“How would you know?” Corey snatches back a piece from Brody’s plate. “You’re not tasting them. You’re just inhaling.”
Jakob’s at the end of the table, shirtless, eating with a grin and watching the pancake battle with satisfaction. He catches my eye, and the corner of his mouth lifts higher.
“Should have made a bigger batch,” he says.
“Should have installed a fence down the middle of the table,” I counter, sliding the last pancakes onto the stack.
Damien’s on the side counter. He’s been stationed here every morning since the Alphas have semi-relocated to my house. He’s eyeing the syrup bottle with the focus of a creature calculating the precise angle required to knock it onto the floor.
My phone dings.
I snatch the syrup and put it on the table as I glance at the screen to see that someone tagged me in a post. I’ve been more active online lately, posting recipe tests, photos of the guys in my kitchen, behind-the-scenes shots of Damien being catastrophic. The response has been good. Supportive, even. People are rooting for the comeback, so I tap the notification.
The app opens and the image loads.
My stomach drops. I pick up the phone with both hands, and my blood is draining from my face so fast I can feel it, a cold tide pulling out from my cheeks and pooling somewhere at the base of my spine.
A photo of me and the guys. Candid, taken at the rugby match, the four of us on the bench. Red text stamped across our faces: ALPHA THIEF. Below it, an older photo, the guys with Trudy, smiling, happy, a different era.
“Claire?” Corey’s fork is down, and he’s studying my face. “What happened?”
“I think Louis posted some shit about me again.” I turn the screen toward them and watch the reaction travel across three faces in sequence. Corey’s jaw locks. Brody’s eyes narrow, the charm evaporating into something harder and colder, while Jakob goes still.
“Let me see that better.” Brody grabs the phone from my trembling hands and scrolls. His nostrils flare. “Don’t know this person, but they’re sharing someone else’s post.”
“Found the original, and yeah, it was fucking Louis.” Jakob has his phone out, scrolling with his thumb, the other hand flat on the table. “It’s already been shared thousands of times. Comments are brutal.”
“It’s because of Maggie, his Omega,” I say, gripping the edge of the table because the room is tilting. “I told her all about him, including the break-in. She must have confronted him, and this is his payback.”
“Good that she knows,” Corey states. “Shit that he’s retaliating.”
“This is what he does.” My chest is compressing, the vise grip locking around my ribs, and I press my hands against my stomach. “He destroys everything. He takes whatever I build and lights it on fire, and the internet watches it burn because that’s more entertaining than the truth. They really hate me.”
“Not this time.” Brody stands, crosses to me, and his hands grip my shoulders. “We bury this. Today. We flood every platform with content that drowns his bullshit. We all report the post until it gets taken down.”
My phone buzzes again. Katie.
I read the message, and the last of the warmth from this morning’s breakfast drains away. Publisher pressure because of the drama online. They’ve got even colder feet on book two now and most likely won’t proceed. Katie says she’s stalling them but running out of excuses.
Sickness turns my stomach and I wince. Corey’s there, reading the message out to the others. Something fractures inside me, and the tears come quickly. I make it to the couch and collapse, face in my hands, glasses shoved up onto my forehead. The sobs are raw and ugly, and I don’t have the energy to pretend otherwise.
“I can’t keep doing this.” The words come between gasps. “The constant attacks, the waiting for the next bomb. Every timeI start to feel safe, he blows it apart. I want to delete everything. Every account, every post. I want to disappear.”
They’re around me in seconds. Corey on my left, his arm pulling me against his chest. Jakob on my right, pressing in close, while Brody kneels in front of me, taking my hands from my face, holding them in his. They hold me until I stop crying, stroking me, kissing me, and there’s something magical about being comforted when your world is sinking.
“Scum like Louis exist because their targets go quiet,” Brody explains, his blue eyes fierce and steady on mine. “He’s counting on you retreating. That’s his entire strategy—to scare you enough that you’ll disappear and he wins. That’s not happening.”
“And his Omega’s number, you said you have it?” Jakob asks, his voice flat. “We need to know where he’s staying. Because Louis and I have unfinished business.”
I nod, breathe, and let their scents wrap around me, slowing my racing breaths.
“Okay,” I say, wiping my face. “Okay. But first we’re finishing breakfast. Then we slay him.”
The afternoon bleeds into evening in a blur of screens and strategy and sheer, stubborn defiance. We move back to the Alphas’ house, where Brody films two videos, tagging me in both. Jakob and Corey are in the studio reworking the others. That cooking segment with me went out first, flooding the feed with normalcy. His direct-to-camera address follows, measured and personal, about harassment and lies and the people who weaponize shame. He doesn’t name Louis, but his audiencequickly connects the dots within minutes, and the counter-narrative takes flight.
I had contacted Maggie, who confirmed through tears that she’d told Louis she was leaving him, and he went ballistic before storming out. She’s safe and more upset at herself for not doing this long ago. But now, nobody knows where Louis went.
By the time the evening light is fading through the windows and Brody is elbow-deep in pizza dough at the counter, I’m told the worst of the online drama has died down. I haven’t logged on since. The original post is drowning under a tide of support. My followers have grown, and Katie texts that the publisher is watching but hasn’t pulled the plug.