Alphas' Indecent Proposal

Chapter 8

Damian's POV

Here's the thing nobody tells you about watching a man lie to his wife in real time:

The hardest part isn't the lie. It's the craftsmanship.

Timestamp: 19:20:12.

Ronald stood at the kitchen counter — frozen on the fifth replay, his back filling the frame like a curtain yanked across a stage. Four minutes between the moment he stopped photographing roses and the moment Kate's phone lit up. Two hundred and forty seconds. A window that should have taken sixty at most.

My gut said something happened in that gap.

But the bastard had his back to the camera.

I leaned against the wall, arms folded, jaw clenched until my molars ached. Three hundred and sixty degrees of coverage. A dozen cameras. Military-grade resolution. And he'd turned away at the only moment that mattered.

"Play it again," I said.

Darius obliged. Same footage, different angle, same result. Ronald's back swallowed the frame like a curtain pulled shut on cue. I could see the tendons shifting in his wrist — his thumb was moving — but the phone screen remained a perfect blind spot.

"That's the fifth time, Damian." Damon's voice carried the weight it always did when he was about to deliver news I didn't want to hear. "The sixth won't be different."

"I know."

"Then stop torturing the footage and start thinking about what we can do."

What I actually wanted to do — what every Alpha fiber in my body was screaming for — was drive to that apartment, pin Ronald against his precious kitchen counter, and ask him, very politely, who else received those carefully curated rose photos before his wife did.

But I was Damian Voss. And Damian Voss didn't act on instinct.

Even if the waiting made him want to put his fist through the nearest wall.

I exhaled. Turned.

Kate had repositioned herself at the far end of the couch — knees drawn up, arms wrapped around them, holding herself together like a cracked vessel trying not to spill. In the past twenty minutes, her face had cycled through anger, denial, hope, doubt, anger again, exhaustion, and now something dangerously close to breaking.

I reached for her wolf — automatic, instinctive, the way I'd read anyone in a room.

Nothing.

No signal. No emotional frequency. Like trying to tune into a channel that had been scrubbed from the bandwidth.

It shouldn't have bothered me as much as it did. But watching Kate sit there — drained instead of blazing, fragile instead of furious — something behind my ribs twisted. A quick, sharp ache that flared through my chest and vanished before I could name it.

"We pivot." I pulled my gaze from her — deliberately, like removing a hand from a hot surface. "Dual track. First line: Catherine. We've been focused on Ronald because he's the accessible variable. But Catherine is the other half of the equation."

I looked at Kate. "You've been defending her since day one."

Her jaw tightened. "I said she might be a victim. I didn't say she was a saint."

"Fair enough." I held her gaze a beat too long. "Then let's find out which one she is. You and I tail Catherine directly. No remote feeds — eyes on the ground."

Kate blinked. "You want me to go with you?"

"Catherine doesn't know your face. She knows mine — which means I need someone who can get close without triggering her radar." I paused. "And I need someone whose judgment isn't clouded by my bias."

The admission sat strangely in my mouth. I looked away.

Damon's eyebrow rose exactly one millimeter — which, for Damon, was the equivalent of a standing ovation.

"Second track." Damon picked up seamlessly. "Darius and I stay on Ronald. Continuous monitoring, cross-referencing digital footprints. If those four missing minutes left any trace in the system, we'll find it."

Darius grunted in agreement, fingers already flying across the keyboard.

"When do we start?" Kate asked.

"Tomorrow evening. Catherine's schedule shows a dinner reservation at Aurelius. Private dining room." I paused. "You'll be seated at the table across the corridor. With me."

Kate stared at me as if I'd just announced we were robbing a bank. "Aurelius? The restaurant with a six-month waitlist?"

"I own twelve percent of the building. I can get a table."

"Of course you can," she muttered.

The expression on her face — interest flaring, then stubbornly tamped down — hit me somewhere unexpected. I strangled the smile that was clawing its way to the surface.

"I'll handle wardrobe," I said, keeping my voice clipped. "You need to look like you belong there — not as my employee, but as someone with an independent reason to be in that room."

"So you want me to go undercover." Her pitch climbed. "In a five-star restaurant. While surveilling your fiancée."

"Welcome aboard."

Damon was watching me with a faint twitch at the corner of his lips. Like he'd just catalogued something for future use. I ignored him.

By 2 a.m., Ronald was asleep on the monitors, the plans were locked, and Damon was gathering his files.

"We've got the unit upstairs. We'll head out." He shrugged on his coat and glanced at Darius. "I'm driving. I refuse to be dragged through a street race at this hour."

Darius rose, laptop tucked under his arm, and gave me a single nod.

I returned it.

Our version of goodbye.

The door clicked shut. Silence flooded the apartment.

I turned to tell Kate we were done for the night.

She was asleep.

Not dozing. Not politely drifting. Gone — her body surrendering after a full day of running on cortisol and sheer willpower. She was curled into the arm of the sofa, feet tucked beneath her, wearing ridiculous ballet flats with tiny bows on them — shoes I had absolutely no reason to notice.

I should wake her.

"Kate."

Nothing.

"Kate." Louder.

Not even a twitch.

I crouched beside the couch. This close, I could see the faint bruises beneath her eyes — the kind from sustained emotional strain, not missed sleep. She looked fragile in a way that made something primal in me go very, very still.

She needs rest, I told myself. A functional partner is a useful partner. That's all this is.

I slid one arm beneath her knees, the other behind her shoulders, and lifted.

She weighed nothing.

No — that wasn't accurate. She weighed exactly enough. Her body settled against my chest as though it had been designed for the space between my forearm and my ribs, fitting into the hollow like a key into a lock.

The warmth of her skin seeped through her sweater and into my palms, traveling along pathways I hadn't known existed. My heartbeat stuttered — then found a rhythm that wasn't entirely my own.

Kate shifted in her sleep. Her face turned toward my chest.

And nuzzled.

My wolf surged.

Not a growl. Not a snarl. A low, resonant hum that vibrated through my sternum — a sound I had never heard from the beast inside me. Not in twenty-eight years.

Mine.

The word surfaced before I could stop it. Absolute. Unequivocal.

I carried her down the hall and didn't let go until I had to.