Chapter 1

1

T he organized chaos of the local precinct flows past me, as familiar now as my own apartment.

The cracked plastic seat creaks as I sip a cup of burnt coffee that Lenore at the front desk pressed on me when she informed me I'd be waiting for a while. The grayish, cold liquid leaves a sour film on my tongue, made more unpleasant by the hour I've waited for a moment of Detective Wells's time.

The Omega in me is hyper-aware of all the Alphas who populate the police force. It's a common career path for the more aggressive second gender. Too bad for me that the precinct's ventilation can't work fast enough to dispel all the pheromones they produce.

"Hey, Oliver!" Officer Martinez waves as she bustles by, a friendly smile on her face. "How's the news?"

"Same scandal, different day." I shrug with indifference. "You know how it is."

"Well, keep it up." She heads for the door. "Your column helps me stay awake on stakeouts."

Bitterness tastes more bitter than the coffee I hold, but I hide the emotion and lift my paper cup in salute as she vanishes out into the night. It's not her fault I hate my job.

Over the past ten months, I've become a familiar face here, visiting every week to check on my brother's case. I know all about Martinez's recent engagement and Jenkins's new grandbaby.

Their lives are moving forward, while I remain stuck in the past, anchored by tragedy.

"Oliver." Detective Wells's gruff voice brings my head around to find him beckoning me over. "Come on back."

I stand and drain the dredges from my cup, tossing it into the trash on the way to join him.

With a tired grunt, he settles behind a desk overflowing with files. His salt-and-pepper hair sticks up in the back, and dark shadows of exhaustion give his face a sallow appearance. A pillow on the couch in the corner of the matchbook- sized office shows that he slept here at least once this week.

Not wanting to stay in the pheromone-clogged space for long, I ignore the chair and fight the urge to rub my nose. The detective may be a bonded Alpha, but being trapped in the cramped room still makes me twitchy. "Have you heard any updates on Dylan?"

Rubbing his temple, he lets out a deep sigh. "Wish I had something to tell you, but no recent developments have cropped up in the last seven days. If anything changes, you'll be the first one I call."

It's the same platitude he gives me every week, the words tired and lacking impact from overuse. In the air between us hangs the plea that I stop disrupting his work, but if I'm not here reminding Wells of my existence, then my baby brother will become one more lost file.

At my silence, his shoulders slump. "Look, Oliver, I understand you want answers, but it's been ten months. The likelihood of finding him is slim at this point."

It's a bitter truth I refuse to accept. "He's the only family I have. I can't give up on him."

Detective Wells rubs his temples, the lines on his face deepening. "We've done everything we can, and I have other cases, with real leads. My time can't be wasted searching for someone who might not even be alive anymore."

His words sting like a slap in the face, though he's being realistic. In this neighborhood, people disappear all the time, and those left behind often grieve without hope of an answer.

"I understand, Detective," I manage past the lump in my throat. "See you next week."

Annoyance flashes in his eyes. "Take care, Oliver."

A cold, biting wind whips at my face as I step out of the police station, disappointment weighing me down. I pull my scarf tighter around my neck and hustle toward my beat-up old car, my breath turning into small puffs of fog in the air.

On the way home, I pass the lot where Sunrise Apartments once stood. Now, it's nothing but a pile of dirt, surrounded by a chain-link fence with a banner announcing Rockford Construction flapping in the breeze.

The empty space is a reminder of how everything can change in an instant, just like Dylan's disappearance.

Outside my own apartment building, I park and leave the doors unlocked, hoping to avoid another broken window when there's nothing inside to steal. Raised in this neighborhood, I've grown accustomed to my safety being compromised.

Flickering exterior lights illuminate the twelve-story complex, casting erratic shadows over the crumbling, graffiti-covered brick facade. Bars offer security on the lower windows that aren't covered by boards. Drive-bys and burglaries are as common as breathing around here.

It's an upgrade from the dump my brother lived in, though. When he turned eighteen, I tried to stop him from moving out, but he landed his first job and was desperate to prove himself as an adult. The guilt of letting him go eats me up at night.

The security gate in front of the door creaks when I open it to step inside, and the stench of piss and vomit fill the foyer. I bypass the elevator, where a paper sign on the door proclaims that it's closed for cleaning. It happens every weekend, a casualty of someone's drunken escapades.

I take the stairs, so used to the hike that my thighs barely burn as I climb the seven flights to my floor.

As I walk down the grimy hall, noises from my neighbors drift out, their TVs too loud and the arguments too passionate. The door to the trash room stands ajar, the stink of spoiled food and baby diapers spilling out.

At my door, I unlock the four deadbolts and slip into the relative quiet, the blankets I hung on the walls acting as sound dampeners so I can sleep.

I close and lock the door behind me, drop my keys on a table by the entry, and take a deep breath filled with the astringent scent of pine cleaner. Sadness at another week of failure bubbles, then dies. After so many trips with the same result, I'm just numb.

Only one thing cuts through the dead feeling inside me.

Steps quick, I pass through the cramped living room and walk into the dining room, which I had converted to my office.

"I'm home," I tell the dozens of photos taped to the walls that I've collected from newspapers, magazine covers, and printed from the internet.

Caleb Rockford. My obsession and my favorite target.

Even in print, his dark-brown eyes hold an intensity that demands attention. An Alpha in every fiber of his being.

To the world, he's a rich and entitled playboy who loves casinos, racetracks, and models .

But that's just a public mask he wears

The Rockfords pretend to be a family-run conglomerate, but they have their hands in too many businesses that dip into the underbelly of black market dealings to be as squeaky clean as they want people to think.

