The Alpha Target

Six

After receiving word from his beta that Cora was now safely tucked up in bed, Lucien tried to refocus his attention back on his work. He had mountains of paperwork piling up, especially with the new club he was opening and his other… business. Time was running out, they were onto him and he needed to rectify that as soon as possible otherwise it could threaten everything he had accomplished thus far.

Yet, as he stared at the screen of his laptop until early hours of the morning, he’d found himself procrastinating while he thought about his little rose. Every time he motivated himself to do something of use, little details of her crept back into his mind, shattering his usual impeccable concentration.

He was utterly bewitched. From the defiant spark in her gleaming eyes, the glow of her silky bronzed skin, her full pouty lips that begged to be nipped, her curvaceous figure that implored him to trail his tongue over every inch. She was spellbinding. He hopelessly craved to know her taste, to know what would elicit those sweet sounds from her throat, to watch her wind so tight that she pleaded with him for release. He wanted to ruin her until there was nothing left to give. He wanted to be her everything.

But what captivated him even more so was not only the fact she didn’t cower beneath him, as most typically did – not that he blamed them, he was well aware of how intimidating he could be – but neither was she like the unmated females who threw themselves at him for his wealth and status. His Cora was a fascinating little rose, one he was eager to learn more about.

It wasn’t until 3am when Lucien returned home and collapsed on his bed. As exhausted as he was, the thoughts of Cora ensured sleep didn’t come easy, but alas he managed to drift off with a promise to himself that he would see his little rose soon.

It wasn’t until later in the afternoon the following day that Emmet found Lucien in his home office. Knocking, the Alpha grumbled “enter,” before Emmet sat in front of Lucien with a bashful smile. Without lifting his eyes from the paperwork on his desk, Lucien spoke. “Did you do as I asked?”

Emmet manspread his legs, leaning comfortably back into the chair, as he responded. “I did and you aren’t going to believe what I found.”

Lucien’s gaze immediately left the paperwork to meet the eyes of his amused beta, though his expression still stern as he perched a brow. “Go on,” he directed impatiently.

“Your mate works for the Viper Association.”

Lucien straightened his back, sitting upright in his chair as his full attention resided in his beta. “Position?”

The corners of Emmet’s lips twitched slightly. “Lead agent.”

Lucien dropped the pen he had been fiddling with on his desk, before running his hand through his hair and then gripping his chin. A chuckle escaped him as he sunk back into his chair, the gods were surely laughing at him right now. “Of course she is,” he shook his head.

The Viper Association were a discreet organisation filled with elite warriors from all over the country. They targeted the criminals of the shifter world, either capturing them for trial or simply assassinating the target and moving onto the next job. They were extremely successful at what they did and were a criminal’s worst nightmare. Lucien had heard horrific stories of those who’s demise had been caused by the Viper team, though no one ever managed to track them down. They were like ghost stories parents told their children to scare them into behaving. No one could ever find any evidence that the Viper Association existed, which was supposedly founded by the council and the Royal family. Lucien, however, did.

It had him wondering further into his little rose’s reasonings for being in his office last night. As far as Lucien was aware, he’d never been named a target of Viper. Namely because, though he was a barbaric bastard when he wanted to be, none of his businesses were illegal. But he had found the bugs in his office shortly after Emmet had taken Cora home and he’d been racking his mind ever since as to whether they could have belonged to her.

“And the bugs?”

Emmet nodded. “Vipers.”

Interesting, Lucien thought. The idea of playing cat and mouse with his little rose was compelling - obsessively so – though, he assumed his Cora would play the role of the mouse. He could no longer stop the corners of his lips from turning upright, his mate was becoming more enticing by the second.

“Which pack did she come from?”

Emmet’s expression took on a look of disgust. “Alpha Kai Anderson’s, the Pearl Diamond Pack.”

“No wonder she left,” Lucien chuckled deeply.

Alpha Kai Anderson was notoriously known for being a pathetic excuse for an Alpha. He’d ran his father’s businesses into the ground, essentially bankrupting the pack to the point where his pack members struggled to eat. He treated the lower ranking members of his pack, namely omegas, awfully. They were overworked, underpaid, underfed, dehydrated and malnourished. Lucien was certain rodents in the pack were treated better.

