Devil in Orange
1643 Words
Alie POV
"If you think the orange jumpsuit makes you look humble, Rhett, you’re sadly mistaken."
I didn’t sit. I couldn't. My body was an instrument tuned to a frequency only he could play, and right now, the vibrations were screaming danger. I remained standing, my back rigid enough to snap, staring at the man who had ghosted my life only to reappear as a haunting.
Rhett leaned back in the plastic chair, the silver-reinforced shackles around his wrists clinking against the metal table. The sound was too loud in the soundproofed box of the visiting room. It felt like a countdown.
"And if you think that Saint Laurent armor makes you look like you’ve forgotten the taste of my skin, you’re a liar," he countered. His voice came through the receiver like a physical caress—low, gravelly, and laced with that terrifying Alpha baritone that usually sent every wolf in a three-mile radius to their knees.
He looked at me with an audacity that made my blood boil. His eyes—gold, predatory, and entirely too observant—traced the line of my throat, lingering where my pulse was thrumming a frantic rhythm. He was mocking me. Even in chains, even behind three inches of reinforced glass, he was the apex predator, and I was the one feeling cornered.
"I’m here as a court-appointed favor to Judge Black," I said, my voice as sharp as a surgical scalpel. "Not as a trip down memory lane. You’re facing twenty counts of racketeering, conspiracy to distribute, and aggravated assault on a federal officer. You don't need a wife, Rhett. You need a miracle."
"I don't have a wife," he said, his lips curling into a cruel, beautiful smirk. "I have an ex-wife who looks like she hasn't slept a full night since she left Austin. Tell me, Alie... do you still wake up reaching for the space beside you? Does the Dallas air smell like nothing because it lacks my scent?"
"f**k you," I hissed.
"You did. Regularly. On this very table, if I recall the old clubhouse office correctly."
I slammed my free hand against the glass. The sound echoed like a gunshot. "That man is dead. The girl you broke is dead. I am a Senior Partner at the most prestigious firm in North Texas. I have a life that doesn't involve grease, blood, or waiting for a call to find out if my husband has been hauled off to the morgue. Find another lawyer. I’m recusing myself within the hour."
I turned to go, my heels clicking a sharp retreat, but his voice stopped me, not through the phone, but through the Bond. It was a psychic tug, a raw command that made my muscles lock.
"The club is dying, Alessandra."
I stopped, my hand on the heavy steel door. I didn't turn around. "Good. Let it rot."
"The assets are frozen. The custom shops, the security firms—the feds stripped it all. We’re bleeding, and the Red River Syndicate is moving into our territory. Nicklaus Vane is the one who signed the affidavits, Alie. He didn't just come for me. He came for the Pack. He’s looking for the ledger."
I turned then, my professional mask slipping. Nicklaus Vane. The name was a curse. He was the Silver Naga, a man who treated lives like line items on a balance sheet. "If the ledger is found, you’re not just going to prison, Rhett. You’re going to the chair. Why would you call me? I’m the last person who should be anywhere near Iron Vow business."
Rhett stood up. The movement was fluid, powerful, and utterly intimidating. He stepped up to the glass, his massive chest nearly filling the frame. He was so close I could see the golden flecks in his irises, the subtle flare of his nostrils as he caught my scent through the ventilation slats.
"Because the feds can't touch you," he whispered, his voice dropping to a dark, intimate heat. "And because Vane is afraid of you. You know the law, but you also know us. I didn't choose you because you’re the best attorney in Texas, though you probably are. I chose you because you still belong to me. Your mark is still under that expensive silk. I can feel it humming from here."
"I am not your property," I spat, the anger finally overriding the fear. "I am a sovereign entity. I am Alessandra Cruz, and I am leaving."
"You leave, and they kill Elena."
The world tilted. I gripped the receiver so hard the plastic groaned. "What did you say?"
