Page 45 of For All My Effort

Before Eve could respond to Seb’s question, I said, “Hypothetically speaking, it doesn’t make sense that the OC would just let an omega break laws. Especially ones that went against what they worked to achieve.”

“Do you know how many laws have been made since you perfumed as an omega?” Eve asked. “How many of those laws were designation based, specifically speaking, in regard to omegas? What exactly have you achieved?”

I glared at Eve even though her tone wasn’t nearly as harsh as her blunt words. “And if I wasn’t willing to sit still looking pretty?”

“Hannah,” Seb warned.

“You’d find yourself back at the OC, pulled away from your mates. Most likely charges of neglect would be put forth. All of this would be in addition to the social court you’d be put through.”

The alpha pheromones in the room were so strong that even Eve was getting affected. My own instincts were demanding that I start comforting my mates, which was impossible considering they were spread out.

“I think, maybe, I should go,” Eve said. Her hands were back to touching her skirt, her palms sliding against the fabric like she was trying to stop them from sweating.

My alphas confirmed their agreement, and I could scent the change in Eve’s mood almost immediately. Her perfume was full of sadness that I couldn’t understand. Why would we be anything but upset at her thinly veiled threats. She worked for the organization that was attempting to intimidate me from speaking out against them.

It made me wonder… “Eve, are you here on official OC business?”

I watched as her eyes turned red just moments before she broke down and started crying. None of my mates were fast enough to catch me as I got off Jackson’s lap and made my way around to the bawling beta. I pulled her close so that she was leaning against my shoulder and tried my best to keep my perfume calming.

“No, I’m not. I was fired.” She was talking through the tears, pressing her face harder against me, but I managed to make out the words.

When I looked up at my mates, I saw the same confused looks on their face that I felt inside. If Eve wasn’t here as a warning from the OC, that meant she was here trying to protect me. Protect us.

I let her cry it out, although I knew my mates were starting to get anxious for more information. Jackson, especially, was glaring at her, no doubt annoyed that he let her in the house under false pretenses.

Eventually, she managed to pull back her tears from bawling to sniffles. Zeke came from the bar and handed her a cloth to wipe her tears and snot.

“Sorry about that,” Eve said, pulling away so that she wasn’t leaning against me anymore, our hips were still side-by-side. “I really thought I was going to be able to wait until later to let it out.”

“Eve, will you explain what’s happening?” I asked. “We’re all really confused.”

Her gaze flashed up to my mates’, and she withered slightly under four alphas’ direct attention. “I guess it all started once I left the hospital after checking on you. When I went back to work, I created a profile for you, something to help us track you in case you started to repeatedly show up in the hospital with ‘injuries’.”

“You thought we were abusing her?” Zeke asked. Just like Jackson, he seemed angry at Eve.

Eve looked up, biting her bottom lip as she shrugged her shoulders, whispering so quietly, “I don’t know. It’s my job to help protect omegas. I figured it was safer to create the profile and if she never got hurt again, no harm. But if she did, she wouldn’t have to wait even longer to get a safety warrant pulling her out of the home.”

Both Sebastian and Han were the only calm ones, the latter saying, “She was just trying to protect Hannah. Nothing wrong with that.”

Seb agreed, asking, “What happened next?”

“Well,” Eve started, “this part gets a little technical.”

“Just do your best,” Han said.

“So, before I’d even made a profile for Hannah, there was already one made. It just didn’t include her name or anything, it was a profile missing key information. And when I created hers, adding in that new information, it was technically everything missing from the original profile, and the two were somehow merged.”

Han nodded like this all made sense to him.

“At the time, I had no idea about the circumstances of your injury except what you told me. Then I went home and saw the news.”

“How did that lead to you getting fired?”

“Well, I might have gone back to the compound, logging in to the server, and meaning to update your profile. That’s when I’d learned about the merging profiles and the protests you’d been involved in before and, yeah, I figured you were out protesting and something went wrong so I deleted the account.”

“When was this?”

“Days after I visited you in the hospital. That’s why I have no idea how the news got access to your name, Hannah.”