Chapter 6
Sterling
Life is really funny, if you think about it. I never imagined I’d end up where I did.
I grew up just like most people in the city, struggling to make it in the antiquated world that was ruled by designations.
As a beta, I’d always had to fight to get any scraps here.
Alphas had life so easy - they could use brute force and strength to get their way.
Even a mere alpha bark would practically guarantee that people would follow their demands.
But I didn’t have any of that. I was a beta, just like roughly eighty percent of people. And like most betas, I wasn’t handed an easy path to success. If I wanted to succeed, I’d have to fight for it.
The one thing I did have was grit. I knew if I wanted to make anything of myself, I had to align with the people who had power. And so, I worked my way up, quickly earning a reputation as a reliable, effective, and intelligent beta.
When the opportunity arose to work for Gideon, the uncle to the richest omega in the country - and a man who unofficially ran part of Harringday Industries - it was like a dream come true.
This would be the career jump I was looking for.
Gideon was a beta like me, and was remarkably successful, although his family ties to the organization helped him more than anything else.
When I started the job as his right-hand man, he tested my loyalty often, although I didn’t realize it at the time.
He’d given me small tasks, specific instructions, and had others tempt me to skim off the top.
But I’d remained loyal to him. Over time, his requests grew, and so did his trust in me.
I began to see how the inside of the organization worked, and it wasn’t always pretty.
The longer I worked there, the more I learned. One important lesson I learned early on was never to betray him. There was someone before me, Arnault, who had done so. Arnault had started off doing Gideon’s bidding, just as I had, with the tasks growing ever more illegal and shady.
One of Gideon’s primary rules was that we were never to interact with Celeste, his only remaining family member, and heiress to the family fortune.
She was technically the CEO, although her position was tenuous.
He’d made every male who worked in or near the estate take daily de-scenting medicine to block any pheromones as well as using de-scenting spray around her for everyone's safety. I hadn’t even met her officially for the first six months I was there.
I’d only seen her in passing. But I, just like everyone else in the world, knew of her - she was infamous, the ultimate celebrity and businesswoman.
And she was woefully oblivious to her uncle’s jealousy.
I couldn't quite blame her. Gideon made sure to cover his tracks. He kept his agenda hidden, only revealing it to the people he trusted the most. I became one of those people after I’d done enough illegal activity for him that he felt safe.
Everything I did for him was under my name, not his.
That way, if anything came to light, I’d be the one dealing with the fallout.
But I continued to do it, because he rewarded my loyalty.
And because the only way to make it in this world was to play along, even if you were doing the wrong thing.
Arnault, his last assistant, had also played along.
But at some point, he’d had a crisis of conscience.
Whatever the task was that Celeste’s uncle had him fulfill, it was a step too far.
He confronted Gideon, telling him that what he was doing was wrong, and demanded that Gideon come clean to Celeste or that he would.
Gideon told me this story one evening with a smile on his face, sipping his scotch while sitting next to the fireplace in the office.
The air was warm from the fire, but I felt a chill as he told me what happened next.
“Arnault, of course, was removed from the organization.” He said smugly.
“Where is he now?” I asked, trying to keep a neutral look on my face.
“Well, no one’s heard from him. But why would they?
His body’s probably completely consumed by worms at this point.
” He remarked with a laugh, as if he’d told the funniest joke.
My blood froze at his admission. But Gideon’s point was clear.
Cross him, and not only would you take the fall for his crimes, but you would be a dead man.
At times, it ate me from the inside, what we were doing. Gideon wanted control of the company. He always had. But with the legal issue of Celeste’s inheritance and the public support she received when she made a bid to stay in charge, he wasn’t able to get rid of her.
Some nights we would work late, and he’d have a scotch and rant about the perceived injustice of his position. He thought that the company should be his, not an omega’s to run.
When she won the highly publicized right to be interim CEO, he’d initially expected that she’d buckle under the pressure of being in charge, that she’d get too stressed to take on the work.
He thought she’d crave a pack, like most omegas, and bond with a wealthy pack of alphas, thereby handing over the reins to the next male in charge.
It would be the perfect plan - he’d look like a progressive leader and loving uncle, giving a chance to his family to take on the reins.
Then he’d step in once she was overwhelmed, sealing his role and taking over the family business, and more importantly, legally take over the trust and the mountains of wealth.
Instead, Celeste had taken on the role of CEO with gusto, improving profits by leaps and bounds, surprising everyone.
So Gideon had to resort to other tactics.
First, he had to subvert her attempts to improve the labor policies by going behind her back.
She’d tried to renew contracts with local governments around the province by upping the wage, but Gideon worked out backdoor deals and bribes, all while having me as the in-person representative, and co-signer to Celeste’s signature.
If anyone ever found out about the deals, fingers would point to me and Celeste.
It was a double insurance against my ever outing him.
Then, he’d plant stories. Anonymous gossip claiming Celeste was a drunk, releasing pictures of her with a glass in her hand to go along with it.
I’d been the one tipping off reporters of these false stories, per Gideon’s instructions.
And the press loved it. They painted her as a spoiled, sloppy heiress, never having to work hard in her life, and certainly unfit to lead.
And for a while, I was fine to go along with it - as long as I was receiving money to make something of myself.
I turned a blind eye to the misdeeds of Gideon, trying my best to reconcile how much damage I was doing with how much money and power I was getting in return.
I justified it to myself by accepting that this was the way of the Eastern Province - if you didn’t play dirty, you would never win in the game.
I thought I’d go through life like this, my scrap of a conscience eroding away little by little with each misdeed, until I was as rotten as most of the men in charge of our city of Roebri.
That was until one fateful day when I came into the office early. A delegate from the Western Province was scheduled to stop by, and I was sent in before dawn to make sure the catering and setup was in place in the dining hall. It was so early that Gideon was probably not even awake yet.
I’d come to the estate and was making coffee in the office kitchen when someone opened the door. I looked up to see a head of blonde, messy hair and sleepy eyes. It was Celeste, wrapped in a robe and slippers, apparently having just woken up. Her eyes widened as she saw me.
“Oh! I didn’t know anyone was here.” She remarked as she passed by me, reaching for the extra mug in the cupboard. “Is Gideon here already?” She asked, and I could only stop and stare at her, frozen in my tracks.
Every other time I’d seen her, she’d been wearing de-scenter.
I’d occasionally catch a whiff of her synthetic fragrance in the hall if she had been in the same areas, but other than that I’d never been close enough to her to smell her, nor would it have mattered.
Her uncle made sure that her real pheromone scent would never be revealed, which was normal working policy for omegas.
All of the staff, myself included, were directed to hide our scents in return. But this morning was different.
This morning, having just woken up, and presumably alone in this wing, she had not bothered to put on descenter yet. And though she was on suppressants, I got a very faint smell of her real scent.
The fragrance was barely there, but it might as well have been a semi-truck full of her perfume, because my body reacted like it was.
Everything in my head went blank as a rush of emotions, desire, and jubilation coursed through me.
Feelings that I’d repressed for years now sprang forward, freed from the box I’d put them in to survive.
I’d never smelled something so beautiful in my life.
And then, I realized what I was feeling, what was happening.
She, Celeste Harringday, was my scent-match.
Fuck. Celeste Harringday was my scent match.
As quickly as the feelings hit me, a panic took over. She had now, without her knowledge, become the most important thing in the world to me - and I had been actively working against her for months. Her uncle was planning on getting her out of the company, one way or another. And I was complicit.
Now, I had to protect her. And she had no idea.