Rage
864 Words
Chapter 18
Lucas
The whiskey glass shattered against the wall, exploding like a gunshot.
Lucas didn’t flinch. He barely registered the sound. His chest heaved, his fingers still curled into fists, knuckles split from the force of impact.
Her name…Alyssa…still rang in his ears.
His phone, lying discarded on the desk, continued to blink with the last message from Aiden.
She’s with someone. Cole Donovan. This came with a picture of the two of them at a restaurant together.
Lucas’s breath came in slow, burning drags through his nose. His whole body vibrated with fury, hot, pulsing, unrelenting. The kind that made rational thought replaced with dangerous ones.
He paced the length of the office, boots pounding against the concrete. The walls felt too small. The air is too thick. Rage roiled under his skin, tighter with each passing second.
Alyssa Hart.
That b***h.
After everything she’d done, after what she did to Trent, she had the audacity to walk around like a woman reborn. Like she wasn’t soaked in blood and betrayal. Like she hadn’t ruined the one good thing Lucas had, had left in this world.
Trent had been his brother.
His only family.
His only anchor.
And she destroyed him.
Lucas stopped at the window, the night bleeding across the skyline. Lights blinked far below cars, lives, people going about their business, oblivious to the war coming their way.
He hated them all.
But he hated her more.
Alyssa had disappeared for over a year, until recently when one of his men found her working at the diner she had been off-grid. No bank records, no phone pings, no sightings. A ghost. Lucas assumed she was running scared, smart enough to know she’d crossed a line that couldn’t be uncrossed.
But now?
Now she was dating Cole Donovan.
Living.
Smiling.
Laughing.
Like she hadn’t done something terrible and unforgivable.
Lucas’s hands trembled with the weight of it. But he wasn’t reckless. Not anymore. He knew better than to strike without precision.
He moved to the desk, opening the second drawer, and pulled out a sleek black case the size of a book. It clicked open under his thumb.
Inside: three crystal vials, each sealed and shimmering faintly with a liquid the color of burned gold.
The poison.
The one he and Trent developed together. A slow, intelligent rot designed to hollow a wolf from the inside. Not an instant kill but something worse. It broke the bond between man and beast. It silenced the wolf, tore the instinct from the marrow, and left them empty.
Alive, but no longer one of them.
It was the fate they’d planned for every last wolf.
But now?
Lucas would settle for one.
Cole Donovan.
Or, if opportunity allowed, someone Donovan cared about.
If Donovan was anything like the alphas Lucas had studied, there would be a weak point. A beta. A sibling. A bonded second. Someone close enough to hurt, to bleed in front of him.
Maybe it would be enough to get him away from Alyssa.
Lucas slid the case shut with a clean snap and locked it.
This wasn’t going to be a firefight. Not in public. Not yet.
The fundraiser was days away. Slater Corp’s Equinox Gala. The perfect hunting ground. Powerful names. Watchful eyes. Cameras, politicians, leverage.
Donovan would be there.
It was a Slater Corp fundraiser after all most of LA’s top businessmen would be there put on by yours truly.
He crossed to his computer and pulled up the venue’s blueprints. Three exits. Staff elevators. A blind spot behind the service corridor where the servers smoked when they thought no one was watching.
He mapped it all.
Donovan might think he was untouchable, surrounded by wealth, protected by silence, but everyone bled.
And Lucas was going to remind him of that.
He grabbed his phone again and dialed Aiden.
“Boss,” Aiden answered, quiet and ready.
Lucas stared at the vial on his desk. “Confirm they’re attending.”
“Donovan is on the list but I am not sure about her. I can try to find out though sir, I am sure he will invite her after how they looked at dinner. They were laughing a lot, and seemed to be really into each other.” Aiden stated
A silence stretched thin.
Lucas’s voice dropped to a growl. “She was laughing?”
“Yeah.”
Lucas smiled, cold and vicious. “Good.”
“Plan?”
Lucas didn’t answer at first. He turned back to the window, gaze cutting through the darkness.
“We make contact at the fundraiser. Quietly. I want Donovan to see me. I want him to know I’m close. That he’s already bleeding and doesn’t even realize it yet.”
“And if she’s there?”
“If Alyssa’s there…” He paused. “Let her see, too. I want her to remember Trent’s face when he begged for her to stop. I want her to choke on that memory.”
Aiden said nothing.
Lucas ended the call.
The quiet returned.
But it wasn’t peaceful.
It was the sound of a storm preparing to swallow the world.
- Writer
