The Alpha Villain’s Guide to Stealing the Protagonist’s Luck

Chapter 5: Fissures

After Alaric left, a stillness settled over Darius's office.

Selena was already flipping through the next document, her silver hair covering half her face. Her expression was identical to before—completely blank.

Darius glanced at her from the side and spoke.

"You seem rather interested in those two girls."

Selena's fingers paused on the page. Then resumed turning.

"He's grown up. As his elder sister, it's my duty to remind the future head of the family to be mindful of his personal associations." Her tone was flat, as though she were delivering a quarterly earnings report. "Besides, after all the foolish things he's done for women outside, can you blame me?"

She didn't say "I worry about him." She said "it's my duty."

Darius was silent for two beats.

"All these years you've been shielding him. Does he know? Or doesn't he?"

Selena didn't answer.

For the briefest moment, a c***k appeared in her expression—so faint that only someone who had watched her grow up could have caught it.

Then she sealed it shut. Her fingers turned the next page, and her voice returned to its cool, commanding rhythm. "I've put together a preliminary report on the Soron Syndicate's recent movements in the medical sector."

Darius didn't press further.

He leaned back in his chair, studying his daughter's profile. His adopted daughter. Twenty-three years ago, he and April had pulled her from a blizzard, barely two years old. Now she was the de facto chief operating officer of the Vane Group, holding half the empire's lifelines in her hands.

Yet every time she stood behind Alaric, the look in her eyes was entirely different from the one she wore during earnings reports.

Darius said nothing. But when he stubbed out his cigarette, it was with more force than usual.

Alaric returned to his office on the 58th floor.

He shut the door. Loosened his collar. Stood before the floor-to-ceiling windows for a moment.

The Soron Syndicate tower across the street gleamed coldly under the sun. Logan Thorne was inside that building by now.

He closed his eyes and rifled through his memories of the original book. In the original storyline, Logan had joined the Vane Group and risen rapidly through the ranks by means of an influence Alaric still couldn't quite name. Arctic Light Biotech had been Logan's first major achievement within the company—he led the investment in this medical firm, using the deal to build his initial network and accumulate fortune. It was his first real victory.

Now Logan had been personally expelled by Alaric into the Soron Syndicate across the street. But this man wouldn't stop simply because the stage had changed. He would climb the same way inside Soron, and then he would reach for Arctic Light Biotech. It was his fated first key node.

Alaric filed the name Arctic Light Biotech in his mind.

This thread had to be severed before Logan gained his footing at Soron. But not today.

Today's priority: Alice.

The cloying sweetness from the recruitment hall still lingered unpleasantly in his sinuses. Alice's state at the time—her wrong eyes, her wrong tone—she had clearly been affected. But Logan's reaction was far more interesting. He hadn't shown the same fervor as the others under the influence. He simply accepted everything with calm. Even after Alaric tore his aura apart on the spot, his expression wasn't shame. It was confusion.

He knew he affected people. And he was used to it.

Alaric placed this thread in the back of his mind. Not the time to analyze it now.

Three o'clock sharp.

The knock was light and rhythmic—three taps, then silence. No hesitation, no impatience.

"Enter."

The door opened. Alice stepped in. She had changed out of the white blouse and pencil skirt from the morning. Now she wore a more conservative dark blue suit, the collar higher, the hem longer by two inches. But some things couldn't be hidden by switching sizes. The dark fabric wrapped around the same full curves—only now they strained less flagrantly than before.

Alaric leaned back in his chair, one hand resting on the armrest. He didn't rise. He didn't greet her. He didn't even offer her a seat.

He simply looked at her.

The silence stretched for about ten seconds. The air in the office tightened like a valve being slowly cranked shut. Alice stood before his desk, clutching a folder so tightly her knuckles had whitened. Her posture was textbook—so textbook that every joint was locked too rigidly.

"I'm sorry."

Alaric said nothing.

"Regarding the incident in the recruitment hall this morning," her voice was steady, but steadied with effort, "as the HR officer on duty, my lapse in judgment reflected poorly on the company. I am prepared to accept whatever disciplinary action you deem appropriate."

Alaric still said nothing.

The silence stretched another five seconds. Alice's throat moved. She had probably rehearsed this—the apology, the statement of accountability, the acceptance of consequences. Standard corporate crisis management protocol. But she'd finished her entire rehearsed script, and the man across from her hadn't uttered a single word in return. She didn't know what to say next. She stood there, lips pressed thin, her fingers tightening and loosening on the folder in an unconscious loop.

