Coming Full Circle

by Kian Rhodes

  “I wonder why they sold me if that was their plan?”

  At least that was a question I could answer. “I’ll show you the file later, baby. The long and short of it is that when I walked in and described what I was looking for, they decided that it was in their best interest to get rid of me. They didn’t want to risk me coming back again and again while I looked for an Omega.”

  “Makes sense,” Colby said with a sigh. “The more often that you were there, the more likely you were to realize something was wrong.”

  As much as I appreciated that Coby hadn’t freaked out the way that I’d expected, I was still concerned. His entire demeanor just seemed a little, well, off.

  Too calm.

  Or maybe I was projecting.

  “I guess,” I agreed. “We should probably get some rest. We’ve still got a lot to do.”

  It wasn’t until we were back in the office that evening that I was certain it wasn’t in my head.

  ~*~

  Ralph had already swept the COPSD building for bugs when Colby and I arrived and he even had seven tiny listening devices drowning in a large glass of water in the center of the conference room table.

  “That’s impressive,” I said with a grin as I took my seat. “You’ve been busy.”

  Ralph patted the small surveillance detector on the table next to him. “This thing only took a minute. Whoever set this all up also pirated our wireless and had three hidden cameras feeding up to the cloud. I’ve disabled the entire network, so I think we can safely assume that our mole knows we’re on to them.”

  “You’ve been busy,” I observed.

  “I have,” Ralph agreed with a smirk. “I also sent out a BOLO on Charles Kier. He’s already been located and is being brought in for questioning.”

  “That should be interesting.” I glanced around the room. “Where’s Casen?”

  “I dropped him out with the Coruscation’s.” Ralph narrowed his eyes at me. “You have a problem with him?”

  “What? No!” I denied immediately. “Actually, he’s helped me out on a handful of cases and I’ve always liked him. I was just curious where he was since you nixed the safehouse idea.”

  “I thought he would be safer with the werewolves than with a safehouse team I might not be able to count on, and I want him safe.” Ralph studied me and seemed to come to a decision. “Look, Rafe, I don’t owe anyone any explanations, least of all my employees,” he began, visibly irritated. “But I’ve become very fond of Cass and, if he’s interested when this whole mess is sorted, I fully intend to pursue a relationship with him.” Ralph’s lip twitched in a near snarl. “I’d suggest you get used to the idea.”

  Colby choked on the air he’d just breathed in and Ralph whirled to glare at him. “You have something to say?”

  “Not a damned thing,” Colby said, swallowing a grin. “I’m happy for you, boss. Truly.”

  Ralph seemed to accept Colby’s response and turned back to me. I raised my hands in a conciliatory gesture. “Me, too, Ralph. I’m surprised, but I think it’s great.”

  Any further conversation on the COPSD director’s love life was promptly shelved when Ralph’s desk phone rang. After holding the receiver to his ear for a moment, he hung up and rose to open the door.

  “Kier is here. It’s time to find out what his part in this was.”

  “Wait,” Colby snapped, his voice unusually high. “I’m the reason that he was at the auction house.”

  Ralph froze and we both turned to stare at Colby.

  He drew in a deep breath and turned tortured eyes on me. “It’s my fault, Rafe.” He swallowed and looked to Ralph. “I gave Keir access to the files. I’m the mole that you’re looking for.”

  Chapter Forty

  Casen

  “Cass? Can I get you anything?”

  The taillights of Ralph’s COPSD SUV had long since disappeared down the dusty road that led back to the highway when the Coruscation Omega, Trevor, used Ralph’s nickname for me and put a gentle hand on my shoulder. When I turned around, he was smiling at me.

  “No, thank you.” I returned his smile. “I’m just a little out of sorts.”

  Trevor winked at me. “I think we all understand exactly what you mean,” he said softly. “I don’t know Ralph well, but he certainly seems taken with you. It would be easy to see how that could go both ways.”

  “What? Oh, no,” I disputed, shaking my head. “Ralph was just protecting me as part of the assignment,” I explained. “I’m, ah, not that kind of Omega, Trevor.”

