Chapter 2

“The fuck is that smell and why is it so sweet?”

Matthew knew that scent, knew exactly what scent Alessandro was talking about. It was a scent that haunted him night and day, which filled him with strength and followed him with every step. It was a scent that permeated through the walls, drifted on the air, and followed him every step through the house.

Never before had it been so fresh. Not since the first time he had smelled it. Since then, it had slowly faded until only he could distinguish it from all the others.

That scent was back and stronger than ever, particularly if the others could smell it.

Tommy snickered. “Wonder if the boss has a new girl—”

Matthew shot daggers at him. “It doesn’t matter where the scent is coming from. It has nothing to do with any of us.”

His words were a growl, thick, cutting off the others from any retorts.

Still, it was a lie. No matter the scent’s source, he was already wrapped up in it, a man set on his task and his hunt. He would seek it out, bathe in it, and lose himself to the sensations.

For the first time in years, he was on the verge of losing himself entirely to his other side but the promise of something—and only that promise—held it at bay.

“Too sweet for me,” Ricky said from the rear and shoved Tommy, who was in front of him. “Right?”

“Right,” Alessandro agreed as he locked eyes with Matthew.

Matthew could tell his right-hand was thinking too much but they weren’t paid to think and when Alessandro would demand answers from him later, he wouldn’t have to give them.

“Make yourselves scarce,” he ordered.

Even without Boss Santorini’s appointment, he was the strongest of them all, having fought for his place over the years to command his own team. They knew to spread themselves throughout the house, close enough that he could call for them but far enough away from everyone else.

After all, this evening was about family and reintroducing the boss’s daughter to them.

Not that he had ever met her.

Gabriella had gone off to higher education while he was still in his early days, right when his Alpha nature had lost its head. That was right around the only time he had really lost his shit, lost himself to a rut.

Since then, he had been a good Alpha enforcer, taking his injections and doing as the doctors instructed. There wasn’t exactly a plethora of Omegas running around interested in a guy who was in with the Santorini family—or at least not with an enforcer.

Omegas were a distraction, no longer the tease they had once been but a reminder of something he would never have.

And Gabriella? He had never thought one way or another about the girl. The boss’s daughter? Well, it wasn’t his job to know or care anything about her beyond what the boss thought to tell him.

Now that she was back? He was to keep her safe, not that he had met her yet. The next day, he would, as he was not yet good enough to rub elbows with those the boss was meeting that evening.

And yet...

That scent ...

Even as he approached the side door, he couldn’t get the scent out of his head. It was the sweetest he had ever breathed in his life but not too sweet. It was rich, crashing through him in waves and as he stood in front of the door, it was becoming even heavier, coming from the room he was about to enter.

Shit , maybe the boss did have a new girl.

Maybe he would linger around if the boss would let him.

Knocking twice, Matthew took a deep breath, one last one to hold him over, then inhaled through his mouth. However, he could taste it, that heady, rich scent. It was coming in waves so heavy, he—

“Matty,” Boss Santorini said as he opened the door and stepped through. “Is it all taken care of?”

“As you said, Boss,” he confirmed, nodding in respect. “My team has moved in around the house. If anything should happen—”

“But nothing is going to happen,” his boss said, clapping him on the arm. “Not tonight. You have seen to it that we are safe and all will go well.”

Matthew nodded and tried to remember to not breathe too deeply so as to not lose his mind. It was dense, rolling off of his boss but not so thick that he was the source. It had to be coming from the room. He needed to be in there.

“Anything else I can do for you, Boss?” he forced himself to ask, trying to not grit his teeth.

Santorini looked him over from head to toe, then tipped a nod. “You’re dressed well enough and it will be good for you to be seen. Remind the others.”

Yes. Remind the family. As though they forget who or, rather, what walked around the prestigious Santorini estate, keeping the peace and enforcing the power of the family name.

But Matthew wasn’t going to point that out. Not if it meant getting him a step closer to the very thing that would haunt his every waking moment if he couldn’t discover the source.

“Come. Have a drink. You should meet my daughter.”

His daughter.

Surely, that couldn’t be the source of the scent.

The boss’s daughter, as far as Matthew and everyone else were concerned, was a mere child, only just stepping into her role as her father’s heir. While Matthew had never met the girl, he knew of her as a child, nothing more. Not a woman.

As Boss Santorini opened the door, Matthew glimpsed the boss’s daughter. She was certainly no child.

Not with the way her dress wrapped around her body, hinting at what was underneath. She wore stockings with a seam, heels that must have taken practice to stand in and had the figure to match. Her form was made to be bent and twisted about, made to take the force of what only he could give. The way the dress clung and folded neatly around her belly—not that it could hide from him—all the way up to her breasts, the wideness of her hips, the thickness of her thighs, hidden from his view by the way she was standing.

