“You haven't heard? There is a bounty for both of your heads after your little school incident.”
“What school incident?” I asked, confused. Alpha Jamie walked into the office attached to the living room, and I looked at Melana, but she was just as clueless as me. Alpha Jamie returned with my phone and a handful of papers. He tossed them on my lap. My phone lit up, and I saw the photo of Lucy and me at a football game three years ago pop up on the screen.
I looked at the papers, and my stomach dropped. “What did you do?” I gasped, shocked, when I saw the photos of Lucy running from the classroom after he tried to rape her.
“I made sure both of you are as good as dead.” He laughed. Melana ripped the papers out of my hand.
“I… what did you do, Jamie? This isn’t funny. How—” Melana said, and I saw the hurt on her face; it matched mine when I took them.
I was devastated when I took them but also pissed off, the mate bond making me blind to what I was truly seeing. I hated calling her names when I saw her last, hated what we did, and so did Melana. She always knew about Lucy. Ace told her as soon as he’d found out she was his mate, but Melana still fell in love with him. Still, she knew she had a mate out there for herself too.
When she found him, Alpha Jamie used him as a tool against her, forcing her to do his bidding and get information from Ace. It caused major problems so he wouldn’t suffer if she had rejected him, but he refused her rejection and said he knew why she was doing it, and he wouldn’t accept her rejection even if the bond was severed already.
What we weren't expecting was for Mr. Tanner, who is my mate, to run off with a shipment of drugs I had in a storage locker that Alpha Jamie had given to me to sell around school and in Avalon City. Melana was going to walk away and leave it at that when Lucy turned eighteen. But once Alpha Jamie found out my mate stole his drugs and I couldn’t get them back, he told Melana to convince Ace to hand that stupid block of land over.
She almost had him convinced, too, but then Lucy came home early. She was so close to freedom, and she would have gotten her mate back from the bastard, and everything would have been fine, but Lucy came home early. I didn’t blame her after what Nathan had done to her, but it was really shitty timing.
“I have my ways, and I had a heap of flyers made, decorated that school for her. Now you have the entire city looking for you, girls. You are as good as dead unless—” He laughed, but Melana cut his words off.
“You fucking sick bastard, how could you do that to her? She has nothing to do with this,” Melana screamed at him. He growled at her, but she didn’t back down.
“I will go to them and tell them it was you, you sick fuck. Josie isn’t taking the blame for this!”
“Is that so? Don’t forget where your mate is, Melana. I will kill him. Do you want to see your precious mate die because of that little bitch?” he asked, pointing at me.
Melana looked over her shoulder at me and hung her head. She was caught between me and her mate. We were in this situation because of a debt I owed. Alpha Jamie whistled loudly, and two men walked in. I shrank back, recognizing them to be the guards from the cells.
“So I have another deal for you. Do this one job successfully, and I will set you both free, including your mate,” he offered, and Melana’s shoulders slumped.
I gripped her arm and shook my head at her. “It's fine, Melana. I did this,” I told her, accepting my death. If it meant she would be free, I would happily accept my death.
“So, which is it, Melana? Josie or one last job?” Alpha Jamie asked her.
“Don’t do it,” I whispered to her, clutching her face in my hands, pleading with her to let me go.
“I won’t lose you. You’re all I have, and I promised mom I would keep you safe, Josie,” she said. I tried to protest, but she grabbed my face in her hands.
“I won’t lose you. This life has taken enough from me. I won’t let it take you too,” she said before letting go and turning to Jamie. I hated this man, hated him more than anything on this earth, hated him as much as I hated my mate for what he did to Lucy.
“What is the job?” Melana asked, standing up.
“I want Lucy, you bring her to me, and I will get you both out of the City and free of this place.”
“What do you want Lucy for?” I demanded.
“As a bargaining tool,” he answered simply.
“For some fucking land?” I screamed, outraged. He stepped forward, and the two guards did too. Melana blocked him, and he smirked before chuckling at her actions. My sister would throw herself in front of a bullet for me. Alpha or not, she would fight back even if it meant her death.
“Not just the land. I want Ryker to give me his son.”
“But he is a kid,” I told him.
“He won’t be for long, and I want his son, promised to Emily when she turns eighteen,” Alpha Jamie said with a shrug.
“Emily is six,” Melana said. I was shocked that Alpha Jamie could so easily marry his daughter off. The thought sickened me.Take her choice away before she even understood what it meant.
“What about her mate? She won’t want to be married off. She will want to be with her mate,” I told him.