  “What kind is that, Cass?”

  “You know,” I shrugged, “the forever kind.”

  Trevor’s brow furrowed. “You’re not always an Omega?”

  That made me laugh. “No, I am,” I assured him. “I mean, I’m not the kind an Alpha wants to take on,” I explained. “I was emancipated after my mate passed years ago and ended up in the sex trade.”

  Trevor’s horrified expression made me second guess the wisdom of oversharing, but his next words took the sting out of it. “Do you need help getting away? You could stay here, you know. Clint wouldn’t let them take you back!”

  Ah, such sweet innocence.

  “I wasn’t sent to an Omega house, Trevor,” I said softly. “And I don’t have a pimp or anything. When Michael died, I had to find a way to pay the bills and, honestly, I had a pretty limited skill set.”

  “Oh.” Trevor’s eyes softened. “Your pack wouldn’t help you?”

  “I’m human, love,” I glanced at him curiously. “You can’t tell?”

  Trevor huffed impatiently and I had to stop myself from laughing. “This pregnancy is seriously messing with my senses. I can’t seem to smell anything!”

  “That’s okay.” I glanced at the hand resting on his belly. “When are you due?”

  “Not for over another month,” he groaned. “I’m ready now!”

  I smiled, he really was cute. “I’m sure it will all be worth it.”

  “Of course,” Trevor grinned. “I just tend to whine, that’s all.” He cocked his head. “Do you have children?”

  I shook my head. “No. Michael and I had wanted to travel, so we were waiting and then we ran out of time.” When Trevor’s smile fell, I patted his arm. “It’s okay. Not everyone is meant to raise a family, love.”

  Trevor looked like he was about to argue with me when someone called his name from across the room.

  “I better go see what they need,” he apologized. “You’re sure that you’re okay?”

  “Perfect,” I agreed. “I’m just going to enjoy the view for a little longer.” Because that’s what I was doing, not pining after an Alpha I could never have.

  To my surprise, it wasn’t more than a couple of minutes before Trevor was back, this time with a woman trailing after him. With her long, reddish-brown hair and thick glasses, she looked vaguely familiar but I wasn’t sure why.

  “Casen?” the woman addressed me in a firm but kind voice. “Are you ready?”

  “Ready?” I parroted. “For what?”

  “Oh, dear,” she huffed a little. “I assumed Ralph had called you. They’ve resolved the threat and I’m supposed to bring you to the department for debriefing.” She hesitated and then backtracked. “My name is Carol Daulton. I’m the head of the Council of Packs Crimes Against Omegas division.”

  “Really?” I couldn’t keep the surprise out of my voice. “I haven’t been here that long.”

  Carol gave a polite laugh. “Well, they say time flies when you’re entertained, right?”

  “Yeah, I guess,” I agreed slowly. “I have a few things inside, if you can give me a minute.”

  “Of course,” Carol said sweetly. “Take your time.”

  Once I was safely inside the packhouse, I detoured to a vacant office and helped myself to the phone. Ralph’s cell phone rang and rang before I was finally redirected to the voicemail. I listened impatiently as his smooth voice instructed me to leave a message before finally sounding a
beep.

  “Hi, Ralph. It’s Cass. Um, I don’t mean to sound paranoid, but shortly after you dropped me off, another COPSD SUV showed up and someone named Carol said she was supposed to bring me to you. I guess I just wanted to be sure that I should go, since you had said you’d be back for me yourself.”

  Unsure what else to say – and pretty sure I’d already said enough to come across as needy – I picked up my bag and rejoined Carol on the porch.

  “You’re ready?”

  I nodded.

  “Perfect!” She pulled a set of keys from her pocket. “Let’s go.”

  We drove for several minutes in silence before I noticed that we seemed to be driving in the wrong direction. I forced back a wave of panic and tried for a casual tone. “Carol? Would you mind if I used your cellphone? Ralph had told me he was coming back for me personally and I just want to let him know we left.”

