I Never KNEW MY HUSBAND IS A WEREWOLF ALPHA

Chapter 5:The Cooperate wolf

The next morning, the Pierce Tower was a masterpiece of corporate denial.

To the janitorial staff and the junior analysts, the 48th floor was merely "under renovation due to a faulty HVAC system." The shattered glass had been replaced by a specialized crew that moved with the silent efficiency of a shadow cabinet, and the scent of ozone had been scrubbed away by industrial-grade air purifiers.

Sloane stood in front of the full-length mirror in her dressing room, adjusted the lapels of her charcoal power suit, and checked her reflection. She looked like a woman ready to audit a Fortune 500 company. She didn’t look like a woman who had spent the night watching her husband grow claws.

"Patterns," she whispered to the glass. "Follow the patterns."

Roman appeared in the doorway. He was dressed in a navy pinstripe suit, his tie knotted with lethal precision. To any observer, he was the apex predator of the financial world. But Sloane noticed the way his nostrils flared as he caught her scent, and the way his hand gripped the doorframe just a little too hard.

"You don't have to do this, Sloane," Roman said, his voice low and vibrating. "My Enforcers can handle the internal security. You should stay here, where the glass is reinforced."

"Your Enforcers look for physical breaches, Roman," Sloane said, picking up her leather briefcase. "They look for broken locks and scent trails. I’m looking for something they can’t smell: a digital signature. If there’s a traitor in your C-suite, they aren't going to leave a scent. They’re going to leave a spreadsheet."

She walked toward him, stopping close enough to feel the unnatural heat radiating from his chest. She reached up and straightened his tie—a domestic gesture that felt charged with a new, dangerous electricity.

"I’m the Luna, right?" she asked, her grey eyes meeting his amber-flecked brown ones. "Then let me do my job. You handle the pack; I’ll handle the books."

Roman stared at her for a long beat, his jaw tightening. Then, he leaned down and pressed his forehead against hers. It was a gesture of submission she hadn't expected from an Alpha.

"The office is a different kind of jungle," he murmured. "Watch your back."

Pierce Holdings: 9:42 AM

The lobby of Pierce Holdings was a cathedral of glass and ego. As Sloane walked through the turnstiles, she felt the eyes of the employees on her. They knew her as the CEO’s wife, the elegant "trophy" who occasionally appeared at galas. They had no idea she was the one who had built the firm’s original auditing architecture.

She didn't head for Roman’s office. She headed for the Level 4 Archive—the data center where the hard servers lived.

"Mrs. Pierce?" a voice called out.

Sloane turned. It was Arthur, the Chief Financial Officer. He was a man in his late fifties, with thinning hair and a nervous habit of adjusting his glasses. He had been with Roman since the beginning.

"Arthur," Sloane said, her voice cool and professional. "I’m here to do a spot-check on the 'Security Logistics' accounts. Roman is concerned about some... discrepancies in the North Ridge land trusts."

Arthur’s face paled for a fraction of a second—a "glitch" that Sloane’s trained eyes caught instantly. "Discrepancies? I assure you, Sloane, our books are pristine. Perhaps we should discuss this in my office?"

"No need," Sloane said, flashing a sharp, practiced smile. "I’ve already pulled the remote ledgers. I just need the physical server logs to confirm the IP addresses for the 'Full Moon Security' transfers."

She walked past him, her heels clicking like a metronome on the marble floor. She could feel Arthur’s gaze on her back, heavy and panicked.

Once inside the server room, the air grew cold and loud with the hum of cooling fans. Sloane pulled out her specialized laptop and plugged it directly into the mainframe. She wasn't looking for the money anymore; she was looking for the Agent Code—the authorization string used to bypass the building’s security last night.

The code was FENRIS-99.

"Fenris," she whispered. "The wolf that eats the world."

She traced the code back to its origin. It hadn't come from an external hack. It had been generated from an internal terminal. Specifically, the terminal in the CFO’s private suite.

Click. The door to the server room locked behind her.

Sloane didn't panic. She didn't even turn around. She watched the monitor as a second shadow appeared on the wall behind her.

"You should have stayed in the penthouse, Sloane," Arthur’s voice was no longer nervous. It was cold. "Roman thinks he can turn us into a 'legitimate' business. He thinks we can buy our way into the human world. But some of us remember what it’s like to hunt. Silas Vane offered us a return to the old ways. All he wanted was the access codes."

Sloane finally turned. Arthur wasn't shifting—not yet—but his eyes were beginning to glow a sickly, pale yellow. He was a "Beta" who had grown tired of living in the shadow of a king.

"You sold your Alpha for a promise of 'the old ways'?" Sloane asked, her hand sliding into her briefcase. "Silas Vane is using you, Arthur. He doesn't want to hunt; he wants the North Ridge land. He’s going to strip-mine the forest the second you hand him the keys."

"At least I’ll be a wolf again," Arthur growled, his shoulders hunching as his suit jacket began to tear.

"You aren't a wolf, Arthur," Sloane said, pulling out a small, sleek device from her bag. "You’re a bad investment."

She pressed a button on the device—a high-frequency sonic disruptor she’d modified from Roman’s security lab.

A piercing, ultrasonic shriek filled the small room. To a human, it was nothing more than a faint whistle. To a werewolf with hyper-sensitive hearing, it was an agonizing physical assault.

Arthur screamed, clutching his ears, falling to his knees as his transformation was violently interrupted by the sound waves.

Sloane walked over to him, her face a mask of cold logic. She picked up his dropped keycard and swiped it against her laptop. "I’ve just rerouted your Cayman accounts back into the Pierce General Fund, Arthur. Consider this your final severance package."

She stepped over his twitching body and opened the door. Standing there was Roman, his eyes glowing amber, his knuckles white as he held the doorframe. He looked at the fallen CFO, then at Sloane, who was calmly packing her laptop.

"He was the leak," Sloane said, adjusting her blazer. "He was funneling the security codes through the 'Miscellaneous' expense line. I’ve already sent the evidence to your legal and... enforcer teams."

Roman walked into the room, his presence overwhelming the small space. He looked at the woman he had tried to "protect" in a glass tower and realized he had been wrong. She didn't need a cage. She needed a throne.

"The South Pack is moving on the Ridge tonight," Roman said, his voice a low thunder. "They know Arthur failed. They’re going to try to take the forest by force."

"Then we stop playing defense," Sloane said, her slate-grey eyes hardening. "I found Silas Vane’s real-estate holdings. He’s leveraged everything on this coup. If we take out his hub in the city, his pack won't have the resources to sustain a war."

Roman reached out and grabbed her hand, his heat grounding her. "We leave in an hour."

"One condition, Roman," Sloane said.

"Anything."

"Next time, I pick the suits. Arthur’s fashion sense was as bad as his bookkeeping."

Roman laughed—a dark, primal sound that echoed through the server room. The "Slow Burn" was over. The partnership had begun.