The Alpha I Was Sent To Betray

Chapter 3: The Wolves Den

Kieran

Okay, so I ended up taking the suicide mission.

Not like I had a choice. Prison wasn't an option—a day in there and I'd start leaking years of suppressed pheromones because I don't think the federal prison system supplies you with Aegis-9. And then I'd be dead. Or worse.

So here there was. Standing in this conference room, flushed from neck to ear, because the man I saw in the FBI file was standing there in all his glory and looking directly at me.

And don't get me wrong—the flush wasn't from his handsome face.

Okay. Maybe a little.

But that man was terrifying. Intimidating. Handsome. The kind of presence that made me want to shrink and fold in on myself while some primal part of my brain screamed run. And the other one—the one who'd grabbed me—had circled me like I was prey while wearing the sweetest smile I'd ever seen. A ball of spitting fire wrapped in cashmere.

And also, now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure I've seen that second one in magazines. Modeling for some designer or whatever.

Morales had shoved a stack of files at me two nights ago and told me to memorize faces.

Dante Moretti. Alpha. CEO. Untouchable.

Luca and Leo—the twins.

And another brother whose file had ended with the word deceased in cold government font. But the photos had been grainy surveillance shots, and I'd been too panicked to memorize faces properly. I couldn't tell the twins apart in the file. I still wasn't sure which one had grabbed me this morning.

But that wasn't the point.

The point was this building was ninety stories of black glass and steel, and I just happened to be assigned to the very bottom of it. The basement, essentially. The IT bullpen was buried underground like an afterthought, all fluorescent lights and cramped cubicles and the faint smell of burnt coffee.

According to the intel Morales gave me, I was supposed to reach Level 80.

Level 80.

Dante Moretti's private office. The air-gapped terminal. The target.

But I was stuck on Level B2.

Doomed before it even started. Great.

But I wasn't going to cry about it because that happened hours ago and all first days ain't always great, right. Which is why I'm currently getting coffee which by the way costs more than my apartment rent.

Okay, that was an exaggeration. But it shouldn't cost this much. Six dollars for a cup of black coffee that I could have made at home for pennies. But I needed the caffeine. I hadn't slept all night—Jamie had spent the entire time worrying himself sick and worrying me in the process. Going back and forth about how dangerous this was, how I should run, how the FBI couldn't protect me if things went wrong.

Which made me think maybe Morales had been right when she said not to tell anyone about this because Jamie knowing meant he was in danger and him not knowing would have meant I was alone.

I wasn't sure which was worse. As selfishly as that sounds.

I grabbed the overpriced coffee from the counter, turned around, and almost spilled the entire thing down the front of a very expensive cream sweater.

"Oh—"

"Careful."

It was him. The one from this morning. The one who'd dragged me across the conference room and announced my existence to the entire Moretti family like I was a show-and-tell project.

"Hi. Remember me?"

Those big, weird silver eyes of his fixed on me. Up close, they were even stranger—shimmering faintly, like moonlight on water. The last time I checked, Omega eyes were only supposed to glow when they were stimulated. Heat. Extreme emotion. Not just... existing.

But his weren't changing. Just steady. Constant. Unsettling.

"You're staring," he said.

I flushed. "Sorry. I wasn't—"

"Don't worry." He waved a hand dismissively. "Everyone does it. I was born with eyes like this. They say I belong to some strong bloodline or whatever." He said it like he was reciting a grocery list. "So my eyes just... shine. All the time. They get brighter when I'm stimulated, but they never really turn off."

He said this like we were old friends. Like he hadn't just met me this morning. Like telling a stranger about your weird Omega biology was a perfectly normal way to start a conversation.

I guess he was a very open person or just weird.

"But since you're an Omega like me, you understand, right?"

I almost panicked.

Right there. In the middle of the coffee shop. My hand tightened around the cup so hard the lid popped off.

But he just met me. There was no way he knew. I'd been wearing the patch. I'd been careful. My scent was blank. My eyes were normal. I was just a Beta. Just a boring, forgettable Beta who fixed printers.

I forced my shoulders down. Forced my voice to stay even.

"Ah, no. I'm a Beta, actually. So I don't... understand."

He looked at me.

That smile didn't move, but something behind his silver eyes shifted. Not anger. Not suspicion. Just... acknowledgment. Like he knew I was lying and had decided, for whatever reason, not to call me out on it.

"Right," he said softly. "A Beta."

Before I could spiral about what that tone meant, a voice rang out across the café.

"Luca!"

And then there were two of them.

The newcomer was identical—same dark curls, same pale skin, same silver eyes. Same beautiful, unsettling face. But where the first one held himself with a kind of lazy stillness, this one was bouncing and energy poured off him in waves. He was also chewing pink bubblegum and grinning like he'd just heard the funniest joke in the world.

So the one from this morning was Luca. Which meant this was Leo.

Morales' file hadn't prepared me for this. Seeing them separately in surveillance photos was one thing. Seeing them standing side by side, identical and uncanny, their silver eyes glowing in tandem—it was something else entirely. I finally understood why the file had been so useless. You couldn't tell them apart until you saw them together. Until you saw the way Luca held still and Leo couldn't. Until you heard the difference in their silences.

"Brother of mine!" Luca called back, and other one launched himself into Luca's arms and he caught him.

They were basically the same size. I didn't know how that worked, physically. But he didn't even stumble. Just caught him like he'd been doing it his whole life, which he probably had.

"You're back," Luca said.

"Milan was boring without you. Also, Dante called. He said to stop terrorizing the new recruits."

"I'm not terrorizing. I'm making friends."

Leo turned his silver gaze on me. He looked me up and down with the same unnerving assessment his twin had given me this morning. Then he smiled. It was slightly different from Luca's smile. Wider. Sharper. More teeth.

"This is the one?" Leo asked.

"The very same."

"The one Dante's been—"

"Don't," said Luca.

The other's grin widened. "I wasn't going to say anything."

"You were absolutely going to say something."

I realized, with dawning horror, that this was my cue. This was the moment where I slipped away. Where I took my overpriced coffee and my burning patch and my hammering heart and disappeared back to the basement where I belonged.

I took a step backward, and stopped not because I wanted to but because I felt it.

That particular weight in the air. That pressure at the base of my skull. The same thing I'd felt when Agent Reeves had grabbed me in my apartment, but stronger. Sharper. More focused.

Dante Moretti had entered the café.