Chapter One — The Devil's Den
894 Words
The Black Spire wasn't a building—it was a warning.
Steel fangs tore into the sky, its twisted silhouette lit by red strobes and flickering billboards, pulsing like a heartbeat. Inside, the air reeked of money, danger, and something worse: power. The kind that tasted like blood and always came with a price.
Soren adjusted the collar of his coat and stepped into the lion’s mouth.
Security didn’t even touch him. The forged ID chip in his wrist registered green, and the guards barely blinked. Beta. Low threat. Invisible.
Perfect.
He slid through the crowded main floor, past bodies pressed too close and laughter pitched too sharp. The nightclub throbbed with bass-heavy music and the kind of desperation only the powerful could afford to ignore.
“Beta or not, you’re pretty,” a voice purred near his ear as a hand brushed against his arm. Soren turned just enough to flash teeth—something that looked like a smile but wasn’t. The stranger faltered. Good.
Keep your head down. Don’t draw attention. Don’t let the scent slip.
He reached the back elevator without further trouble. A retinal scan later, the doors hissed open, revealing a black-glass capsule lined in chrome. No buttons. No control panel. It knew where he was going. The top.
Straight to the king.
Soren’s pulse quickened. Not from fear—but from the weight of the moment. Cael Rivenhart. Alpha. Mafia Lord. Target.
The elevator rose in silence. Soren checked the thin capsule tucked against his hip. Inside: a neurotoxin designed to paralyze for twenty seconds. Not long, but enough. If things went south, he could make it count.
The doors opened.
No guards this time. Just a room wrapped in shadow and velvet, lit by the cold gleam of city lights through wall-to-wall windows. A desk at the far end, glass and steel. And behind it—
Him.
Cael Rivenhart didn’t look up right away. He was pouring a drink, hands steady, precise. Black suit. No tie. Shirt sleeves rolled, revealing ink along the veins of his forearms. Every move calculated. Every breath measured.
Then he looked up.
And Soren’s stomach turned cold.
Those eyes. Gunmetal gray, sharp as a blade, emotionless. But something flickered beneath—curiosity, maybe. Or instinct. Soren couldn’t tell. He only knew one thing: this Alpha was dangerous.
"You’re late," Cael said, voice deep and unhurried.
Soren stepped forward, calm despite the storm rising in his chest. “Traffic. Someone tried to blow up a building.” A pause. “Amateurs.”
A faint smirk tugged at Cael’s mouth. “And you’re the professional?”
“Soren Vale. You wanted someone who can clean up your digital messes. I came recommended.”
“I wanted someone who won’t flinch when things get... ugly.”
“I don’t flinch,” Soren said flatly.
Cael stood, circling the desk like a predator stretching its legs. He stopped in front of Soren, too close, gaze intense.
“Beta, huh?”
The word curled like smoke.
Soren’s heart stumbled. Just for a second. But Cael’s nostrils flared—almost imperceptibly. Testing.
Soren lifted his chin. “Is that a problem?”
“No,” Cael said slowly. “Just unexpected.”
He turned away before Soren could read anything more. “Your first job’s already waiting. You’ll find a man named Karrow. He stole something from me. I want it back—and I want him to know exactly why that was a mistake.”
“Karrow?” Soren’s mind flipped through files. Arms dealer. Known for flipping allegiances. “What did he steal?”
Cael poured a second drink. “A weapon. One-of-a-kind.” He held out the glass to Soren. “You find it, you’ll earn your place.”
Soren took the glass but didn’t drink. “And if I don’t?”
“Then I’ll assume you were sent by someone else. And we’ll have a very different kind of conversation.”
The elevator doors opened again behind him. A woman stepped in—tall, sharp, Beta. Cassian’s second, if Soren remembered right. She nodded once to Cael, then eyed Soren like she was already digging a grave.
“You’ve got until tomorrow night,” Cael said. “Tick tock, Vale.”
Soren turned to leave, but paused at the threshold. “One question.”
Cael raised a brow.
“You always stare at your new hires like you want to eat them, or is that just a me thing?”
For a heartbeat, silence. Then—surprisingly—Cael laughed. A low, dangerous sound that made Soren’s skin crawl and something else stir under the surface.
“Just you,” he said.
The doors slid shut between them.
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Outside, the air tasted like acid rain and fire. Soren leaned against the side of a building and let his smile drop.
The weapon was real. So was the danger. But it was the Alpha’s eyes that haunted him now.
He wasn’t sure if Cael had smelled the truth beneath the suppressant. Or if the Alpha simply suspected something was off. Either way, he was running out of time.
His heat was coming. The weapon was somewhere in the city. And Cael Rivenhart was already under his skin.
This mission was going to kill him.
Or worse—he was going to like it.
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- Writer
