Chapter 3
CHAPTER THREE
Rett
For the first time in five years, I wake up to silence.
Not the external kind. The city is still humming forty-nine floors below, and Tristan is snoring softly beside me. But inside my head, where the relentless static has lived for years, there’s... nothing.
Just blessed, perfect quiet.
My eyes fix on the book on the nightstand where a tattered copy of The Odyssey rests.
Before the static, I used to read for an hour every morning.
For the first time in years, the thought of focusing on a printed page doesn’t feel like an impossible task.
I almost weep with relief at the thought of being able to do it again.
I lie still, afraid to move, afraid to breathe too deeply in case it triggers the return of that maddening buzz. That biological alarm system that’s been slowly driving me and my pack insane. The static: nature’s not-so-subtle way of telling us we need a mate and time is running out.
But it’s gone. Completely gone.
I inhale deeply, testing the stillness in my mind, and catch a scent that makes my entire body go rigid with recognition.
Beta. Female. Ours. The events of last night flood back in technicolor detail.
Zoe. The assistant curator at Sweetwater Modern Gallery with the sharp tongue and sharper wit, who’d stood her ground when I’d attempted to commandeer her champagne glass.
Who’d gotten Diego so excited talking about the local food scene that he'd actually forgotten to flirt for a full ten minutes. Who’d rendered Tristan momentarily speechless, a feat no one had ever witnessed, simply by asking a sharp, insightful question about his latest project.
Who’d somehow coaxed three full sentences from Dane in the span of five minutes.
Zoe, who now carries our marks. All four of them.
My hand instinctively reaches for the space beside me, but I find only cool sheets.
I bolt upright, eyes scanning the bed. Tristan is sprawled on his back like a starfish.
Diego is curled at the head of the bed like the world’s most pampered house cat.
Dane is pressed against the edge of the mattress, his face buried in a pillow.
But no Zoe.
I scent the air again. The manufactured notes are cherry blossom and lavender.
Pleasant, but it’s a pale substitute. It can’t mask the fragrance that’s actually hers: the rich, dark note of coffee she loves, the faint scent of old paper from her gallery, and under it all, the sweet, clean scent of the woman herself.
The bathroom. She must be in the bathroom.
Relief floods through me, but it’s short-lived. The bathroom door is open, the light off. I focus, listening past Tristan’s snoring for any sound from the bathroom, but there’s nothing. I draw in a slow breath, sorting the scents in the room. Ours are warm, present. Hers is... cool.
“Zoe?”
Silence.
She’s gone.
My alpha roars to life inside me, matched to the rhythm of my suddenly racing heart. I need to wake the others. Now.
“Up,” I bark, alpha command slipping out without conscious thought. “All of you. Up.”
The effect is immediate. Diego jerks awake with a startled “?Qué pasa?” while Tristan groans dramatically and Dane simply opens his eyes, instantly alert.
“She’s gone,” I say, already moving off the bed, pulling on the first pair of pants I find. “Zoe’s gone.”
“What do you mean ‘gone’?” Tristan sits up, scrubbing a hand over his face. “Like, making coffee gone? Or left the building gone?”
“Left the building gone,” I growl, tossing clothes at each of them. “Get dressed.”
Diego catches the shirt I throw at him, but doesn’t put it on. Instead, he closes his eyes, his expression one of deep concentration. “The static,” he says after a moment, wonder coloring his voice. “Rett, it’s gone.”
“I know.” I pause in the middle of buttoning my shirt. “I woke up and... nothing.”
“Holy shit,” Tristan breathes, pressing his palms against his temples like he’s checking for a fever. “It’s actually gone. Not just quieter or different. Completely gone.”
Dane, who has been standing rigid this whole time, slowly rolls his neck. A small, cracking sound echoes in the room. He opens and closes his fists, as if testing them.
“The pressure is gone,” he says.
For a moment, we all just stand there, four grown-ass alphas having what can only be described as a collective existential crisis in our underwear. The static, that maddening static that’s been slowly driving us to the brink, has vanished overnight.
And so has the woman responsible.
“Do you think it’s... permanent?” Diego asks, voicing the question we’re all afraid to consider. “Or will it come back if we don’t find her?”
The panic that flares through me at the thought is immediate. I can’t go back to that constant, brain-melting buzz. None of us can.
“We’re not going to find out,” I say, my voice hard. “We’re going to find her. Now.”