I trace a finger over the reddish-gold scruff on a candid shot of him leaving a dry cleaner's shop that is known to be a front for an illegal fight club.

"What secrets will you tell me today, Caleb Rockford?"

Stretching my fingers, I slide into my chair and boot up my laptop.

The glare of my screen washes over me, bright in the dimness of my office. The heavy drapes over the slider and windows block the streetlamps, and the low-wattage bulb in my overhead light saves my energy bill but not my eyes.

I squint until I adjust to the brightness and open my email app, skimming through the messages piling up in my inbox. One from Lili, my editor at Nexus News , catches my attention with a subject line of Confirming Photos for Caleb Rockford Column.

It piques my interest, since I was working on an article for their gossip channel, DynastyDish , before I left for the police precinct earlier .

I click on the message and the attached picture to see Caleb Rockford dressed in a custom-tailored suit, surrounded by the opulence of a high-end casino. The navy-blue material flatters his complexion, and the pop of his yellow tie draws attention first, followed by his red hair.

In his element, the petite, doe-eyed blond who clings to his arm compliments his masculine perfection. Her short, tight dress molds around full breasts and curvy hips, and a thick, diamond choker graces her slender neck. I recognize the necklace as a Rockford heirloom.

She's the epitome of fragile, Omega beauty.

"Figures," I huff, annoyed over Caleb only ever being spotted with fair-haired female Omegas like this one.

How are male Omegas supposed to dream of catching the eye of someone like Caleb Rockford when he's so consistent in his preferences?

I zoom in far enough to remove the woman from the picture, then lean forward with the rush of a story. Almost hidden by the slight curl of his red hair around his ears, I spot the empty holes in his pierced lobe.

This isn't Caleb. It's his twin brother, Damien .

A strange sense of relief washes over me, and I snatch up my phone to dial Lily's number.

She picks up after two rings, her voice raspy from too many cigarettes. "What do you want at this time of night, Kent?"

"Like you're not still working." Lily is a confirmed bachelorette and lives at her desk. "The files you sent over are mixed up. The photo isn't Caleb, it's Damien. We need to change the names in the piece I emailed earlier."

"Really? Oh, well." Indifference flattens her tone. "We'll run it as is. Caleb's more sensational, which gets us more clicks. If he reads the story and objects, we can print a correction after it brings in money."

Annoyance pickles through me, but I let it go. Years of working for her have proven that arguing with her is futile. "Did you read my other article? The one about the dock officials taking bribes?"

Her long sigh fills my ear. "Like I've told you before, if it doesn't have the Rockford name attached, I'm not running it. People love clicking on your columns about their family. That's where I want you focused."

"I can do both." Her silence rings with rejection, and I slump in defeat. "Email me if your photographers take any more photos. Otherwise, I'll keep my ears open for more gossip."

"Good boy." She ends the call without a goodbye.

I set my phone down with more force than necessary, my heart pounding with frustration. How did I end up pigeonholed into writing unsubstantiated commentary about the elite when I went to school for investigative reporting?

"Fine." A click of my mouse closes the erroneous photo, and I switch to my online blog, VanishingVoice . "If she won't run it, I will."

I select the draft of my article about the dock officials taking bribes and hit Publish .

There. Now the world—or at least the few followers I have—will know the truth.

My stomach twists as I check the number of subscribers. Still pathetic, which is why I keep trying to go through my day job to get my stories out there. But when do I accept that I'm yelling into a void?

The last post I made only received a couple hundred views and a handful of hearts.

As I wallow in self-pity, a new email alert pops up on my screen.

I open it, then stare with resignation at the death threat. It had been routed from my VanishingVoice blog. These trolls have no life. At least they didn't review-bomb me this time.

This isn't the first such message to land in my inbox. At first, they scared me, but like with all things, I've since grown numb. My address is unlisted, and I publish under a pseudonym. Even the email is rerouted from somewhere else.

It is one reason I haven't taken the plunge and moved to vlogging, though, which would probably gain more traction.

"Who'd take me seriously on camera, anyway?" I run a hand through my straight black hair.

While I don't resemble those voluptuous blonds with breeding hips for days, nothing can hide my delicate features. People in the news world don't think Omegas have the fortitude to be in the business, even if we have the skills and the ambition to excel.

My gaze drifts to a picture on my desk of me with my brother, Dylan. We took it at his high school graduation, and the familial resemblance is strong, despite a five-year age gap.

We have the same olive-hued skin and hazel eyes, which we inherited from our papa, who gave up on life after our Alpha father died of an aneurysm in his early forties. Straight out of graduating from university, I moved back home to take care of Dylan .

Writing a gossip column supported us and continues to support me.

One day, I'll write a story so earth-shattering that Lily can't refuse to print it, and I'll get away from entertainment columns. Until then, I'm stuck pumping out meaningless drivel.

I close my laptop and lean back in my chair to study the Playboy of the Year cover of Caleb Rockford hanging over my desk. "Will you give me the big break I need? What were you up to while your brother was pretending to be you?"

His piercing brown stare challenges me.

What would it be like to be held by him, surrounded by his Alpha pheromones? I bet he smells amazing.

Warmth fills me, and I check my Heat app. Only a few days until it hits.

Licking my lips, I open my laptop once more to the confirmation email on the toy I bought online, a small indulgence to help take the edge off of the coming fever to mate.

I click on the tracking number, and my heart skips a beat. Delivery is scheduled for tomorrow.

"Looks like we have a date, Caleb," I tell the poster. "You may like pale blonds when you're facing down the paparazzi, but in here, you like me."

Too bad things only go my way in my fantasies.