I turn another page, scanning her neat handwriting. Appointments, gallery events, brunch with her friend Leah, and a reminder to buy cinnamon rolls. There’s another note too that catches my attention: Staff meeting—wear blue blazer & BRING MUFFINS.
“She seems to be very busy…” My voice trails off as I notice the doodles in the corners of the pages. A grumpy-looking cat. A coffee cup with steam curling into a heart. A caricature of what must be her boss, with an exaggerated frown and speech bubble saying “But is it art?”
“She doodles,” I say, my voice softer now. “Little sketches in the margins. Look at this.” I hold it up, showing them.
“She’s an artist,” Dane says quietly, his expression unreadable.
“She’s a curator,” Rett corrects.
“Hey, don’t knock the grumpy cat,” Tristan says with a smirk. “That little guy has more personality than half the stuff we saw at the gala last night. She’s got talent.”
I shake my head, but I can’t help smiling. I flip another page, and something falls out. A folded piece of paper. I crouch down to pick it up, unfolding it carefully. It’s a shopping list. Coffee filters. Toothpaste. Wine. And at the bottom, underlined twice: Dark chocolate.
“She likes dark chocolate,” I murmur, almost to myself.
Tristan lets out a low whistle, a look of genuine, almost comical awe on his face. “Okay, so let’s recap,” he says, ticking points off on his fingers. “She’s smart, she’s funny, she’s gorgeous, she’s organized, and she has an appreciation for high-quality cacao. Are we sure she’s not a secret government-designed super-mate?”
“She’s a person, Tristan,” I correct him gently, my eyes still on the planner. “She has a life. A whole life. Friends, a job, routines… a whole system we just disrupted.” I trace the doodle of the grumpy cat. “My abuela used to say that to catch a hummingbird, you don’t use a cage, you use nectar.” I look up at my brothers. “Dominance is a cage. She’s not an omega. It won’t work on her. We need a different approach if we want her to come back.”
“Diego.” Dane’s voice pulls me out of my thoughts. He nods toward something on the floor. “There’s more.”
I follow his gaze and spot it. A little black rectangle right next to where the planner had been hidden. Her phone.
“Oh, shit,” I breathe, scooping it up. “She left her phone.”
“What?” Rett’s voice sharpens. “Let me see.”
I hold it up, but I don’t hand it over. “It’s locked,” I say, pressing the power button. The screen lights up, showing the wallpaper. A picture of the beta who just turned our lives upside down in one night. It’s just her face. Her hair was shorter when it was taken. Cut in a pixie cut. She’s looking right at the camera, a ghost of a smile on her lips, and one of them caught between her teeth like a dare.
Joder. My cock jerks. Hard.
Inhaling deeply, I pull my gaze from her face. Her notification bar is full: missed calls, unread texts.
On the message preview, one message reads:
Leah (5:02 am):
Zoe! PACKTRACKR has you on their FRONT PAGE. WHAT DID YOU DO???
“Mierda,” I hiss. “She’s on PackTrackr.”
Rett looms over my shoulder. “Shit. We need her address.”
I switch the phone off and snap her planner shut. “We can’t just show up at her place.”
“Why not?” Tristan grabs for the book. “She’s ours.”
“No,” The word is sharp. “Sheranfrom us. If we storm in like alphas on a fucking conquest, she’ll bolt again. This time, she might not stop. And we arenotlosing the first quiet we’ve had in years.”
I look from Rett’s hard face to Tristan’s frustration, to Dane’sunreadable calm. They’re looking at a problem to be solved. They don’t see what I’m seeing. This woman isn’t some standard-issue omega who will whimper and submit at one sniff of our alpha pheromones. She’s witty, she’s organized, she’s... rare. You don’t use a sledgehammer on a priceless piece of art. You handle it with care, or you shatter it forever.
Rett
I look at my brothers, each dealing with the situation in their own way. Diego, heart on his sleeve, gently holding her planner like it’s made of glass. Tristan, hiding behind humor to mask his genuine distress. Dane, gathering intelligence like the security specialist he is.
And me? I’m fighting a war on two fronts: against the static that’s threatening to split my skull, and against my own alpha, who is screaming at me to hunt Zoe down and bring her back where she belongs.
But she doesn’t belong to us. Not really.
