She rolled her eyes. “He likes to pretend I don’t exist.”
“Vi, that’s not true.”
“Isn’t it? We’re not going to have this discussion right now, but maybe take some time to think about why I might think that.”
With her smile firmly back in place, she ignored West’s next attempt at a rebuttal and focused her attention on me. “I hope you like it here. All the doctors and nurses are wonderful, and you can stay as long as you need. It’s good you’re not in heat anymore, but that doesn’t mean you have to leave.”
But it did.
My fathers would be furious about what happened, and they were probably already waiting just off the property to haul me back to our mansion. With or without my mates—it would all depend on what they thought of the pack I’d chosen and how intensely I begged to have them come.
Benjamin was waiting somewhere, I was sure. He had to have a reason for bonding me and leaving me out in the cold, but with the empty cavern where his soul should be, I doubted it was as simple as revenge for the pain I put him through.
The real world was waiting for me, with all of its horrors.
I managed to pull myself out of those depths and attempt a smile. “My family probably wants me home.”
“And you’re not required to go until you want to.”
“My fathers are a bit too overprotective to wait until I’m ready.”
She scoffed. “Then they’re assholes, and you don’t need to listen to them.”
Explaining that I had mafia bosses as fathers was going to be a bit too complicated, and I had a feeling Violet’s opinion wouldn’t change anyway.
I took a huge bite of my grilled cheese to put off answering, the savoury flavour exploding on my tongue. West had been right to get me the ultimate comfort food.
“Maybe I’ll stay for a few days. It feels… comfortable, here.”
I might be able to have Lavinia convince our dads that it was safe. This was a secure facility, after all, and it didn’t technically fall into the territory of any of the major mafia families. It was too far outside the confines of the city.
“They make it very relaxing. Low stress. I’d tell you to take a walk through the gardens, but they’ve been muddy and brown recently. Wrong time of year for it. You should go to the ballroom, though.”
My ears perked up at her words. “There’s a ballroom here?”
“This is a heritage building. Used to be a castle, or something. They’ve kept as many of the original features as they could, while bringing it up to modern standards. The ballroom is in all of its original glory. A massive gala is hosted once a year as a fundraiser for the Residence program.”
“Wouldn’t that be… stressful? For the residents, I mean?”
Violet glanced at West. “I haven’t participated yet. Wasn’t ready. But the goal of every omega here is to eventually feel comfortable at a big event like that, with supports in place. So it’s stressful, but in a good way.”
“How do you know if you’re ready?” I immediately realized my question might be super inappropriate and my cheeks heated. “Not you specifically. Sorry, I’m not meaning to pry into your personal situation. All I meant was how the omegas here in general know that they’re ready.”
What I really wanted to ask was how I would know if I was ready to go back out into the world. Not necessarily to a massive gala, but in general.
I didn’t know what would happen if Mercer and West were both outside the room right now. It felt like there was a constant chill down my spine—someone watching me from the shadows. That was the effect of Benjamin’s presence in my head.
I would panic without them, but the trauma was fresh. Maybe I could recover quickly.
“The doctors and counsellors help.” Violet watched me intently. She had to know why I’d asked. “And sometimes you fuck up and you aren’t actually as ready as you thought.”
“What happens then?”
“You flee.” She laughed lightheartedly. “Back to comfort, and you talk to the counsellors about what went wrong. What part were you unprepared for? What feelings did it bring up? All those awkward questions that you really have to think hard about when you’re recovering.”
Fleeing sounded horrible.
It sounded like failure. Didn’t you only flee if you failed?
