Marked by the Alpha Billionaire

CHAPTER 8

Elena's POV

"You didn't sleep."

I hadn't even made it to my desk yet. Damian stood in his open doorway, tie loose, sleeves already rolled like he'd been at it for hours before the sun bothered to show up, and his eyes moved over my face with the same unsettling precision as that first morning, like he was reading something written just beneath my skin.

"Good morning to you too," I said.

"You smell like fear."

I stopped walking. "Excuse me?"

Something flickered across his face, quick and startled, like the words had gotten loose before he'd decided whether to say them. "Bad night," he corrected, too fast, his jaw tightening the way it did whenever he'd let something slip he hadn't meant to. "You look like you had a bad night. That's what I meant."

"Right." I set my bag down at my desk, buying myself a second to steady my voice. "Just trouble sleeping. New apartment. New city."

"Mm." He didn't sound convinced, and he didn't move from the doorway either, watching me with an attention that felt less like curiosity now and more like concern he wasn't sure he was allowed to have. "Anything happen?"

I thought of the shape at the mouth of the alley, too still and then too suddenly still again, the message that had beaten me to the realization I needed to step back from the glass. I thought about how impossible it would sound out loud… *I think someone was watching my apartment last night, and something warned me before I even understood the danger myself* … and how much worse it would sound coming from the woman who'd walked in under a fake name.

"Nothing worth mentioning," I said.

"You keep saying that." He crossed his arms, leaning against the frame. "Nothing worth mentioning about the messages. Nothing worth mentioning about last night. At some point I'm going to start assuming everything you don't mention is exactly the thing I should be worried about."

"Maybe I'm just a private person."

"Maybe." Something almost gentle crossed his face, gone as quickly as it arrived. "Or maybe you've decided I'm not someone worth trusting with the truth yet. Which is fair. We've known each other for a day."

The observation landed closer to the bone than he could have known, and I busied myself booting up my laptop rather than answer it, aware of him still watching from the doorway, aware of the strange, steady pull that hadn't lessened at all with a night's distance between us.

"I need you in the archive room this morning," he said finally, straightening. "Pulling files for the gala committee. Fourth floor, east wing."

"I can do that."

"One thing." His voice shifted, lower, more deliberate, the tone he'd used the night before when he'd told me to block the unknown number. "If you run into my cousin down there, keep it brief. Professional. Don't linger."

I looked up. "Ruth already warned me about him."

"Ruth's warning was about temperament. Mine's different." He held my gaze, and for a second the careful, controlled billionaire slipped just enough to show something harder underneath, something almost protective in a way that didn't match a business rivalry between cousins. "Victor is charming. Victor is also very good at making people believe things that aren't true, and he does it slowly enough that you don't notice until you're already believing them. I'd rather you didn't find that out the hard way."

"You make him sound dangerous."

"He is dangerous." The same words Ruth had used, delivered with the same flat, unadorned certainty, no drama in it at all. "Just not the way people expect."

I wanted to ask what that meant… twice now I'd heard the exact same warning from two different people who clearly weren't comparing notes… but he'd already turned back into his office, the conversation closing the way his door always did, softly, without room to argue.

The archive room on the fourth floor smelled like old paper and cold air conditioning, rows of filing cabinets stretching back further than the space should have reasonably allowed, fluorescent lights humming overhead in a way that made the whole room feel underwater. I found the gala files easily enough, and I might have left it there, professional, brief, exactly like he'd asked, if I hadn't noticed the drawer at the very back of the last cabinet, low to the floor, locked with a mechanism that looked older and heavier than anything else in the room.

No label. No year printed on the front like every other drawer around it. Just smooth grey metal and a keyhole that didn't match any key I'd ever seen an office supply closet carry.

I crouched in front of it anyway, some old habit from six months of research taking over before my better judgment caught up, running my fingers along the seam like it might simply open for someone patient enough to ask nicely.

"That one's not for you."

I hadn't heard him come in. Victor stood a few feet back, hands in his pockets, that same easy, expensive smile fixed in place, though something behind his eyes looked sharper than it had the day before, more focused, like he'd been waiting to catch exactly this.

"I wasn't trying to open it," I said, standing too fast, my heart doing something loud and unsteady in my chest.

"Of course not." He glanced at the drawer, then back at me, unhurried. "Curious, though. I'll give you that. Most new hires don't even notice it's there."

"What is it?"

"Family things." He said it lightly, like the words cost him nothing, though the smile had thinned just slightly at the edges. "Old records. Predates the company, technically. Damian keeps meaning to clear it out and never quite manages it. Sentiment, I suppose, though he'd never admit to having any."

"Sounds important, for something with no label."

"The important things rarely announce themselves." Victor tilted his head, studying me the way he had at my desk the day before, that same careful appraisal underneath the charm. "You ask a lot of questions for someone two days into the job, Elena Marsh."

"Force of habit."

"Careful with that habit." He said it gently, almost kindly, which somehow made it worse than a threat would have. "This building has a way of answering questions you didn't actually want answered. I'd hate for you to learn that the hard way." He glanced once more at the locked drawer, something unreadable crossing his face, and then he was moving past me toward the door, footsteps unhurried, confident. "Damian's very protective of what's behind that lock. I'd let it go, if I were you."

He left before I could ask anything else, the archive room settling back into its cold, humming silence, and I stood there a long moment with the gala files forgotten under my arm, staring at a drawer with no label and a lock that didn't match anything else in the building.

That was when I noticed the faint scratches along the edge of the metal, four thin parallel lines gouged deep into the grey paint, exactly the width apart as if something with claws had tried to get in from the other side.