  “Silly Omega.” There was nothing kind in her tone this time. “Why on earth would you think such an important man would have time to worry about one little Omega whore, hm?” She snorted and the ball of nerves in my stomach tightened. “Honestly, you didn’t really think he cared about you, did you? You were just the means to an end.”

  “So, you’re not really taking me to him,” I guessed.

  “Of course not,” Carol cackled. “Not directly, anyway. You have an appointment with your new owner. Ralph really just wants the money after I drop you off.”

  Fuck, fuck, fuck!

  “You can’t sell me,” I argued, proud that my voice didn’t waver. “I’ve been emancipated!”

  “About that,” Carol snickered. “It seems you’ve been made a ward of the court, Casen.” She shook her head. “You must have missed the hearing.”

  “What hearing?” I snarled, enraged. “What are you talking about?”

  Carol just rolled her eyes. “Why do you think Ralph was keeping you out of the way? We needed you to miss the hearing so we could gain custody.” She gave an evil smirk. “Now, we can legally sell you with no ifs, ands, or buts!”

  “I don’t believe you,” I snapped. “Ralph wouldn’t be part of this.”

  Carol just shook her head pityingly. “Foolish whore. How else would I have known where he left you?”

  Chapter Forty-One

  Ralph

  “What?” Rafe’s jaw dropped as he stared at the only Omega to ever be allowed to join the COPSD. Horror and disbelief fought for space on his face as his gray eyes glinted with what I strongly suspected were tears. Rafe shook his head, his teeth grinding as he fought for control. “No! You wouldn’t.”

  “I did, Rafe,” Colby insisted, his lips trembling slightly. “I didn’t mean for anyone to get hurt, I swear.” The sound of Colby swallowing seemed to echo through the room. “I thought I was helping.” His voice broke on the last word.

  I watched the scene play out before me with relative calm. Hearing Colby confess to his involvement in the scheme took me by surprise, but not for the reason that most people would expect. It did me good to see Rafael’s response, to know that I hadn’t been deceived by one of my most trusted friends.

  Colby’s brilliant blue eyes met mine and I could see his regret in the tears flooding them. “I know my rights, Ralph. You don’t have to read them to me.”

  “We’ll worry about that shortly,” I said firmly, continuing my short walk to open the door for the director of Omega Destiny International. “Hello, Chuck. Come on in.”

  I stepped aside as Charles Keir, Esquire walked into the room and promptly took a seat at the table.

  Chuck returned my greeting with a grin and nodded to the others. “Rafe, Colby, nice to see you both.”

  I reclosed the door and sat back down. “Colby was just owning up to his part in your scheme,” I explained, leaning back in my seat.

  “I see,” Chuck said, casting a curious glance at the miserable Omega. “Truth, I’m pretty surprised it stayed a secret this long.” He winked at me. “As much of a secret as it was, anyway.”

  “You got my email?” I asked, ignoring the confusion on Rafe and Colby’s faces for the moment.

  Chuck nodded and pulled a neatly folded square of paper from his pocket, tossing it to me across the table. “Yellow is me, orange is unknown.”

  I unfolded the paper and perused it, seeing pretty much exactly what I’d expected. I shoved it over to Rafe, who read through it and looked up at me. “I don’t understand.” He looked at Colby and back to me. “I don’t fucking understand any of this.”

  “That’s the system log of after-hours CAO log-ins for the past fourteen months,” I explained. “Basically, since the time that Colby agreed to work with ODI in, shall we say, an unofficial capacity.” Colby’s eyes flew up to meet mine, but he stayed silent, so I continued. “I had Chuck highlight all of the log-ins that were him in yellow. The ones in orange are the ones we still don’t have an explanation for.”

  Rafe looked back at the list with a frown. He read it once. Then again. I could actually see the moment that he realized why this was important as he turned to face his Omega. “The log-ins in the suspect files are orange.”

  I nodded. “Yep.”

  “So, Colby isn’t the mole?” He shot the Omega in question a confused look. “What the hell were you going on about?”

  Colby opened his mouth, but I beat him to it. After all, there was no sense in letting things get out of hand.

