Chapter 2
TWO
Anders
The rental house sat on the cliff edge like a glass accusation, staring out at the violent churn of the water below. It was a nightmare of harsh angles, steel beams, and reinforced windowpanes, modern, sterile, and costing more per night than the average American family made in three months.
It was perfect.
I put the rented black SUV in park and cut the engine.
The silence that followed was heavy, filled only by the muffled, rhythmic drumming of rain against the roof and the ticking of the engine cooling down.
I checked the heavy watch on my wrist, the metal cold against my skin even though I’d put it on early that morning. We were six minutes behind schedule.
My jaw tightened, a familiar pulse of irritation beating against my temple.
Six minutes because Simon had insisted on stopping for some specific, artisan-roasted espresso blend three towns back, claiming the caffeine synthesis was crucial for his artistic process.
Six minutes translated to productivity loss.
It translated to chaos creeping into the margins of my carefully constructed order.
"Well," a deep, resonant voice rumbled from the back seat, vibrating through the leather upholstery. "Ideally, a horror movie starts at night, but this weather is doing a lot of heavy lifting for the atmosphere."
Daniel Matherson unbuckled his seatbelt.
The sound of the latch clicking was loud in the enclosed space.
I looked in the rearview mirror. Daniel was massive, a mountain of a man wrapped in a soft, oatmeal-colored flannel shirt that looked ridiculous on anyone else but somehow made him look like a lethal teddy bear.
He offered me a small, apologetic smile, his hazel eyes crinkling at the corners.
The expression was warm, disarming, a practiced tool he used to de-escalate me. He’d been doing it for ten years.
"It's a workspace, Daniel. Not a haunted house," I said, opening my door. The wind immediately snatched at my charcoal suit jacket, cold and biting, carrying the spray of the water up the cliff face.
"Could have fooled me," Simon muttered from the passenger seat.
Simon didn’t open his door. He sat there, staring out at the grey horizon, his hood pulled up over a mess of dark brown hair that hadn't seen a comb since Tuesday.
He was vibrating with that restless, kinetic energy he always carried, his fingers twitching against the knee of his faded black jeans as if playing a phantom piano.
"We have forty-eight hours to finalize the asset list for the Alpha build," I said, my voice cutting through the interior hum. "Let’s move."
I rounded the car to the trunk and popped the hatch.
The salty air hit me, mixing with the lingering scent of the car interior, a complex, olfactory war zone.
My own scent was dominant, a controlled blend of aged bourbon and teakwood, sharp and expensive.
But it was currently battling against Daniel’s natural projection of spiced chai warmth and the acrid, burnt-sugar smell of Simon’s artistic angst.
We dragged the gear inside. The interior of the house was aggressively minimalist, polished concrete floors that echoed every footstep, low-slung black leather furniture, and floor-to-ceiling windows that offered no privacy from the brewing storm. It felt like an operating theater.
I set my travel case on the sleek kitchen island and immediately began setting up my mobile command center: laptop, tablet, secondary monitor, satellite hotspot. Every cable was coiled, every device aligned at a ninety-degree angle.
Daniel began unpacking the groceries with the slow, deliberate movements of a man who found calm in stacking cans.
He placed items on the shelves with a reverence usually reserved for religious artifacts.
Simon, conversely, threw his messenger bag onto a pristine white suede sofa, I flinched visibly, and wandered over to the monolithic window, pulling a battered sketchbook from his hoodie pocket.
"She's out there somewhere," Simon said, his voice quiet, almost lost to the sound of the rain lashing the glass. He began to scratch graphite against paper, a harsh, scuffing sound that grated on my nerves. "T.L. Rose. The Ghost."
I froze for a fraction of a second while plugging in my laptop charger, the prongs hovering near the outlet.
"She's within a twenty-mile radius," I corrected, keeping my tone flat, stripping the statement of any emotion. "According to the IP address on her last file transfer."
"You tracked her IP?" Daniel asked, pausing with a carton of almond milk in his large hand. He turned, his eyebrows pulled together. "Anders, that's… invasive."
"It's due diligence," I snapped, the defensive reflex instant. "We are adapting her life's work into a multimillion-dollar interactive experience. The studio has seven figures in escrow waiting for a script she hasn't delivered. I need to know she isn't dead in a ditch."
"Or she just wants privacy," Daniel said gently, placing the milk in the fridge. "Technically, you work for her."
"I made her," I corrected, though the words tasted like ash and bile on my tongue. "With me, she is an empire."
I sat on the high metal stool, smoothing the front of my charcoal suit. I needed the armor. Even here, miles from civilization with my two oldest friends, I couldn't relax. The suit held me together. It kept the Alpha contained, packaged in wool and silk.
I logged into the secure server. The folder for The Alpha's Oath - Game Adaptation was still empty. A blinking cursor in a void.
"She's late," I murmured, staring at the screen.
Simon turned from the window, his dark eyes intense, shadowed by sleeplessness. "Maybe she's stuck. The scene she's writing… It's the crash, isn't it? The preamble to the uprising?"
"It is," I said.
"That's a hard headspace to live in," Simon said, looking back down at his sketch.
I couldn't see the paper, but I knew what it was. He’d been drawing the same girl for a decade.
Different angles, different lighting, but always the same haunted eyes.
"Having thousands of people watch you break?