"You rehearsed." He finally spoke.

"...Yes."

"Then set the script aside. Tell me what you actually came to say."

Alice looked up at him. He was still leaning back, his posture unchanged, but his eyes had shifted. This wasn't the look of a superior waiting for an explanation. This was a golden wolf waiting for its prey to reveal its real weak point.

She drew a deep breath.

"I don't know what happened to me." The words were entirely different from the apology she'd recited—her tone had dropped, her language no longer sounded like a formal report. "When that man walked into the hall, I looked at his face, and I just felt... felt like he was different. I can't explain what was different. But he stood there, and I just felt I should trust him."

Her fingers finally stopped their compulsive grip on the folder. They hung at her sides, slightly curled. "I knew his résumé was blank. I knew he didn't meet a single hiring criterion. There was a voice in my head saying—what are you doing—but I just felt he was different."

She paused. Then her voice dropped even lower.

"...Looking back now, I just feel like I swallowed a fly."

She said it flatly. Simply stating a fact she had already accepted.

Alaric hadn't moved his gaze from her once. He'd been observing her from the moment she walked in. When she'd said "I'm sorry," her pupils hadn't deviated, her breathing had remained even—she was reading from a script. But after he told her to set the script aside, her breathing faltered twice, and her pupils contracted the moment she mentioned the man's scent—she was telling the truth.

He kept looking. His eyes moved from her eyes to her neck. The dark blue collar covered her collarbones, but the subtle shifts in her skin were impossible to fully hide. When she was nervous, the blood rose to her neck first—a faint flush—then to her cheeks.

Her chest rose and fell at a pace slightly quicker than normal breathing. She was suppressing something, but couldn't fully contain it. Her body was silently interacting with the pheromones he carried in the enclosed office. She probably didn't even realize it herself, but her breathing rhythm had been subtly calibrated by his golden wolf presence since before she entered. He wasn't doing it deliberately. His mere presence was simply something her body couldn't ignore.

Her posture remained perfect. Her knees didn't bend. Her chin didn't dip. An Omega, standing in an Alpha's pheromone-saturated enclosed space for nearly two full minutes, and she hadn't gone soft.

He stood.

He walked around the desk and stopped in front of her. At 190 centimeters, he forced Alice to tilt her chin up just to maintain eye contact. The angle left her throat fully exposed. In the instinctive language of wolves, she was offering her neck to his teeth.

She didn't step back. Whether because she didn't dare, or because of something else entirely.

He reached out and took the folder from her hands. Her fingertips were ice-cold. He flipped a page open in front of her. She had written a self-assessment—meticulously phrased, an HR officer's apology letter, technically flawless. But at the bottom, there was a handwritten line in ink, slightly smudged. She had hesitated before writing it.

"I don't know why I was affected by that man. But I know I never want to feel that way again."

Alaric closed the folder and tossed it onto the desk.

"You can stay."

Alice's breath caught for a beat.

"But I will remember today. With me, you don't get a second chance."

She nodded. The motion was small but crisp. She understood she had passed a test she had no standing to name. As she turned toward the door, her back remained perfectly straight.

"Alice."

She stopped at the door and turned to face him.

"Do you still feel anything toward that man."

Silence. Three seconds. Five.

"...At least not right now."

The door opened. The door closed. The rhythm of her heels faded down the hallway. Every step steady.

Alaric leaned back and closed his eyes. The chill of her fingertips still ghosted against his own. The faint floral scent still hung in the air, mingled with his own pheromones not yet fully withdrawn.

The fissure is open. And it's mine.

The System's cold mechanical voice chimed in his mind.

【Ding! Detected: Host has caused a minor deviation in the original key plotline "The Hero and the Destined Daughter." Current luck plunder progress: 5%.】

A thin current of electricity shot from the base of his spine, spreading along his nerve endings to his limbs. A tingling numbness—faint but distinct, every fiber trembling briefly. It lasted about three seconds, then faded.

Alaric clenched his fist. Slightly tighter. The change was barely noticeable, but he felt it.

He stood and walked to the window once more. The Soron Syndicate tower gleamed coldly in the afternoon light.

Arctic Light Biotech. Medical sector. Supply chain.

The hero's pieces are already on the board. Time for the villain to move faster.

But first—home.

He picked up his phone and messaged Cane: Bring the car. Then he thought for a moment and added: No driver. I'll drive myself.

