The Alpha who Watched Over Me

Chapter 12 — The First Laugh

ELARA POV

By morning, the regional summary was on Lang’s desk.

I had not slept well.

Every time I closed my eyes, I saw the first line of Cassian’s message again.

Mill Street. Same pattern as last night. Closer.

No one on the open floor mentioned movement near anyone’s street. The ordinary noise of a Tuesday made the night feel almost invented—except I could still hear the way he had said please.

I was halfway through reconciling a supplier variance when Marcus reached my desk.

“The northern transfer schedule you corrected,” he said. “Finance just flagged a secondary code. They’re saying your numbers can’t be right because theirs don’t match.”

“They can be right and still not match,” I said. “If Finance is using the inactive supplier flag as active.”

Marcus’s jaw tightened.

“That’s what I told them. They want you in the glass room. Now.”

The glass room was already occupied when I got there.

Two men from Finance. One woman from Compliance I had seen once in a hallway. Marcus.

And, standing near the window with his arms folded, Cassian Vale.

He looked like he had slept even less than I had.

His gaze found me the second I stepped inside. Held. Then moved away as if the room required professionalism more than whatever had happened on the empty floor the night before.

“Ms. Veyne,” the taller Finance lead said. “Walk us through the discrepancy.”

I did.

The codes. The dates. The inactive flag. The reason their system was double-counting a lane that no longer existed.

Halfway through, the Compliance woman interrupted.

“If the supplier is inactive, why is Operations still generating transfer volume against it?”

“Because someone upstream never closed the route,” I said. “The lag isn’t seasonal. It’s a dead path still being fed.”

Silence.

Then Cassian, without raising his voice:

“Show them the original variance note.”

I pulled it up on the shared screen.

The signature line was visible.

The Finance lead went very still.

Marcus exhaled through his nose.

Cassian’s mouth moved—not quite a smile. Something dryer.

“That,” he said, “is not Ms. Veyne’s handwriting.”

No one argued after that.

He closed the inactive route with three instructions, and the room emptied the way his meetings always emptied: quickly, and in the direction he had pointed without pointing.

I stayed to shut down the shared display.

Cassian did not leave with the others.

He waited until the door shut, then pulled out the chair opposite mine—not across the full length of the table. Closer. Close enough that if I leaned forward, our knees would almost touch.

I could have moved my chair back.

I didn’t.

That was becoming a problem.

“You enjoyed that,” I said.

His eyebrow lifted.

“The handwriting?”

“Watching Finance realize they were wrong.”

“I enjoyed being correct.”

“You’re impossible.”

“And yet you’re smiling.”

“Don’t flatter yourself.”

A real smile almost reached his eyes and stopped short, as if he had decided the room still did not deserve the whole thing.

His gaze lingered a beat too long.

I caught it.

He did not look away first.

“You’re difficult to run a serious room with,” he said.

“You’re the one who pointed out the handwriting.”

“It was relevant.”

“It was funny.”

“Go back to your desk, Elara.”

“Are you dismissing me?”

“I’m protecting the rest of the floor from whatever happens if you keep looking at me like that in a glass room.”

Heat climbed the back of my neck.

I stood anyway, because staying would have turned the almost-smile into something neither of us had permission for at 10:14 in the morning.

At the door, I paused.

“Last night,” I said. “The message. Mill Street.”

His expression changed.

Not the controlled shift from the meeting.

Something sharper. Immediate.

“Not here.”

“Then where?”

“Later.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“It’s the only one I can give you in a corridor full of people who already watch how long I look at you.”

I held his gaze one second longer.

Then I left.

I was three steps onto the open floor when my phone buzzed.

Not Rhea.

An unknown internal extension.

One line:

Do not walk home alone tonight.

No signature.

No explanation.

I looked back toward the glass room.

Cassian was already on his phone, shoulder turned to the window, the almost-smile gone as if it had never existed.

Whatever was happening on Mill Street had found its way into the building.

And whoever sent the warning knew exactly how I got home.