Kai’s warriors were not up to standard in view of the fact that he would rather spend his time bedding women rather than training his men. His beta, Cameron, was a regular at Lucien’s clubs and spent the majority of his time drinking instead of tending to his beta duties. Though, being the irresponsible Alpha that Kai was, he didn’t care.

Lucien had no intention of ever helping Alpha Kai, his view was that Kai had made his bed and he should lie in it. That was until Kai’s father, Jacob, had come to Lucien begging for a loan to assist in getting the pack back up on its feet. If it wasn’t for the simple fact that Jacob had been a good ally to Lucien when he was still Alpha, he wouldn’t have thought twice in rejecting the plea. Aside from that, it wasn’t the pack’s fault that they had such a shitty excuse for an Alpha. They didn’t deserve to suffer to consequence of that.

Jacob had reasoned with Lucien by explaining that Kai’s mate had died on her eighteen birthday, leaving him a distraught and broken man who now drank to dull the pain. Lucien could sympathise to some extent, though not enough to excuse the Alpha of his poor treatment to his pack. However, even still, Lucien had granted the pack a loan, which Jacob had been consistently paying back to Lucien until he sadly passed away just under ten months ago.

Lucien had then granted Kai a three-month p*****t break so he could find his footing again after his father’s death, on the condition that the payments began six months ago. Though Kai had failed to make a p*****t since. Lucien would be fixing that soon.

“What was her rank?”

“She was an omega,” Emmet told him. This confused Lucien, his mate certainly didn’t give omega vibes last night. “Though her parents were Gamma’s before they died when she was fifteen.”

Lucien scoffed, that explained it. “Omegas took her in?” Emmet nodded in response.

“It seemed her and Alpha Kai were close friends until she left for the Viper Association at eighteen,” Emmet continued. “Though her pack think she simply ran away as soon as she could and turned rogue.”

Again, this confused him. He wondered what could have happened to her in the pack for Alpha Jacob to just let her leave like that. If his gamma, Brody, had children and then sadly passed away, Lucien would ensure the children were well looked after. There was something missing from this story.

The Alpha nodded. “Good work,” he commended. “I want eyes on her whenever she leaves the HQ. She doesn’t leave the building without me knowing.”

Emmet nodded, rising from his seat. “Oh, King Rex has requested you visit him tonight.”

Lucien and the King had been close friends for any years, just as their fathers had been before they both died. The King was one of the few people Lucien trusted and the same went for Rex.

“Tell him it will be late this evening, I have a few things to do first.” Lucien ordered. “And bring me the bugs.”

***

Rocco ran his hands down his face in frustration, he didn’t know what to think. Though there was one thing he was sure of. “Well, in any case, I’m happy you’re alright, Cora.”

Cora only smiled, too busy deciphering her own thoughts to form a response right then. Luckily, Darca did it for her. “We don’t actually know if he’s aware of anything anyway. For all he knows, Cora could have just been taking a night off and enjoying herself.”

“In his office?” Cora deadpanned. She would love to believe the same, but she knew the one they referred to as the devil wasn’t stupid. Beautiful, but not stupid.

“He shouldn’t even know the Viper Association exists, let alone where to find it!” Joni countered. “What good are all the safeguards if still allows death to land straight on our doorstep?”

Cora pouted, conceding that. The girl had a point.

“He still doesn’t know anything about the investigation, so in that sense there shouldn’t be any complications.” Rocco told the team, who were crowded round the table in his office. It was routine the day after a mission to reconvene and go through their findings, though he hadn’t expected such a spanner to be thrown into the works on the first night.

“That we know of,” Bishop shrugged. This had only worsened his concerns over accepting the case. He was all for bringing down the s*x-trafficking ring, but Lucien Knox wasn’t to be underestimated by any means. None of their previous targets could possibly compare to him.

Ignoring Bishop, Rocco continued. “I’m more concerned with how they were able to get passed security. Measures will need to be put in place to prevent that from happening again.”

“To prevent Cora from being kidnapped again by the big bad wolf?” Declan chuckled.

“Is it really kidnapping if all he did was take her home and put her in bed?” Trey wondered aloud.

Everyone remained quiet, unsure how to respond to that. If they were being technical about it, it didn’t really constitute to kidnapping. But whether or not she had been kidnapped, Cora was more interested in why he had returned her home in the first place. Wasn’t the whole purpose behind this investigation that he was abducting women from his businesses and selling them to the highest bidder? If that was the case, Cora wondered why he hadn’t done the same to her.