He stopped by the apartment first.

When he pushed the door open, the living room was quiet. The curtains were half-drawn, the evening light slicing a diagonal divide across the floorboards. A faint scent of shower gel lingered in the air—the kind she used, nothing perfumed, just a clean, soapy note.

He set his keys in the tray by the entrance. The slight clink echoed.

The bedroom door opened. Eve came out, her hair still wet and clinging to her collarbones, wearing one of his old T-shirts, the hem barely skimming her thighs. When she saw it was him, the corners of her mouth lifted and her eyes lit up—not the kind you fake, the kind that means she'd been waiting.

"You're back." She walked over, barefoot on the floorboards, her steps light but quick. She paused just in front of him, then went up on her toes and wrapped her arms around his neck.

She smelled of shower gel and something deeper—the warmth of her own skin.

Alaric glanced down at her. "Came back to grab something."

"Oh." She didn't press. Her fingers traced a light line along the back of his neck—she knew he was sensitive there. She'd discovered it herself. Then she stepped back half a pace and tilted her head up at him, her lips still curved, though something faint and fleeting flickered in her eyes. A question she wanted to ask, covered over with her smile.

"Dinner's not at home," Alaric said.

She nodded, expression unchanged. "Then let me grab you a jacket. It gets cold out by the estate at night."

She turned toward the bedroom, steps light and quick, the hem of the T-shirt swaying with her movement.

"No need."

She stopped and looked back at him.

"There's food in the fridge. Heat it up."

Eve paused. Just for a fraction of a beat.

Then she smiled—and this smile was subtly different from the last one, the corners of her eyes curving with it. "Okay."

Alaric turned and left. His footsteps faded down the hallway. After the elevator chime sounded, Eve was still standing in the entryway. She walked slowly back to the bedroom, fished her slippers out from under the bed, and put them on—she'd been in too much of a hurry earlier to bother. Then she went to the kitchen, opened the refrigerator, and looked at the neatly arranged containers inside.

She stood there holding the door open for a long time. The smile was still on her face. But somewhere along the way, it had grown very faint.

On the drive to the estate, Alaric made one stop. An old flower shop that looked like it had been there for decades. When he pushed the door open, the shopkeeper was trimming thorns off roses. She glanced up—first at his face, then at his suit, then at the car parked outside. Her expression shifted into the "today's my lucky day" look.

"Sir, who are the flowers for?"

Alaric scanned the shop. "My mother. Haven't been home in a while."

The shopkeeper set down her scissors and smiled. "Say no more. Pink carnations. A few white lilies to round it out. Simple. Elegant."

Alaric didn't haggle. When he paid, he added an extra bill on top. Before the shopkeeper's surprise could fully register, he had the bouquet tucked under his arm and was out the door.

The car started again. The city outside his windows gradually gave way to the tree-lined shadows of the countryside.

On the back seat, the pink carnations lay quietly in the sunset light. Water droplets from the shopkeeper's spray bottle still clung to the petals.

The iron gates of the Vane Estate swung open automatically as he approached.

The fir trees lining the driveway stood in two silent rows like an honor guard. Warm yellow light spilled from the first-floor windows of the manor, spreading a soft golden layer across the gravel drive.

Alaric parked before the portico. He killed the engine. Tucking the bouquet under his arm, he walked to the door and pressed the bell.

His mother opened it.

April Vane stood in the doorway, dressed in a pearl-gray housedress, her hair pinned up without a strand out of place. She looked at Alaric. Then at the flowers.

"You brought flowers," she said.

"Mm."

"You never bring flowers."

"Things change."

April didn't take the bouquet. Instead, she reached out and brushed her thumb across his cheek, wiping away a smudge that wasn't there. Then she said—

"Come in. Your father's busy in the kitchen."

Alaric raised an eyebrow slightly. The head of the Vane family, the man who could silence an entire boardroom with a look, was currently in the kitchen wearing an apron. It wasn't that the estate lacked chefs. But Darius had one rule that never changed: on family days, he cooked with his own hands. The order of salt and oil, sauce and seasoning—he managed it with the same precision he applied to the company's financial statements.

Alaric stepped over the threshold. Behind him, the evening breeze nudged the door shut. From the direction of the kitchen came the sizzle of a frying pan, mixed with the low, bubbling murmur of a braise reducing over a slow flame. The sounds traveled down the hallway, and they felt more welcoming than any greeting could have been.