The Online Lover I Blocked Was My Fated Alpha King!

My phone lit up with new w******p messages. Vee: The meeting is finally over. Vee: Babe, you looked so beautiful in my dream last night, clinging to me and crying. Heat crept into my cheeks as I read the words on the screen. To Vee, I was still only an anonymous username. In real life, I was Grace Carter, a junior financial analyst with no connections in a cold city like Westbrook. At work, I walked on eggshells every day in an office full of powerful Alphas. His chat window was the one place where I could lower my guard and feel a little warmth. From the beginning, we had shared an unspoken rule: no full-face photos and no voice calls. Our entire relationship existed through text and carefully cropped pictures. The last photo I had sent him showed only part of my collarbone. But I wanted to become real to him. I wanted to be more than anonymous. Holding the phone in both hands, I typed an unsent message. Grace: The weather should be nice this weekend. Maybe we could finally meet? Before I could press send, a photo appeared on the screen. Vee had sent me a picture from work. Vee: Still going over tomorrow's proposal. I opened it. A dark hardwood desk filled most of the frame. A half-finished cup of black coffee sat in the center beside an open document, its margins covered in bold, hurried notes. I instinctively zoomed in to get a better look at his handwriting. As the image expanded, however, my gaze locked on the upper-right corner. At the very edge of the frame, a kraft-paper file lay inside a clear security pouch. A dark red wax seal had been stamped neatly across its flap. It depicted a falcon with its wings spread, its sharp beak lowered, and a coin clutched in its talons. Cold air poured from the vent above me. I froze at my desk. I knew that seal. Six months ago, shortly after I joined Wolfpack Group, the department's electronic archive system had crashed. As the newest and lowest-ranking employee, I had been sent down to the paper archives three floors below ground. That afternoon, two men in black suits and special security badges entered, pushing a metal cart fitted with a combination lock. I had been carrying an armful of reports when I caught a glimpse of several kraft envelopes inside. Every one of them bore the same dark red falcon seal. The archives supervisor followed my gaze, seized my arm, and yanked me behind a shelving unit. "Watch where you look," he warned in a low voice. "Those are top-floor classified files. Only a few people at the very heart of the conglomerate are authorized to touch anything bearing that falcon. Anyone down here who looks too closely will be out of Westbrook by tomorrow." After that warning, the spread-winged falcon became a symbol of absolute danger in my mind. And now, it had appeared casually on Vee's desk, right as he was sending me his most explicit flirtation yet. I stared at the screen, my knuckles whitening around my phone. Vee wasn't just another man working in finance. He belonged to the uppermost ranks of Wolfpack Group, the class of executives I had to lower my eyes and step aside for if I met them in an elevator. For five months, I had let my guard down completely with him. I had sent him pictures of myself in silk pajamas. I had complained about the company's rigid attendance policy. I had even mercilessly mocked my direct supervisor for being both incompetent and sleazy. I thought we were having a secret romance. But what if he had the access of a top Wolfpack executive? If he wanted to identify a low-level employee, it wouldn't take him five minutes. Every private thought I had shared and every ounce of trust I had placed in him now rested in the hands of a dangerous man. Our online romance could turn at any moment into a workplace disaster, with someone at the top playing games with an employee far beneath him. My phone buzzed twice, breaking into my thoughts. Vee: Why aren't you answering? Busy? Vee: You didn't like the photo? I looked at the unsent invitation in the text box and deleted every word. I could never meet him. If we saw each other in person, and he discovered that the "babe" he coaxed every night was one of his own employees, I would be finished. Forcing down my panic, I typed. Grace: I have a meeting. I need to go now. Talk later. I sent the message, locked my phone, and placed it facedown on the desk. I couldn't ask him outright whether he was an executive at Wolfpack Group. That would expose me. Until I knew who he really was, I had to stay quiet. A few minutes later, I picked up my phone again, opened w******p, and began scrolling upward. He could hide online, but he had definitely left traces in the real world. Somewhere in five months of messages, there had to be a clue I could verify offline.