He was in underground fights because of the other secret—the one Soren was threatening me to keep. The reason I was under the thumb of that fucking billionaire sociopath.
“Soren is his father. Is that explanation enough for you?” I choked out the explanation between laughs.
They didn’t laugh, greeting me with more tense silence. As I expected. My breakdown calmed after another minute, and I sucked in a deep, uninhibited breath.
“Soren Rosania is gold pack,” I said, glancing at my phone and hoping Dash was right about it only being bugged by him. “And he’s the biological father of my brother’s alpha. I don’t know the whole story, but I do know that Soren is the reason he was there. I’m sure Mother would have figured out something else to blackmail me with if she didn’t have this, but as it is, Soren is the reason I’ve been in this mess for years.”
Mercury was thumbing his phone, staring intently like he was on the hunt for something specific. Dash had his head cocked to the side—he and Soren were similar levels of wealthy. Soren had gained his, while Dash was born with it. Ambrose was behind me but hadn’t stopped touching me.
“I should have figured this out sooner, honestly,” I muttered. “He did the fights, I was aware of that. When I’d seen those fucking pictures, maybe I should have dug deeper into how she got them. I thought she’d found them on purpose to manipulate me. It never occurred to me that she would have lucked into her blackmail material… by chance.”
“There’s no way you could have figured that out,” Ambrose said.
I glared at him over my shoulder. “The pieces were there. I only had to fit them together. Noah Connolly even said that my mother had spent time in his casinos.”
“I don’t think the pieces were there,” Dash said. “I just gave you a piece. You didn’t have that one. It’s not like your mother looks like she has a gambling problem.”
Biting my lip, I pulled back an argument.
This back and forth wasn’t helping the current situation, or Kiara.
I just hated that I’d been holding onto the threads of control for the past two years, and in that time I had ninety percent of the information I needed to solve the problem.
“I’m not sure this necessarily helps us,” Ambrose said softly.
His lips landed on my neck and I sighed, melting into the soothing touch.
“Why doesn’t it help?” I asked.
“It would have gotten you out of helping your mother with things if you had counter-blackmail, but your mother isn’t our biggest issue. The Connollys are. They’re going to come for Kiara no matter what. He’s trying to do it in a peaceful way, currently, but if your mother starts refusing to help them, they’ll turn violent.”
“He’s right,” Mercury agreed. “Before we tell anyone about this, we need to find out how to handle the bigger issue.”
“My brother won’t stop until I’m owned by someone or dead.”
I spun to face Kiara. She stood in the entrance to the kitchen wearing a fluffy robe that was too warm for the current weather. Her knife was clutched in her hand, unsheathed. Every inch of her trembled.
Dash got to her before I could extract myself from Ambrose’s embrace. He felt her fear like I did. She leaned into him and let him lead her to a bar stool, where she sat.
As tempting as it was to move over to her, I let Dash stroke his hands awkwardly down her arms and purr behind her.
“Why won’t he stop, dove?” I asked. “We could find something that’s worth more to him than you are.”
I hated talking about my bonded omega as if she were an object. Her family considered her to be one, though, and unless we killed an entire crime family, we would have to speak their language to keep her safe.
She shook her head. “No. You can offer trades or blackmail or anything. My father might let me go if you gave him something good enough, but Tobias won’t. He hates me. He doesn’t want me to be happy, and I think he’ll go down in flames to make sure I’m not.”
“He sounds like a real piece of work,” Mercury muttered.
I had to agree.
Kiara shrugged helplessly, leaning back against Dash.
I sighed, brushing a hand through my hair. “Well, we’ve got some information on my mother, at least. That’s step one. We’ll figure out the rest. There’s five of us and we’ve got a billion dollars to work with, after all.”
More resources than the Connollys had. Not more than Soren, but he was a non-issue. He hadn’t contacted me about my arrest. I pictured him watching this show with a bowl of popcorn, ready to swoop in and demand whatever he wanted at the least opportune times.
Kiara’s big yawn cut the tension in the room, her body slumping. I laughed softly. “You need some more rest, dove.”