My words break the spell, and the others start moving, pulling on clothes. But as I grab my socks, Diego walks past me toward the kitchen, his face pale.
“She didn’t even make coffee,” he says, his voice hollow.
We all pause, turning to stare at him.
“I showed her where the good beans were last night,” he explains, running a hand through his dark hair. “She was excited to try them this morning. She wouldn’t have left without at least one cup.”
It’s a small, ridiculous detail, but the certainty in his voice makes her absence feel suddenly, painfully personal. She didn’t just leave. She fled.
Now we’re in a frantic rush. Tristan pulls on jeans while hopping toward the door.
Diego disappears into his closet and emerges seconds later fully dressed, somehow looking like he’s headed for a fashion shoot rather than the search for our runaway mate.
Dane is somehow already dressed without me even noticing.
We pour out of the bedroom and into the main living area. My eyes sweep the space, looking for... I don’t even know what. A sign. A clue.
It’s Dane who spots it first.
“Rett,” he says. He’s looking at the sleek, narrow desk near the door. There’s a single folded sheet of paper propped against a pen holder.
I’m across the room in a second, the others right behind me. I snatch it up.
Rett,
I know what happened. I see the marks. This was a mistake. A huge, catastrophic, champagne-fueled mistake. I'm a beta. You know what that means. Whatever this is, it can’t happen.
Please, don’t come after me.
Zoe
I read the words, and a cold, vicious rage coils in my gut. ‘Don't come after me’. It’s a rejection.
“What does it say?” Tristan asks, his voice tight.
I don’t answer. I just hand him the note. I watch as his face falls, the hope on it replaced by a raw, wounded look.
“Like hell,” I growl.
Dane is already checking his phone, his expression grim.
“Security footage?” I ask him.
He nods. “Pulling it up now. She left...” He frowns at the screen. “Twenty-three minutes ago. Took the main elevator down to the lobby.”
“Twenty-three minutes,” Tristan groans. “She could be halfway to Canada by now.”
“She doesn’t have her car,” Diego points out, running a hand through his dark curls. “It’s still at the gala parking lot. We took her home, remember?”
I do remember. I remember everything about last night with a clarity that’s almost painful.
She didn’t simper or flirt like the omegas circling us all night. When Tristan made some joke about modern art being ‘rich people’s refrigerator doodles,’ she’d arched a brow and shot back, “Says the man whose company donates to these ‘doodle’ galleries. Hypocrisy or tax write-off?”
Diego had choked on his drink. Tristan looked delighted. And I?
I couldn’t remember the last time someone surprised me.
I remember the way she’d smiled when we’d offered her a ride home after finding her swaying slightly in her heels. The surprised laugh when I’d directed the driver to our building instead. The flush on her cheeks when she’d realized all four of us were coming up with her.
And later, the softness in her eyes when she’d said yes. When she’d offered her throat to each of us in turn.
“She couldn’t have gone far,” I say, more to convince myself than the others. “Not without a car.”
“Unless she called a rideshare,” Tristan counters, shoving his feet into shoes without bothering with socks. “Or a friend.”
“The concierge would have seen her,” Diego says. “Let’s go talk to him.”
We move as one toward the door like a pack on a mission. The elevator ride down to the lobby is tense. I catch Diego’s hand drifting to his chest, pressing over his heart. He lets out a slow, unsteady breath, and I realize I’m doing the same. There’s a hollow pull deep inside my own chest.
Beta-alpha matings aren’t unheard of, but they’re uncommon enough to raise eyebrows. A beta claimed by an entire pack? That’s rare enough to make headlines. But a beta whose presence somehow cured the static? That’s unprecedented.
The doors slide open, and we stride into the lobby with all the subtlety of a SWAT team. The concierge, Sternam, straightens immediately, his eyes widening at the sight of all four Sterlings descending on his desk like avenging angels.
“Mr. Sterling,” he says, addressing me but glancing nervously at the others. “Good morning. How can I—”
“The woman who left earlier,” I cut him off. “Where did she go?”
To his credit, Sternam doesn’t pretend not to know who I’m talking about. “She declined my offer to call a car, sir. She left on foot, heading east.”
“How long ago?” Dane asks, his quiet voice somehow more intimidating than my bark.
“About twenty-five minutes now,” Sternam says, glancing at his watch. “She seemed... in a hurry.”