The Alpha's Accidental Heir

Chapter 3: The Billionaire’s Shadow

POV: Alpha Logan

“The eastern packs will not back you unless you show them strength, not just money,” my campaign advisor said, tapping his pen against the table like the sound could hurry my decision. “You need a public show of dominance before the summit. A challenge. A statement.”

I sat at the head of the long glass table in my private meeting room, twelve floors above the city, and said nothing for a moment. Six advisors sat around that table, all waiting on me, all convinced their opinion mattered more than it did. I was the one running for Alpha King. I was the one whose name would be on every pack’s tongue by the end of this campaign. I would decide how I showed strength, not them.

“I don’t need to prove dominance with theater,” I said. “I need the eastern packs to see results. Numbers. Territory secured. Not a show.”

“With respect, Alpha Vance, the other candidates understand optics better than you do.”

I gave him a look that made him stop talking. I had built an empire before I turned thirty, expanded my pack’s holdings across three territories, and I did not need a lecture on optics from a man who had never held real power in his life. I was about to say as much when my phone buzzed against the table, the screen lighting up with a code I hadn’t seen used in years.

Medical Security. Priority One.

I picked it up immediately. “Vance.”

“Alpha, we have a containment breach.” The voice on the other end was tight, controlled, the voice of a man trying very hard not to sound panicked. “Your private genetic sample. The one held under maximum security for succession purposes.”

My jaw tightened. “What about it.”

“There was a database corruption three weeks ago during the system migration. A batch of files, including yours, was mistakenly released into the general medical network.” A pause. “It was accessed by a public fertility clinic. Sunvale.”

The room around me went very quiet. Every advisor at that table had gone still, watching me, sensing the shift in the air the way wolves always could, even the ones who tried to hide it under expensive suits.

“Released how,” I said, my voice low and even, the way it always got right before I lost my temper completely.

“We’re not certain yet. We believe it may have been used. In a procedure.”

My inner wolf rose up hard and fast, a growl building low in my chest that I forced myself to swallow. My bloodline. My future heir, if I ever chose to have one, was supposed to be decided by me, on my terms, when I was ready, not scattered carelessly into some public clinic’s database because of a corrupted file.

“Find out everything,” I said. “Every patient who touched that clinic in the last month. Every procedure performed. I want names, dates, and results on my desk by tonight.”

“Yes, Alpha.”

I hung up and looked around the table. My advisors were smart enough not to ask questions. I stood, buttoned my jacket, and walked to the window, staring down at the city that would soon, one way or another, know my name as its next king. I told myself it was a paperwork error. A mistake that would be fixed quietly, discreetly, before anyone outside these walls ever knew it happened.

Three hours later, my Beta walked into my office without knocking, which he only ever did when something was serious.

“Alpha,” he said, and dropped a thin folder on my desk. “You need to see this.”

I opened it. A name. Clara Whitfield. An address in the old bakery district. And beneath that, a copy of a medical record, the ink of the positive result still sharp and clear on the page.

I stared at that page for a long time, feeling something shift inside my chest that I did not have a name for yet.