Page 65 of Wild Omega

Of course I’ve built up contacts within the industry through years of work, and several directors have said to contact them if I ever find myself in trouble, but this is a blind leap of faith in a person I met twenty-four hours ago. That’s assuming Hannah Sorentito and Lyra Gray haven’t destroyed my entire reputation in a couple of days.

I swallow hard, my mouth overly damp. “Red—” Recommending an actress who’s not fit to act would tank my career, no doubt about it.

Her shoulders stiffen, like she’s tensing for a blow.

The micromovement halts my train of thought. Red’s beautiful wildness has been shrinking steadily throughout this conversation, and it’s a bitter sensation I recognize all too well. Her past left her without a birth certificate or birthday, reliant on a fork weapon she carries in her purse, and her first alpha basically rejected her.

What this wondrous woman needs most is someone who believes in her.

What good is a career if I break my omega’s trust now? Better to spend the rest of my life flipping burgers than to remove even a fraction of her spark, or worse, miss out on her entirely.

I slide over on the couch and take her hands. “I’ll call Director Yun and see if he’ll accept a meeting. If it goes well, he’ll need you to read some parts and might even do a screen test. Are you prepared for that?”

The look on her face puts the rising sun to shame. She glows. I squeeze her hands, and she throws her arms around me. “I promise you won’t regret it,” she blurts out. “I’ll work hard to become the best actress in the country.”

I believe her. She’s already shown me so many expressions, which is essential for a great actress. I rub her back and drag my cheek across hers, marking her with my faint scent. “Anything for you, Red.”

When she lets me go, I jump to my feet and dig my phone out of a pocket. I flash her a smile that’s more solid than I feel, and thumb through my contacts. “Time to make the call.”

Chapter twenty-seven

Callisto

Alarm closes around my throat as if an icy hand chokes me while I rifle through the evidence boxes and case files. But it’s too early to panic since things are undoubtedly chaotic in the OCB’s legal department with so many cases pushing through. The information has to be here somewhere.

The degree we can charge people involved in the black-market hub depends entirely on what activities they undertook, from guarding to supplying at the lower end of the severity scale, to selling omegas and procuring haze at the upper end.

But any case needs evidence to stand on, and that’s where we have a giant problem.

“Hey, Avery? You there?” I crane backward to look out into the main conference room, where the paralegals read through more evidence and compile individual case files.

“Here.” She gets up from her seat and adjusts a hairpin barely restraining her bangs. “What’s up?” The efficient paralegal marches into my office, showing no signs of annoyance that I’ve disturbed her.

“Do I have copies of all the omegas’ statements?”

Avery frowns and leans past me to dig through the files. After comparing the contents with details on her tablet, her brows snap together. “That’s all the statements we have registered, but it’s not all the omegas listed in the rescue report.”

I groan and massage one knuckle into my forehead. “Damn.”

“What’s wrong?”

I grind my teeth for a moment before answering. “None of the omegas tried to leave and were detained. At the deposition, every single defendant denied holding the omegas against their will.”

Avery mouths my statement silently to herself, her eyes widening with alarm. “And proof of captivity is the primary justification for the harsher sentencing.”

I nod and wave toward the box with the scent sample. “We can prove they distributed haze, and with the first omega from Darinian City, her statements prove exchange of money but only for the one handler plus the accountant. None of the other omegas’ statements mention haze extraction or even confirm they were held against their will.”

Avery squeezes her eyes shut and massages her forehead. “Seems like those bastards brought the psychological A game. You’ll have to go down that path and get more detailed statements.”

I hum under my breath and reach over to lift out the vial of golden haze oil. Just the sight of it sends a tingle through my loins as I recall the powerful reaction I had to the scent. For some reason, it reminds me of the omega who crash landed on me last week.

“So where did the haze come from?” I muse. This means we have a hole in the case, and I don’t like it.

Avery leans against the glass wall dividing the rooms. “Maybe from omegas who got sold before we raided the place? It’s been operating for something like thirty years, from what we can tell.”

I grit my teeth, holding back an unhappy rumble. “Has forensics confirmed which omegas the haze came from? We can track the statement backward. Maybe the omegas are too scared to testify.”

Avery sighs. “Or it could’ve been done in their sleep or even removed from their memory. Forensics is investigating some pretty weird drugs found onsite. They seem to be linked to memory loss. But about the haze, hang on.” She flips through her tablet. “Lab report came in yesterday. It’s all from the same female omega.”

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