Chapter 51

Ollie POV

I sat at the kitchen table with Grandma Elena, staring at the toast she’d put in front of me. It had my favorite jam on it—the strawberry kind with the seeds that Mama always said were good fiber—but I couldn’t make myself eat it. My tummy felt like it was full of rocks, heavy and hard and making everything hurt.

Grandma was talking to me in her soft voice, the one she used when she thought I was upset about something. But I wasn’t listening to the words. I was too busy remembering.

I remembered our old apartment, the one with the broken heater and the door that didn’t lock right. I remembered waking up in the middle of the night and hearing voices—deep alpha voices that made my tummy feel bad even when I was too little to understand why. I remembered Mama coming into our room after those voices left, his eyes red like they were now, moving careful like everything hurt.

I’d asked him once why the alphas came to visit. Mama had smiled, but it