Shaking her head, Cora turned to Trey. “Did you learn anything before Darca swirled you?” She pressed her lips tightly together, forcing the threat of her impending laughter back down.

Trey’s eyes darted to Darca for a moment, glaring daggers her way, who only smirked in response, before turning back to Cora. “If women are getting taken there, the staff have no clue it’s happening.”

“He’s right,” Declan agreed.

Joni sighed. “So we got nothing.”

Cora twisted her lips as she thought for a moment. They were missing something. They had to be. And then it hit her, the bugs! “Rocco, pass me your laptop and headphones please.”

Doing just that, Rocco passed her his work laptop and headphones immediately. Cora logged onto the server before starting up the programming system the bugs were secured to, praying to have something of significance. As the system loaded, she plugged the headphones into the laptop and placed them in her ears. Studying the system, she trailed her eyes along the different connected devices before locating the connection to the bugs she had left in Lucien’s office and adjusting the time to when she deposited them.

Six pairs of eyes watched her patiently as pressed the play button on the recording. When a few seconds passed by and she heard nothing, Cora frowned. Leaving the silence playing, she turned to Darca. “What time did I head to his room?”

“Around 11:30pm.”

Cora’s eyes flickered back to the play time. She’d started it at exactly 11:30pm, so maybe it just needed more time. “Alright, hang on.”

The silence remained as the minutes were passing by on the recording, only aggravating Cora further. She knew she had activated the devices before slotting them into place and they were a brand-new batch. They should be working perfectly.

Twenty minutes had passed by, and she was just about to give up and render the system broken, when she heard a sinful voice hush in her ear that promised to make her fall from grace. “Because I always get what I want,” the same words he’d promised her last night, an oath so assuring yet had such a villainous meaning.

It made her entire body quake inside. Her heart was beating hard and fast, all for him. His words promised a different kind of ending to this story, one she could never come back from. She couldn’t think straight, the familiar notes of his scent rushing back to her and clouding her judgement. She couldn’t function properly from the sound of his voice, yet she couldn’t get enough of it either. She could practically feel his touch on her skin again.

“Cora?” Rocco spared her a wary glance, bringing her back down to earth.

He’d found the bugs, and not only had he found the bugs, he knew they were hers. Cora blinked, before disarming the system and closing the laptop shut. “He erased them.” Which was kind of the truth, because he had. Erased the whole conversation bar one sentence where he’d promised her downfall.

“Dammit,” Rocco hissed. “Fine, Darca I want you to decipher the code on Knox’s calendar. Wherever he’s going tomorrow night, I want to know.”

Darca nodded and Cora quickly pulled out her phone to forward the picture she had taken of his compute screen last night to Darca’s number. “On it.”

“That’s all for now, get some rest.” Rocco ordered before turning back to his work. Not arguing, one by one, the team left his office and returned to their rooms. It was passed 10pm and they were all tired, they didn’t need to be told twice to go to bed.

Cora was reliving last nights encounter over and over again as she headed for her door, questions spiralling in her mind. But those questions temporarily faded away as she pushed open her bedroom door. Her lips part in shock, before her hand abruptly covered her mouth to supress her surprised squeal.

She couldn’t move, her entire world shaking. Her eyes flittered around her room, her legs feeling like jelly beneath her. If she hadn’t leaned against her doorframe, she would have fallen to the floor from sheer surprise. What she saw was ridiculous, it was insane. Her room was locked. Her windows were locked.

She didn’t know what to think, it shouldn’t have been possible. But he had managed to astonish her yet again. She blinked several times, certain her eyes were deceiving her, but alas they were not.

No matter how many times she squeezed her eyes shut before opening them again, delicate pink rose petals still filled every inch of her room, leaving no part untouched. She could no longer see her hardwood floor, only silky pink petals resting beneath her feet instead. Her bed was overflowing, along with her dresser. Everywhere she turned was pink. He must have used dozens and dozens of rose bouquets to accomplish such a thing. But Cora didn’t know whether to relish in the beauty of the sight or let fear creep in based on the fact the devil had managed to hide in plain sight to pull off such a thing. He'd been in her room, again. And that thought made her heart stop.

Her eyes flickered back to her bed, where a pink rose still intact laid beside familiar business card. She tiptoed over the roses and collected the card. It was the same as the one Blaise had shown them in the briefing, except for the intricate blood red writing on the back.

Until we meet again, little rose.