Page 66 of Pack Baby for the Bratva
The girl in front of me didn't look reckless.
She looked cornered.
Her hair was darker than mine, loose around a face that had been sharpened by fear and not enough sleep. A blanket hung off her shoulders. Her fingers were white on the edge of it. Jasmine and rain and panic rolled off her in waves.
My baby sister smelled afraid in a house full of men.
Something in me went very, very still.
"I thought you were dead," Mary breathed.
The words landed like a slap. Of course she'd thought that. When our father sold me, I vanished. When Finn locked me away, I was cut off from everything. And when I finally got out, I'd been too scared of being dragged back to reach for her. I'd left her in that house, telling myself it kept her safe.
Tears spilled over my lashes. "I'm very much alive." I swallowed and glanced at the three massive men behind me. "And I'm their omega."
Mary's gaze flicked over my shoulder. "All three?"
"Yes."
"That seems excessive."
"I've had a difficult few years, and decided to overcorrect."
Her mouth wobbled.
Mine did too.
Then she made a sound—somewhere between a laugh and a sob—and for one impossible second we were girls again, making jokes in a locked bedroom because it was safer than admitting we were frightened.
She crossed the room in two steps and threw her arms around my neck.
I buried my face in her shoulder. She was shaking. She smelled like home. Like the kid I used to read to when our father was downstairs drunk and shouting, my voice steady so hers didn't have to be.
I had trained myself not to think about her.
Not because I didn't love her. Because I did. Because if I'd let myself picture Mary still in that house, eating breakfast across from our father, learning to keep her footsteps quiet and her voice even. I'd have done something stupid long before Prague. Gone back. Tried to save her with no money, no pack, no plan, and a body still shaking from Finn's teeth.
So I locked her in the part of my heart where grief lived.
Now she was in my arms, crying, and the lock broke so hard I felt it snap in my ribs.
"I'm sorry." The words came out wrecked. "Mary, I'm so sorry I left you."
"You're alive." She pulled back and grabbed my face with both hands, thumbs wiping at tears I hadn't noticed. "You're actually alive."
"Disappointingly so, given how many people have tried otherwise."
She laughed through the crying. "You still do that."
"Do what?"
"Say terrible things like they're polite observations."
"It's called coping. Very fashionable. It goes with everything."
She pressed her forehead to mine. "I missed you."
The words nearly folded me at the knees.