  “Let’s start at the beginning,” I suggested. “Charles came to me nearly four years ago with concerns about the goings-on at the auction house.” I raised a brow toward Chuck. “You want to tell them why?”

  “Sure.” Chuck agreed, giving Colby a sympathetic smile. “As you know, ODI is a non-profit organization that focuses on identifying Omegas who are victims of abuse or considered at risk and then offers a program to help them recover and take control of their own lives.”

  When Rafe nodded, Chuck continued. “We’d received numerous tips about suspected illegal sales but hadn’t been able to confirm any. Then, we started to hear about Omegas going missing. First, they were hard to track,” Chuck said. “An Omega reported as missing after running from his Alpha, things like that. But then, one was hiking in the mountains with his Alpha when his Alpha was shot and he was taken.”

  “That was Eloy,” Rafe murmured, and I could see he was starting to work it out for himself, so I nodded.

  “It was,” I agreed. “It was also when Chuck came to me with his concerns.”

  “And you had me start unofficially looking into the Omega kidnappings for the council,” Rafe groaned.

  “Exactly.” I stood up to grab a few bottles of water from the fridge and passed them around before swallowing half of mine in a long gulp. “You know the story from there until Colby got involved.” I cocked a brow Colby’s direction. “You wanna turn?”

  Colby sighed, his brows knit together and deep frown lines creasing his forehead, but he squared his shoulders and turned to face Rafe. “I got involved when I was trying to help Jackson,” he said, his voice stronger than I’d expected. “I saw how much good ODI did, how they helped Omegas be more than they thought they could be, and I just wanted them to be able to help more people. So, when Charles asked me to help him find cases that might fit their program, I did.”

  Colby bit down on his bottom lip and shook his head. “At first, I’d just send Charles a name and an address when we came across an Omega that needed help, stuff like that. But after a while, I realized that we had an entire database of Omegas that needed ODI, too, so I started running searches in my spare time and sending him their info.”

  Colby drew in a deep breath. “Then, when we got too busy, I just created a log-in and showed him how to get into our system. I was only trying to help.”

  “Trying to help?” Rafe’s voice was strained and his jaw was clenched so tight that I could hear his teeth grinding. “By violating department regulations and screwing over the men who have trusted you with their lives?” His eye
s were steel orbs as he glared at his Omega.

  Chuck cleared his throat and I nodded my understanding. Colby had definitely done some things he shouldn’t have, but they didn’t reach to the level of violation that Rafe seemed to think they did.

  “Stand down, Rafael,” I said firmly.

  To my surprise, the Blood Valley Alpha just snarled at me and continued to glare at his husband, the muscle in his cheek twitching as a drop of blood hit the conference room table.

  Freaking great. His fangs had poked through.

  I drew in a deep breath and released the hold on my own creature, feeling it stretch awake and catching the blood with my tongue as my own fangs eased forward. I stretched my jaw, making room for the added tooth length and stood, my claws sinking easily into the solid oak tabletop.

  “That’s enough, Borrero,” I hissed, narrowing my eyes at him. “This is my sandbox and you will stand down.”

  Rafe finally tore his eyes away from his Omega to look at me and started, his eyes wide.

  It seems he’d forgotten he wasn’t the only Alpha beast in the room.

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Rafe

  You know how people always say there are dog people and there are cat people? Well, usually, they mean figuratively. In the shifter world, though? That’s an entirely different concept and, to us, it doesn’t really seem odd to be a human one minute and an animal the next. It doesn’t even seem strange to be talking to someone and have them shift unexpectedly.

  Usually.

  Except for when you’re in the middle of a disciplinary meeting – which, at least, I thought we were – and your boss suddenly shifts.

  The calm, mild-mannered boss that is so even-tempered that you forgot he even was a shifter.

  Until, that is, you step out of line and you’re suddenly being dwarfed by a mother-fucking saber-toothed tiger. There was a reason that Ralph didn’t need to raise his voice or curse to get attention.

  It was Colby choking next to me that snapped me out of my shocked response. Right. I may have forgotten that Ralph was a shifter, but, honestly, I wasn’t sure it had ever even been mentioned to Colby.