Having everyone expect you to be perfect, and then your body betrays you? "
My fingers hovered over the keyboard.
A wave of phantom heat washed over me, smelling of stale gymnasium air, rubber soles, and floor wax.
I had been sitting right behind the podium.
I was the Class President. The golden boy.
My tie was perfectly knotted, my speech about integrity and the future folded neatly in my breast pocket.
I had spent four years following every rule, checking every box, ensuring that I was the perfect specimen of Alpha leadership.
I was the Salutatorian, second only to her.
And then Tessa Kane had started to shake.
I remembered the smell first. Before the crowd realized what was happening, the scent had hit me, wild blackberries and sea salt, but soured by absolute, primal terror.
It was the smell of a prey animal caught in a trap, knowing the teeth were about to close.
I saw the tremor start in her shoulders, the way her knuckles turned white on the microphone stand as she tried to hold herself upright against the biological tidal wave hitting her.
I knew the protocol. The student handbook, which I had practically memorized, stated that in the event of a medical emergency, the nearest authority figure should secure the scene.
I was the authority figure. I was right there.
I could have stood up. I could have taken off my jacket, wrapped it around her to mask the pheromones, and walked her off the stage before the cameras zoomed in.
But I sat there.
I sat there frozen, my hands gripping my knees so hard my fingernails bit into the fabric of my trousers.
I was terrified that if I moved, I would ruin the ceremony.
Terrified that if I touched her, the smell would drown me, pull me into a primitive state I had spent my life suppressing.
I watched the security guards, Beta males with no concept of care, looking at her like she was a nuisance, drag her off like a sack of laundry.
I failed her. I failed the basic biological imperative of my designation. Protect.
"Anders?"
I snapped back to the present, the gym fading into the sleek grey kitchen. Daniel was leaning against the counter, watching me with concern. The scent of bread, spice, and sandalwood radiated from him, grounding the room.
"I'm fine," I said, the lie coming out automatic and crisp. "I'm just annoyed by the delay."
"You've got that look," Simon said, not turning around, his charcoal stick moving faster now. "The one you get when you're thinking about the writing."
"Her prose is… efficient," I said, focusing on the screen, opening a previous file just to see text.
"Bullshit," Simon laughed, a dry, humorless bark that echoed off the concrete. "You're obsessed with it. You've read The Alpha's Oath series six times. You quoted the internal monologue of the love interest to the investors from memory."
I felt heat crawl up my neck, burning beneath my collar. "I know the product."
"It's not the product," Daniel said softly, crossing his arms over his broad chest. "It's the voice. You told me once… you said she writes like someone who's screaming underwater."
I looked away, staring at the rain lashing the glass.
They were right, of course. T.L. Rose wasn't just a client.
She was a ghost that haunted my inbox. Her writing was visceral, filled with a longing so sharp it felt like a physical wound.
She wrote about Alphas who failed, Omegas who had to save themselves, and the crushing weight of societal expectation.
It reminded me of Tessa.
It was irrational, Tessa Kane had vanished off the face of the earth after 'Graduation Girl' went viral.
But sometimes, reading Rose's drafts, I felt a sense of familiarity so strong it made my chest ache. It was a penance. Reading her work was the only way I could touch the guilt I’d buried under billable hours and contract negotiations.
I had spent a decade becoming the most ruthless agent in the industry to compensate. I destroyed bad deals. I protected my authors with legal firewalls and aggressive NDAs. I controlled everything because, for one agonizing minute ten years ago, I had controlled nothing.
And now, this unknown woman was defying me. There was no way she was my Tessa, even if I wished she was. It was just a coincidence.
"She has an hour," I said, my voice hardening, retreating behind the wall of professionalism.
I pushed the memories down, locking them in the vault where I kept my failures.
"The audio team is billing us regardless of whether they record.
I'm not letting this project capsize because the author is having a mood swing. "
"Maybe cut her some slack?" Daniel suggested, his voice low. "The storm is bad, Anders. The power grid out here is spotty."
"The deadline is absolute," I said. "Generosity doesn't get product shipped."
I opened the email client. The cursor blinked, waiting. A rhythmic demand.
I needed to be the shark. I needed to be the barrier. If I pushed her, she would deliver. She always did. And if she hated me for it, fine. I was used to being the villain in the story. It was better than being the coward in the background.
I typed the subject line, the keys clacking loudly in the quiet house.
URGENT: FINAL PAGES / ASSET PRODUCTION
I didn't ask if she was okay. I didn't ask if the storm was scaring her or if the memories of the scene she was writing were tearing her apart. I channeled every ounce of my frustration, my control, and my desperate need for things to go right into the text.
Do not make me explain to the studio executives why the "Invisible Queen of Omegaverse" missed a deadline.
I hovered over the send button. Outside, thunder cracked, shaking the floor beneath my feet. For a second, hesitation flared.
Protect her.
The instinct rose up, unbidden, primal and stupid.
Push her, my logic countered, icy and familiar. Make her successful. Be the shield that ensures her royalty checks clear, even if she never sees your face.
I hit send.
"Done," I said, closing the laptop with a definitive snap. "Now we wait."
Simon turned from the window, his charcoal smudge of a drawing looking like a darker, more chaotic version of the storm outside. "I hope you know what you're doing, Svinton."
"I always know what I'm doing," I lied, smoothing my tie.
I checked my watch again. Fifty-nine minutes left.