Page 197 of His Forsaken Alpha

“Well…” Wilder scratched his head, looking thoughtful. “For instance—one of Avery’s cellmates had an alpha who sold his heats tostrangers.The very man who was meant to protect him, sold him off in his most vulnerable moments.” Wilder shook his head. “That omega ended up killing his alpha.”

Wynter gasped, but he realized that had he known all the things Warden had done behind his back, he might’ve been pushed to the edge and done something equally violent. “His mind broke… and he’d had enough. Then he was sent to a new prison.A new hell.”

Wilder got an odd look on his face as he searched Wynter’s.

Wynter brushed past their son and stalked toward the table. Avery lifted a worried gaze but saw him and smiled. “Welcome home.”

“Thank you,”Wynter said. He cast a glance around the table. “Gray, Rohan—I’m so happy to see you again.” He eyed the one stranger at the table. “I don’t think we’ve had the pleasure of an introduction.”

“This is Tensen Atkinson. He and Rohan were my stellar legal team,” Avery said. “Tensen, this is Wilder’s papa, Wynter… and over there is Wynter’s alpha, Cavanaugh.”

“A pleasure.”Wynter shook Tensen’s hand. He paused as Tensen shook Cavanaugh’s hand, too, and fought a smile when the attorney gave Wilder an odd look.

“I understand you’re working on defending more omegas like Avery?” Wynter asked Tensen, pulling the man’s focus away from Wilder’s similarities to Cavanaugh.

“Indeed,”Avery said, sitting up straighter. His smile spread. “Tensen and Rohan have graciously given hours of their time and talent to help. We’ve only freed two omegas so far, but it’s better than none. We have a growing list of others that need our help, though.”

“How can I be of service?” Wynter asked.

Avery tilted his head. “You… you want tohelp?”

Wynter eyed Cav leaning on the doorframe, watching and grinning. He smiled before turning back to Avery. “I do.”

Avery looked among those at the table before focusing back on Wynter. “I don’t know… um… there’s some administrative workthat you might be able to tackle… maybe? Or did you have something in mind?”

“Wynter Jaymes has run a few charity galas in his day,” Wilder said, sidling up beside Wynter. “Maybe you could bring your expertise to that, Papa. The accounthasthinned as the initial excitement has leveled off.”

“We did get that nice donation recently, so people still want to help,” Avery said.

“Oh, you mean the donation Wilder made?” Rohan asked.

Wilder slapped the back of Rohan’s shoulder.

“Wilder?”Avery asked.

“What?” Wilder asked, feigning innocence.

“It sounds to me that you need a fundraising campaign,” Wynter said. “We can’t let people forget. The work’s ongoing.”

“The more money we have, the more cases we could work,” Avery said.

“I don’t know that Rohan and I could take on many more right now,” Tensen argued. “On top of our other work.”

“I’m sure if you reached out to the community, other attorneys might be able to donate some time to the cause,” Wynter said.

“We did have a list of attorneys who volunteered to help withmydefense,” Avery said. “Maybe, we could invite them to join us. Even if it’s only a couple more, it could take some of the burden off Tensen and Rohan’s shoulders.”

“I know a few attorneys myself. I can make some calls. Warden had a lot of friends on the bench, too,” Wynter added. “I canput out some feelers there, see what might shake free. Having a few judges sympathetic to the cause wouldn’t hurt.” Wynter chuckled. “I may also know of a skeleton or two we might be able to use to persuade the less than sympathetic ones to belenient,if need be.” He shook his head. “Wow… that sounded a lot worse out loud versus how it sounded in my head. Blackmailing judges is not something I’ve done before, just to be clear.”

“What’s a little blackmail between friends?” Gray asked, a hint of sarcasm in his tone.

Wynter glanced Gray’s way, unsettled by the tone, but the omega didn’t glance his way.

“While I won’t use blackmail, a tinynudgein the right direction might not be aterriblething if it’s for a good reason,” Avery said. “And we could use all the help we can on oneparticularcase.”

Tensen scowled.

“What case?” Wynter asked.

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