Page 71 of Run Wild Omega

Two million. Leo’s entire business. His life savings. Everything he built when he walked away from his old company in Denver to start something real in Sweet Creek.

“I’m so sorry,” I whisper.

“Don’t you dare apologize,” Leo says, and his voice breaks on the last word. “Don’t you fucking dare. This isn’t your fault.”

“It is, though. If I hadn’t⁠—”

“It’s the fault of ambulance-chasing lawyers and a media machine that feeds on Omega pain,” he says fiercely. “That’s whose fault it is.”

I press my hands over my face. The tears have stopped, replaced by a numbness that’s somehow worse. I can feel the walls closing in—the hospital room, the monitors, the knowing looks on everyone’s faces. The world outside this room has decided who I am, and there’s nothing I can do about it.

“There’s one more thing,” Miles says quietly.

I drop my hands. “Of course there is.”

Miles hesitates. For the first time since he started talking, his composure cracks—just slightly, a flicker of something uncomfortable behind his eyes. He glances at Wyatt, then at Dylan, then back at me.

“When we brought you in from the helicopter,” he says slowly, “the hospital required next-of-kin identification before they would allow us into the surgical consult. Your parents weren’t here yet. Daniel and Mara were stuck in Denver. We were the only ones present.”

I frown. “Okay.”

“To get access to your medical information—to be in the room when Dr. Evans explained the surgery and the complications—we told the hospital that we were your pack.”

The words hang in the air.

I blink. “You told them what?”

“We told them we were your bonded pack.” Dylan’s voice is quiet but steady. “All three of us. We told them the bond was recent and hadn’t been registered yet, but that it was real.”

My brain struggles to process this. “You lied. You told a hospital that you were my pack so they’d let you into my room.”

“Yes.”

“You told them I was bonded to you.”

“Yes.”

The numbness cracks, and something hot and sharp rushes in to fill the space. “Are you kidding me? You told a hospital—a hospital with a legal obligation to protect patient privacy—that you were my pack? That’s fraud. That’s⁠—”

“It got us into the room,” Wyatt says from the door. “It got us the information we needed to make the call about your leg. If we hadn’t been in that consult, if we hadn’t been able to advocate for the conservative approach⁠—”

“You don’t get to decide that!” The words rip out of me, raw and furious. “You don’t get to claim me—lie about claiming me—without my consent! That’s exactly what everyone out there is doing! Those packs, those lawyers, the commentators on TV—they’re all deciding what I am and what I need without asking me, and you did the exact same thing!”

The monitor alarms are going off now, my heart rate spiking. Maggie appears in the doorway—I didn’t even see her come in—and I watch her assess the situation in half a second, her eyes moving from the monitor to my face to the three men flanking my bed.

“Everyone out,” Maggie says. “She needs to calm down.”

“No,” I say. “I need answers.”

“You need your heart rate below a hundred before you stroke out in my ICU,” Maggie says, not unkindly. “Five minutes. Everyone out. I’ll reset the alarms.”

“I’m not leaving,” Wyatt says from his position at the door.

“Then stand in the hallway with the door open where I can see you. All of you. Out.”

There’s a shuffle of bodies, a murmured exchange of words I can’t hear through the ringing in my ears. Mom squeezes my hand before she goes. Dad brushes my hair back from my forehead. Mara mouths “I love you” as she’s ushered out.

And then I’m alone with Maggie, who doesn’t say anything. She just adjusts my IV, checks the monitor, and waits.