Chapter 148: He Wants Me

The group of fans lingered for what felt like an eternity, shouting a few more drunken compliments before finally shuffling down the street, their fingers flying over their phone screens.

The damage was done. The flash photography had captured our shattered composure, and it was only a matter of hours before those photos circulated online, birthing an entirely new wave of media speculation.

​"Let’s go," I whispered, my voice completely hollow.

​Reid didn’t answer. He snatched his duffel bag off the damp pavement, his movements stiff, and vibrating with an aggressive, tightly coiled energy.

We said goodbye to the rest of the team and headed for his car.

​The ride back to the penthouse was wrapped in a suffocating, dead silence. The hum of the city traffic outside the car windows felt distant, completely muted by the heavy, toxic cloud of frozen pine that filled the vehicle’s interior.

Reid kept his hands clamped to the steering wheel, his knuckles a stark, bloodless white, while I stared blindly out the passenger window, my mind racing through a hundred different worst-case scenarios.

​The second we stepped inside the penthouse and the front door clicked lock behind us, the fragile dam holding back the tension finally broke.

​"What the hell was that bastard going on about?!" Reid roared, throwing his duffel bag violently against the entryway floor.

The bag slammed into the wall with a deafening thud. He turned around to face me, his grey eyes flashing with a terrifying, unhinged intensity in the enclosed space. "What did he mean by keeping him happy?! What the fuck did he do to you before I got out there?!"

​My own blood was running completely hot, a vicious mix of terror, exhaustion, and sheer frustration boiling over.

I drove my fingers through my hair, gripping the strands tightly as I paced across the hardwood floor, trying desperately to maintain a shred of my usual calm. But Reid wasn’t helping. He was crowding my space, his massive frame practically blocking out the light of the living room, his scent flaring like a wild animal demanding answers.

​"How did that bastard even find out you’re an Omega?!" Reid demanded, stepping directly into my path, his voice a harsh, gravelly rasp that shook the quiet of the penthouse. "You told me no one else knew! How did he get a whiff of you?!"

​"I panicked!" I yelled out, the sudden, raw volume of my own voice echoing off the high ceilings.

​The word hung in the air like a physical barrier. We both froze. The sudden silence in the penthouse was deafening, the heavy panting of our chests the only sound remaining.

​"I panicked, okay?" I repeated, my voice cracking slightly as the defensive mask I had worn all night finally fractured down the center. I looked up at him, my eyes burning with defensive tears I refused to let fall. "You were coming at him on the ice, Reid. You were being all possessive, completely losing your mind, and you were trying to throw away the entire game—everything we’ve fought for. And I panicked. When he crashed into me and landed on top of me back then, my control completely shattered. I let out a tiny bit of pheromones. Just a spec. But he was close enough to catch it."

​I let out a ragged, trembling breath, the volume of my voice lowering into a desperate, exhausted whisper as I looked down at my hands. "I couldn’t even deny it to his face out there. He knew exactly what it was. And now... now he knows I’m an Omega, and he wants us to break up. He’s using it to blackmail me."

​"Not gonna happen," Reid said instantly, his voice dropping into a flat, terrifyingly definitive tone.

​He closed the distance between us in a single stride. His hands came up, clamping firmly onto my shoulders with an unyielding, possessive grip that anchored me right where I stood. The toxic, angry edge of his frozen pine scent suddenly shifted, smoothing out into a thick, suffocatingly protective wall that completely enveloped me.

​"That bastard isn’t getting what he wants," Reid hissed through his teeth, his grey eyes drilling into mine with an absolute, lethal conviction. "He’s not getting his hands on you, Kain. I refuse."

"You don’t understand, Reid," I whispered, my voice shaking as I raised my hands to grip his wrists, trying to make him understand the gravity of what we were looking at. "We can’t just bully our way out of this. We cannot completely disregard Edward. He holds every single card."

​"Then we corner him," Reid growled, his thumbs digging firmly into my shoulders as if he could physically shield me from the threat. "Let’s meet with him. Together. He thinks he can blackmail you into a relationship? I doubt he’s that stupid. He’s a public figure, a league captain. There has to be something else he wants. A buyout, a trade advantage, a payout—something. Everyone has a price."

​I looked up into Reid’s fierce, determined face, but the memory of that dark alleyway sent a cold shudder straight down my spine.

​"No... it’s not a business transaction to him," I murmured, my eyes widening slightly as the horrific realization fully sank in. "You didn’t see the way he looked at me before you got there, Reid. The second I didn’t deny being an Omega, his whole demeanor changed. His voice went incredibly soft... and the relief in his eyes sparkled so brightly. It wasn’t the look of a rival finding leverage."

​I let out a ragged breath, my hands tightening on Reid’s wrists.

​"It was as if he had just found a treasure he would never want to let go of. He doesn’t want money, Reid. He wants me."

​A suffocating, dead silence fell over the penthouse as the terrifying weight of Edward’s obsession fully settled between us.

Neither of us wanted to break up—the mere thought of it felt like tearing a piece of my own soul away—but the ticking time bomb Edward had placed under our careers was officially live.

Reid’s grip on my shoulders tightened so violently it crossed the line into actual pain, but I didn’t even flinch. The look that broke across his face was pure horror mixed with a primitive, dark rage. The thought of another Alpha looking at me like a prize—like a treasure to be claimed—was completely short-circuiting his brain.

"I’ll kill him," Reid whispered. It wasn’t a loud roar this time; it was a flat, dead promise that chilled the room to absolute zero. "I don’t care about the press, Kain. I don’t care about the suspension. If he thinks he’s taking you from me, I will literally put him in the ground."

"Reid, look at me!" I snapped, grabbing his jaw with both of my hands and forcing him to look down into my eyes. "That is exactly what he wants! If you touch him, you prove to the league you’re unstable, you get thrown out, and I am left entirely unprotected. We have to be smarter than him."

"Smarter?" Reid laughed, a harsh, mocking sound that rattled his chest. "How are we supposed to be smart when a lunatic has a gun to our heads? He’s telling you to leave me or he ruins your life, Kain!"

"We buy time," I said, the analytical captain in me desperately clawing its way back to the surface through the mud of my panic. "He said he’s waiting for a response. He expects me to be desperate. He expects me to crawl to him alone. If we ignore him, he presses the button. But if I give him an answer that keeps him on the hook without actually giving in, we buy ourselves enough days to figure out how to neutralize him."

Reid’s eyes narrowed, his frozen pine scent turning sharp, bitter, and entirely unyielding. He didn’t like it. Every single possessive, alpha instinct in his veins was screaming at him to lock me in this penthouse and tear anyone who approached us to pieces.

"What kind of response?" Reid hissed, his hands sliding down my arms until he grabbed my wrists, holding them tightly against his chest. "You are not going out with him, Kain. Not even as a fake play. I won’t watch it. I’ll lose my fucking mind."

"I know," I murmured, leaning forward until my forehead pressed against his solid chest, completely exhausted. "I won’t. But we need to find out what his schedule is, what he’s doing with those photos the fans took, and exactly how he plans to enforce this. We will meet him. Just like you said. But we do it on our terms."

Reid let out a disgruntled and unsatisfied huff, but he did not object.

I pulled back, looking straight into his bloodshot eyes. "I’ll text him. I’ll tell him we need to talk privately before I give him my final answer. But you don’t have to worry because when I go to that meeting... you’re going to be in the room with us. Is that fine?"