Page 76 of Drown My Sorrow

Everyone I love suffers and goes away.

I choke on the tears and sobs that tear through me.

Ezy picks me up. I only know it’s him because of his red grapefruit scent. It’s as familiar to me as my Daane. He’s a traitor. I hate him.

“Please let them go. We’ll go away. We’ll leave you alone. Please, Ezekial, please don’t take them away from me?” My cries have everyone around going still.

The shame that comes from the cops is deeper than from the Raines Pack.

Ezy stiffens and shakes his head. “I can’t do that. Bad people need to be punished. This is for you. You’ll be free of their toxic influence now. Trust me, life is about to get so much better.”

The sobs come out harder and louder. I don’t even try to quiet them.

I hear the crack of flesh meeting flesh and look up through my tears. Nat has belted Gael across the face. She looks mutinous. Nat turns to Kelly and punches him.

“Didn’t see that!” The cop in charge says, and everyone averts their eyes.

Even they disapprove.

“How dare you call yourselves alphas? How dare you!”

“We’re doing the right thing,” Gael insists.

“You’re being selfish, and you know it. Nothing you have done has been for your omega. Nothing. You don’t deserve her.”

“This is in her best interests. She can return to her island and live a peaceful life.”

“Without any of her alphas? THAT’S YOUR PLAN?” Nat throws herself at him, screaming and hitting him.

I sob harder.

“Enough!” Kelly booms.

I turn my face away from him. My alphas have betrayed me. I don’t care that they forced the bonds. They did it for me. It’s not their fault, it’s mine. I’m the one who should be in jail.

“You are the biggest piece of shit that ever walked this miserable planet, Kelly Raines. You are a disgrace of an alpha. A fucking rotten, pitiful soul hiding inside a candy coating. You don’t deserve her.”

Nat stomps over to Ezy. “Put my friend down or I’m going to the press, and I’m going to tell them everything.”

Ezy hesitates before reluctantly setting me on the ground.

I willingly fall into Nat’s arms, sobbing inconsolably.

“Kelly, what did you do?”

I lift my face and see a smaller woman with dark hair and dark eyes staring at Kelly in horror. Beside her is a group of people with one particular older alpha who is a version of Kelly in twenty years.

Kelly stills, all of his attention focusing on the newcomers.

“My son. My oldest, most beautiful son. I have obeyed your wishes and not come all these years, but I needed to see for myself. I needed to know. And this is who you decided to become? This is why you left home? What. Did. You. Do. To. Your. Omega?”

I stand up, sucking in the sobs and turning my glare on Kelly.

“If you don’t give me back the Daane, I will make sure you never have a moment of peace, Pack Raines. I will never forgive you. I never will sleep until you are ruined. You destroyed me when I was a child. You took my dreams away. Then you came back, and you’re stealing my future all so you can dump me back quietly out of the way because I’M NOT WHAT YOU SIGNED UP FOR?” The scream comes out raw and with more pain than I thought I could ever let out. “I know I’m broken. You don’t have to have me. They were going to bond me. I was going to be theirs. Just give them back.”

I’m begging, pleading. I’ve never wanted anything more than I want this.

Please, oh, please.

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