Page 44 of Truth or Lie

Alex stumbled in my grip and heaved, upchucking whatever she’d eaten last. With Kam and Irina both possibly dead, I was aware that we were living her worst nightmare in vivid technicolor. Even so, I didn’t release her or let her stop, half-dragging her along with me so we wouldn’t lose sight of the others.

I hoped the UFNA goons were planning on getting their charge out of the damned building, because I couldn’t stop picturing more clouds of gas erupting from the ventilation ducts above our heads. Fairbanks was shouting about his wife and daughter, demanding to know where they were. I tuned it out.

We eventually spilled out of a side door, and into a paved area beneath a large overhang. I silently congratulated the prime minister’s goons on having chosen someplace that would hopefully stymie any terrorist snipers who might be waiting on nearby rooftops to pick off high-value targets as they attempted to escape the gas.

Alex jerked free of my hold and staggered backward against the glass wall of the building, sliding down it to the ground with a hand covering her face. Leo was sobbing in Jax’s arms, still trying weakly to turn back the way we’d come as Jax held onto her from behind. Nikolayev’s expression might have belonged to Satan himself, and Beckett was wearing a blank mask, his lips bloodless.

One of Fairbanks’ bodyguards had two fingers pressed to his earpiece, listening. He looked up. “Sir, a car will be here for you in two minutes.”

Fairbanks rounded on him. “I’m not leaving until someone tells me where Jennifer and Samantha are! Get me a damned report on my family—now!”

I remembered watching Jennifer Fairbanks excuse herself from the auditorium to take the kid to the restroom, right before Kam started speaking. They’d had security with them, and at least they’d been out of the room before the crowd panicked. Still, who knew if there were BLF operatives hiding elsewhere in the building who might’ve overpowered the bodyguards and snatched them.

“Prime Minister,” Beckett said. His voice sounded hoarse, and he cleared his throat before continuing. “We have reason to believe that the attack used an experimental nerve gas designed to only affect alphas and omegas, not betas. There’s every chance that they’ll be unharmed, if they were even exposed in the first place.”

Fairbanks didn’t appear even slightly reassured—but he did pause, taking in Beckett’s face for a beat before his gaze landed on Leona. Recognition dawned. “You...” he said. “You’re...”

“Former employees of the UFNA government, yes,” Beckett finished for him. “Until the Montreal Police Department raided Ambassador McCready’s apartment at three in the morning, and threw her in a cell for the crime of having been born an omega.”

The prime minister’s bodyguards had been keeping a wary watch on us, and it grew even warier at Beckett’s words. My packmates’ raw emotions were still swirling around me. I did my best to stuff my own feelings in a box until we knew what was what. I felt the moment Leo’s agonized fear and grief morphed into incandescent rage. She wrenched free of Jax’s loose hold and raised a shaking hand to point directly at Fairbanks’ face.

“This!” she shouted. “This is the world you and your damned beta cronies have spawned. Are you fucking happy now?”

TWENTY

Leona

THE MAN I’D believedin for so many years—the man I’d followed and worked for andtrusted—gaped at me like a landed fish. Fairbanks’ bodyguards closed around him, hands reaching into jackets where they were no doubt grasping their weapons, ready to draw.

Jax wrapped his arms around me again from behind and pulled me back a few steps. But I wasn’t finished. I craned to meet Fairbanks’ eyes past the wall of men in black suits.

“My closest friend may bedead! All because you and your fellow so-called leaders on the world stage couldn’t commit to granting basic human rights to a tenth of the world’sfuckingpopulation! You callusthe threat?” I gestured furiously at the building we’d just escaped. “That’sthe fucking threat!”

Three sleek black cars pulled up to the portico where we were sheltering.

One of the bodyguards put a hand on the prime minister’s shoulder and attempted to steer him toward the vehicle. “Sir, you need to get to a secure location.”

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