"Your sister didn't stay out of the life like you did, Alie. She’s been working at the shop. Vane’s people picked her up an hour after the indictment went live. She’s a leverage. He knows I’ll burn the city down to get her back, but I’m behind glass. You’re the only one who can move the pieces on the board while I’m in this cage."
My heart wasn't just beating; it was thundering. Elena. My baby sister. The rebel who had always looked at Rhett like he was a god.
"You did this," I whispered, my eyes burning with tears I refused to shed. "You dragged her into this world after you kicked me out of it."
"I kept her safe for five years!" Rhett roared, the Alpha's voice finally breaking through his restraint. The glass rattled. A guard looked through the door's porthole, his hand on his baton, but Rhett didn't back down. He leaned his forehead against the glass, his eyes wild and desperate. "I kept the wolves away from her, Alie. But Vane... he’s something else. I can't protect her from in here. Take the case. Get me out on bail. I’ll give you whatever you want. I’ll crawl through broken glass to your front door. Just save her."
I looked at him. This fallen king, this man who had shattered my soul and I saw the truth. He was terrified. Not for himself, but for the one piece of my family I had left.
"I take the case, I get her back," I said, my voice trembling. "And then I’m gone. No 'belonging,' no 'wife,' no more of this bullshit Bond. We settle the legal matter, and you never speak my name again."
"Done," he said, though the word tasted like a lie.
I started to hang up, my mind already racing through legal maneuvers, bail hearings, and injunctions. I had to get to the Judge. I had to find where Vane was holding her.
"Alie."
I paused, the receiver halfway to the hook. "What?"
"You still think I divorced you because I stopped loving you," he whispered. His voice was different now—low, haunting, stripped of the Alpha's arrogance.
"It doesn't matter why you did it," I said. "The result was the same."
"It was Sunday night," he said, his gaze locked on mine. "Ten minutes before I walked into that garage. I received a phone call from the Governor’s office. Not a legal one. A threat. They didn't just have a RICO file, Alie. They had a video of you. From the night of the warehouse fire."
The air left my lungs. The warehouse fire. The night I’d shifted for the first time in public to save a club prospect. I thought the cameras were dead. I thought we were invisible.
"They were going to arrest you as an unregistered sub-species," Rhett continued, his eyes darkening. "They were going to put you in a lab, Alie. Not a prison. A cage with a collar that would have suppressed your wolf until you went insane. I didn't divorce you to replace you. I divorced you because the deal I made to erase that footage required me to strip you of the Callahan name and the Iron Vow protection. I had to make you a civilian. I had to make you nothing, so they would leave you alone."
I felt like I’d been hit by a freight train. Five years. Five years of hating him. Five years of believing I wasn't enough, that I was noise, that he had traded me for a newer model.
"You... you let me believe you hated me," I choked out.
"I had to," he rasped. "If you’d stayed, you would have fought for me. And if you’d fought, they would have taken you. I’d rather you hate me and be free in Dallas than love me and be a specimen in a government basement."
The room felt like it was spinning. The betrayal I’d carried… the jagged, cold weight in my chest suddenly shifted, turning into a white-hot coal of fury and grief. He had made the choice for me. He had played God with my life.
"You bastard," I whispered.
"Probably," he agreed, his hand splaying against the glass where my heart would be. "But I’m done playing noble, Alessandra. I’m tired of being a martyr. I’m coming for what’s mine."
I slammed the receiver onto the hook. The sound was deafening.
I grabbed my briefcase and slammed it onto the ledge of the booth, the leather scuffing against the metal. My eyes were wet, my vision blurred by a rage so pure it felt like a physical heat.
"I'll take the case," I shouted through the glass, my voice cracking. "I'll get my sister back. But don't you dare think this changes anything, Rhett Callahan. You broke me to 'save' me? Well, congratulations. You succeeded. The woman you saved is a f*****g shark, and I’m going to make you wish you’d stayed in this cell and rotted before I’m through with you."
I didn't wait for his response. I turned and sprinted for the door, the guard barely getting out of my way as I burst into the hallway.
- Writer
