Redemption (Rogue Nation MC #1)

1. Chapter One

Chapter One

9 years ago

Theo

Poppy always told me that if you wanted something bad enough and worked hard enough, then it would come true. Oh, how wrong he’d been. I couldn’t fault him for being the loving and supportive man he was before he died. However, I could blame him for filling my head with nonsense, dreams, and an inflated sense of self. Those are the things my family called my ideas, anyway.

Not that I could have much of an inflated anything anymore. Since his passing, my life had been different. Masks fell away immediately after the funeral and were incinerated after the reading of the will, which I wasn’t allowed to attend, but I heard all about it later from the landing that night.

“I can’t believe it. I just can’t.” My mother could not hold her tears. For a split second, I felt her pain. It was her father that passed. For that moment, I thought maybe we could connect and bond over the loss of the one man we both loved and adored. “How could he? He left it all to that little freak upstairs. Nothing for me, his own goddess damned daughter.” Her voice growing louder and louder, choked with sobs. “I put up with so much from him. I watched him dote on that little shit and I smiled. I FUCKIN SMILED! I hoped he was just being nice because of the adoption and status. That when the time came, he would hand it all over to me, to us. We deserve it, not that little bastard.” Any belief or connection I felt was gone. She was not friendly towards me. I knew she only ‘liked’ me because it was what she felt she was supposed to do. I never dreamed there was outright hatred.

“Now dear. We have time to fix this. We have a few years. The boy is only 15. We have until he’s 25 to come up with a solution.” My father liked to think himself a voice of reason. The calm in the storm. He wasn’t even close. More vicious than any person I’d ever read about in history. “We’ll take care of the problem, not that it’s really a problem at this point.” The stopper on the crystal decanter clinked against the serving tray as he poured himself what I assumed was another scotch. His third in the last half hour since arriving home.

I watched from my bedroom window as the car drove up the drive and stopped. My parents exited the vehicle with my mother slumped over and my father’s arm around her as they headed towards the entryway. My brother jumped from the car and took off running without looking back. I knew then that it wasn’t good. Gavin was mad and when he got mad, he ran. I do not know where he went or what he did, but it usually involved him sneaking back into the house with blood on his clothing and his knuckles cut and bruised. At least this time he wasn’t headed to my room.

I waited the customary time for the servant’s greetings and platitudes to my family before easing the door to my room open and creeping across the hall to listen from the landing. There was more crystal being shuffled and clinked together before anyone spoke. Then it all came out. The anger, hatred and disgust. I listened to my mother speak of my grandfather as if he were nothing but a beggar on the street in need of a shower and asking for handouts instead of the ruthless business executive that I knew him to be. Well, ruthless with everyone but me. He loved me. I knew this without a doubt. He not only told me, but he also showed me, all the time. He was the only one. I missed him more than I knew how to express. There was a hole in my soul that would never be filled. He took that piece with him into the afterlife.

“How Grey? How are you going to fix this? We can’t contest, we’ll lose what little we got. We can’t marry him off. His new Alpha will get everything under the law, and we can’t control anything he does after he turns 25. He could take it and leave us high and dry. It’s our money, not his. Jesus, he’s not even related by blood to the old bastard, and he fucking got everything!” That’s when it hit me. Poppy told me once that I would never have to do anything I didn’t want to do after he was gone. No one could ever hurt or control me. I always wondered how an Omega could live like that under the laws we have now. Now I understood. He left it all to me. No one could touch an Omega that was worth over $5 million dollars. I could leave the country, find one of those small island nations where society really was equal. Alphas, betas and omegas lived in harmony with equal rights. Even women had rights under their laws. Yes, I could go away… forever.

“He won’t get anything until he’s 25 El. We have a few years; we can fix this. Gavin will help, I’m sure. He stands to gain as much as we do. He got the company and Theodore got the money. Gavin just turned 25 so it will go straight to him. We have time to work out the situation for the money.” A smile broke on my face for the first time in over a week. I wouldn’t sign anything; they wouldn’t take my future from me. The one Poppy secured for me. My smile faltered and panic set in with his next words. “We either break him or eliminate him.”

Crawling across the carpet back to my room was the longest journey I had ever taken in my life. My chest constricted and I couldn’t breathe. I didn’t want to pass out in the hallway where they would find me and think I had been eavesdropping. No, I had to make it back to my room, my sanctuary. Crawling across the threshold, I kicked out with my leg and pushed the door closed slowly. The last thing I heard was the soft ‘click’ of the latch. My world went black.