He knew the woman he was staring at was no child.

“Ahh, she is talking to Marco. It is not surprising, given how he is moving to place his nephew at her side. Keep an eye on him. An eye on all of them.”

Matthew couldn’t move. He could hardly even breathe. The fading scent, the one lingering in the walls and chasing after his every step, had since refreshed, slamming him in the face.

He was going to lose his fucking mind.

“And relax,” Santorini said, clapping him on the back. “Have a glass of wine. Keep your eyes on everyone. You know I can only trust you with mine and my daughter’s safety.”

Safety. Protection. Protect her. Protect her from all of them. Any of them could scent her, could know who she is, could know that she’s—

Mine.

The word reverberated in his head, ringing in his ears. She was his. She belonged to him. She belonged beside him, under him, with him. Her scent was calling to him, screaming at him.

Yet something about it was changed from what he remembered. It was ripe and fresh so many years ago but it was now muted somehow, as though something was trying to dampen it, to keep it hidden. Perhaps everyone wouldn’t know her by scent alone but everyone wasn’t like him.

He had to be mistaken. There was no chance of it. Because no boss would be stupid enough to bring an Omega anywhere near a room filled with Alphas.

It had to be perfume. Something to make others trust her. Perhaps it was her medical treatments, something the boss had muttered. She had a condition like her mother that made her unwell. The boss wanted to use something with the Alphas to make her stronger but how could that make her smell so ripe and supple? Whatever it was, his proximity should’ve sent him into a frenzy, should’ve had him tearing apart every person who stood in the room, should’ve had him losing his mind, making him a liability.

If she was one of them , the boss never would have allowed him and his men on the estate, let alone in the house and him in this very room. So, no, he was mistaken because he was still sane or, at least, sane enough to accept a glass of wine and sip it, even though his hand shook.

He had self-control but no Alpha could smell the sweet scent of an unmated Omega and not go into a frenzy.

He warred with himself, watching her speak to every person approaching her, watching as she introduced herself, as she smiled, as she laughed, as she nodded. When she turned herself away from him, she showed him more and more of her backside. Alphas in the room gazed at her and salivated with him but then he looked and saw others.

Betas. Betas had the same look in their eyes. And that made him pause.

Because while the sweet scent of an Omega was a beacon calling to an Alpha, to a Beta, it should have sent them running in the other direction. If she was truly an Omega, then they should’ve been pulling away from her, particularly if she was unmated. If she already had an Alpha, then he would have been able to smell an Alpha on her and so would every Beta in the room.

But she was singing to him with her essence, a fragrance he longed to soak himself in.

It wasn’t real. Whatever was done to her—because something was done to her—was unlike any Omega he had ever scented. He had been lucky enough, more than once, to come across Omegas ripe with need and on the verge of heat. He knew how sweet that was, but this was different. Tamer or—no, not tame. Nothing about the woman he was staring at could ever be called tame. Sophisticated. Her scent was sophisticated.

Just like the twist of her hair and the seam of her stockings and the way her dress wrapped around her body. Even the way she held her wine glass and the way she offered her hand to every man who approached her. She was... Sophisticated.

Meanwhile, Matthew was struggling to keep himself from ripping out every man’s throat who approached her, starting with the Morcan brat.

Alpha or not, he would be unable to control the beauty Matthew was losing himself in. Gabriella. Gabriella Santorini. Beauty. Angel. Not an Omega, despite smelling as sweet as one.

Fuck. This was not good.

It was agony in a way he never could have imagined, a pain he had to endure. Watching man after man approach her, kiss her hand, occasionally even hug her. Young and old alike, it did not matter, every Alpha for miles could smell his pheromones and would know the rage bubbling within him. If he was lucky, those in the room who did not know him would think he was simply angry to have to stand guard in the corner. His team, if they were still in the building, however, would know the truth.

He would have to beat the shit out of Tommy on principle before the other Alpha could even speak because, otherwise, the teasing would be constant.

He stood there, still as stone, watching only her. Was he to be guarding the boss and his heir? Yes, but he could not look away from her. She was young. She was new. The boss could take care of himself, but she was the unknown. Could she defend herself? Had she ever drawn blood? Had she ever even shot a gun? She had no pistol strapped to her, of that, he was certain, not with how tightly her dress wrapped around her thick figure. No place, not even between her thighs, to hide a blade.

She was defenseless and it was his sole duty to protect her.

He received a small reprieve when women approached her, allowing him to sip wine he had been handed at some point. White-knuckling it, he didn’t look away, focusing on her.

The alcohol was too weak to relax him in any form, so he remained rigid, watching as another boy strolled up to her and then his father. Some were members of the family, others mere associates, and he watched them all.

