I know she’s right. It may take me a while to fully get there in accepting it, but I know she’s right. I draw her back in and kiss the top of her head. “You’re a wise one, my omega.”

“I don’t know about that, but I’ll accept the words from you.”

“Good.”

I hold her like that for a long while until I drum up enough courage to bring up the other reason I came in here today. Top of that list was confessing what I’d learned and what part I played in her darkness. The other item, though… “There’s one more thing.”

Josie looks up at me. “What do you mean?”

Here goes nothing. “I got in contact with the investigators I once worked with. They were excited to hear Damien’s been found and want the chance to catch him as much as I want him off the streets and you safe. There’s a plan to arrest him, but it’s not without risk to you.”

Josie’s gaze immediately hardens with resolve. “I’ll do it. I want him gone. He wouldn’t leave me alone on his own. What do you need me to do?”

I raise my hands. “Slow down. It’s a real risk to you, Josie. I need you to think about it.”

Her brow creases. “I’ve thought about escaping Damien every night since the bakery fire and his identity being revealed. Just tell me what you need me to do. It’s not like I’ll truly be alone with him, right? I assume you mean there’s a team coming or something. Your old team.”

I nod. “There is. They’ll be here for the rodeo competition.”

Josie’s eyes brighten. “That Luke’s competing in, so of course I’d be off the ranch to support him. Damien won’t think anything of it.”

And thanks to doing a full sweep of the house every day since the barn fire to look for listening devices—and coming up empty every time—we can be sure Damien won’t start to think anything of it.

“Exactly,” I say. “The plan gives you the appearance of being alone.”

“Of being bait, you mean.” Not that Josie looks concerned by that fact.

“Correct.” I grab her hands again. “Like I said, it’s not without risk to you.”

“It sounds like a solid plan to me, Brooks.” Her determination hasn’t wavered at all since telling her. “Let’s do it.”

“Luke and Carson need to approve first.” There’s no way I can put our omega in harm's way without our other two pack members signing off on it. That’s a great way to get yourself kicked out of a pack.

But this will work. Luke will be competing in the rodeo competition, and Carson and I can stay close to her while she is. She’ll be alone at one point, but never really far from us.

Josie shrugs. “They’ll have to approve.” She pulls me toward the living room and front hall where the sounds of Luke and Carson kicking off their work boots echoes.

“Let’s ask now and get ready to do this.

Damien will be off the streets in a matter of days and I for one am not going to miss this chance. ”

I pull her back to me. “I’m glad to hear you’re excited for Damien to be dealt with, but…” I trail off. I don’t want to douse her excitement with my guilt, but this conversation has moved so fast. “What I failed to do cost you everything. I’m so sorry, Josie.”

Josie holds my face in her hands, something she has to stand on her tiptoes to do. “But it gained me everything. You all. This pack. This home . Sometimes we need darkness so we can appreciate the light in full.”

Josie kisses me, and the warmth of that kiss could transcend any darkest night. The coldest winter. It soothes my soul.

Omegas must be magical. I sure know Josie is.