Watched and waited until...

Eyes were on him, and he forced himself to look away from her, toward the set of eyes focusing on him.

Ah, that Alpha whelp. Matthew knew all about him. He thought himself to be strong because he was an Alpha but with his strength and changes to his body, he did nothing. He was untrained and relied entirely on his basic pheromones to make others around him uncomfortable and take the upper hand.

Disgusting. How would the boy ever protect an Omega? How would he ever be strong enough to protect his mate?

Yet, with the wealth at the whelp’s disposal, he would likely find an Omega long before Matthew did. The unfortunate way of the world.

“She has done well, has she not?”

The boss’s voice startled Matthew, and he blinked to look down at the man, then up again. A wave of panic slammed into him when he noticed she had disappeared before he found her tightly hugging Toronto Bertino, her mother’s uncle. Of everyone in the room, the old man was the least likely to harm her.

Although having relaxed, he still didn’t look away nor did he answer the boss.

Because, at that moment, she looked up, then toward him, and everything stopped.

Matthew forgot everyone else in the room, forgot his job, his position, forgot even his own name. All he knew was her sweet face looking at him, the face of a woman who knew too much, yet not enough. She was older than he had imagined, although he knew for a fact she was only a year or two younger than himself.

“Gabriella, come,” the boss called out, shaking him from his own thoughts. “There is one more you must meet this evening.”

Panic flooded him at the realization that the boss meant him. He had known there would be an introduction the next evening for her to meet all the enforcers but for him to meet her now, he was unprepared. Yes, he had the boss’s trust in a way no others could compare to, but to be allowed in her presence first meant something.

It was a true test of his abilities to not lose his shit, but he remained stoic, staring at her as she approached, unable to look away.

She took him in. Her eyes didn’t remain in one place, and he, for the first time, wanted to make himself smaller.

She was tiny compared to him, barely seemed to come to his chest, even in her heels. Being intimidating had always served him well but he worried she would be afraid of him and the power in his hands. Why it should matter, he had no idea, with her being so high above him, but an Alpha could dream.

If she ever looked at him with fear, he would shoot himself.

“Matty, my boy, this is Gabriella, my daughter. You will keep an eye on her, will you not?”

He tried not to shudder at his nickname and instead gave a simple nod. He didn’t trust himself to speak.

“Gabriella, Matty will be escorting us to our meeting tomorrow. There is none I trust like him.”

He already knew that but to have it said filled him with pride and an idea. The boss always had a team close to him and often chose Matthew’s team. That trust, he would have to find a way to have his team moved to Gabriella’s detail, her personal security. How to make it happen, however, would be a real test.

“He must be quite trustworthy, then,” Gabriella answered, her voice warmer and richer than he could ever imagine. “And quite reliable and dependable. Do you think I’ll be able to trust him, Papa?”

He would lay down his life in an instant for hers and would have to prove that.

“It would be my pleasure to serve you, Miss Santorini.”

Gabriella . He didn’t trust his voice to say her name, but it echoed in his mind. Gabriella .

Her eyes closed, and he imagined... no, it was not his imagination. The richest scent flooded his senses, not as sweet as before nor as raw. This was deeper. Like when his fingers sank into the earth or when he tasted blood after a good hit in the gym. It was carnal. It was her . The scent was coming from her.

And she, the demoness she was, smirked at him, like she knew he was being tortured, like she enjoyed it.

“We’ll certainly see, won’t we?”

Matthew froze as she nodded at the boss, then took her father’s arm. They walked away together, and she looked back, smirking again. He was unable to move, paralyzed, trapped.

She was enchanting. He was enchanted.

The scent was too subtle to be an Omega’s but it was also not the scent of a Beta. She was no Alpha. Of that, he was certain but what she was in truth?

She was an enigma, a puzzle for him to solve, and he would do anything, give anything, to serve her.

The time of not asking questions and existing only to take orders was over. Where, in the past, he never questioned things nor dug deeper, his path had since changed. He was an educated man or, at least, tried to be until his Alpha instinct had taken over. He was younger than most Alphas when he presented, as the fighting had brought it out of him. Even with college left behind, he was more than just a set of muscles.

It was time to prove that. To become more than an Alpha enforcer. To become useful. To be whatever it was Gabriella needed.

He would become her right-hand.

But first, he needed to visit the docs and maybe have his meds upped because his Alpha pheromones shouldn’t have risen so high on his current dosage in a noncombat environment. Second, he needed to lay off the protein shakes because, clearly, they were screwing with his brain. And third, he needed to go beat the shit out of new recruits to work out whatever was building in him.

Because the following night, he would see her again, and he would be ready to do whatever she would ask.