Stealing the Alpha’s Heart

Emma line texted me that she was heading out about halfway through my drive home. Not that I texted while I drove, not when my car’s Bluetooth system took care of that for me. Judging by the number of smiling emoticons the speaker listed, she and my mate had quite a good time.

Which pleased me, naturally. After our talk in the morning, I worried that I was making Lyssa’s life so much worse rather than better. I didn’t mean to be overbearing, but it would be much easier if Lyssa would let someone take care of her. I admired her strength and her determination, but I didn’t want her to have to scrap and fight for every little thing. She didn’t deserve that.

But as we said, it was something both of us needed to work on. I was certain that we were meant to be mates down to a molecular level.

Traffic allowed me to zip the rest of the way home fairly quickly, and I strode in to see Lyssa sitting at the island, dressed smartly in a pair of business slacks and a fitted, teal shirt with a pinstriped vest.

She looked amazing, but after our talk, I reined my reaction. “You look great,” I said while my inner wolf howled that it would defeat an entire pack of rabid ferals for her.

“Thanks, your sister did a good job.”

“It’s been a while since she’s had a gal pal to hang out with. She seemed to have a blast.” I wasn’t sure what I was expecting, but it wasn’t for Lyssa to let out a loud snort. “What?”

“You know gal pal is code for being a lesbian couple, right?”

“What? No. Since when?”

“Since ever, man. It’s a joke because historians always call lesbians best friends, gal pals, or roommates.” She shot me a skeptical look. “You’ve really never seen a meme about ‘just gals being pals?’”

“I don’t spend much time online looking through memes.”

“Ugh, that’s right, you’re old.”

“I’m twenty-six!”

“Yeah, basically ancient.” She stuck out her tongue, and I gave her a good-natured eye roll.

“I see how it is.” But the truth was that I loved it. Clearly, her confidence had gotten a boost between when I talked to her on the phone and when I came home, letting me see more of that personality that I loved.

“I’m sure you do.” But her snarky expression faded, replaced with a sweeter smile. “But seriously, I did enjoy hanging out with her.”

“That’s awesome. I hope you both find the time to do that more often. Emmaline can get so wrapped up in her work.”

“Yeah, she takes her business pretty seriously.”Nôvel(D)ra/ma.Org exclusive © material.

“She sure does. You ready to head out?”

“Sure! I kinda forgot to eat lunch with all the makeover stuff.”

“Can’t say I’ve ever done the same,” I shot back, opening the door for her.

“Well, not all of us are blessed with thick lashes that go on for days and bone structure that could chisel itself out of the side of a mountain.”

If I’d been drinking water then, I would have spit it out. “Where do you come up with this stuff?”

“My brain, naturally,” Lyssa said, strutting by me. And boy, did I appreciate the show. “Unlike some people, I prefer to talk out of my head instead of my as*s.”

“Are you referring to me, dear?”

She just batted her eyelashes at me. “Whyever would you say that?”

“Yeah, yeah, Miss Smarty-Pants, let’s go to the car.”

“You’re the one who bought me the pants, so whose fault is that?”

“Noted.”

We continued to banter all the way to the car and even the restaurant itself; conversation flowed without our usual bickering. It was refreshing, that was certain, especially since it felt like both of us were trying.

Even when we recapped the plan over our meal, there wasn’t any arguing. Maybe because she felt an equal part and less like she was being forced into something? That would make sense considering all that she was struggling with.

“Do you have any other questions?” I asked as our food was brought to our table. It was cute how Lyssa’s eyes grew wide, her mouth borderline drooling over the roasted salmon in front of her. Oh, I would have so much fun feeding her all the nicest things.

But first, our little heist.

“No, I think I’m pretty good. You and Parker are gonna wolf-Karen it up in there. You threaten to leave Hannah to be a consultant while I get into the building and where I need to be to insert the jump drive, take it out after three minutes, then beat it.”

“You say it so casually,” I murmured, resting my chin in my hand.

“Because I’m pretty confident that I can do all of this. It’s not even the trickiest thing I’ve ever had to do.”

“Well, I trust you.”

Those seemed to be the magic words because Lyssa’s face flushed, and she cut herself off to shovel food in her mouth. But then she seemed distracted by the sheer flavor of the dish and started genuinely eating it.

It was nice to have our little meal together, and I wished it could last much longer. But after an hour and a half, we both realized we needed to get going.

We would have the rest of our lives to leisurely dine at our favorite places. For the moment, our pack recovering our moonstone was pretty damn important.

If we lived in a perfect world, I would have held her hand as we walked to our rendezvous point hand in hand. But I recognized that we weren’t quite there yet and just contented myself to stroll along beside her.

Sure enough, everyone arrived on time, and we headed toward our target building. Once we were close, Lyssa stopped us. “All right, give me whatever paperwork I need. And Hannah, can I have your purse?”

“Uh, what? Why?”

“Just trust me on this.”

Our intern looked at me uncertainly, but I just nodded. Whatever Lyssa was planning had to be based on what she knew of the building, and what Addison had told her from the unnoticeable woman’s visit.

“All right then….”

With that handled, we headed in.

Clearly, the receptionist was not prepared for the alpha of a rival pack to come striding in with an entourage, her eyes growing wide as we approached her.

“Mr. Reese! You’re here early!”

“Yes, my constituents and I had an earlier commitment fall through. We thought perhaps your CEO, Rex Bronson, would be willing to give us a bit of a tour as an act of goodwill.”

I did my best to sound imperious, which wasn’t exactly my strong suit. I had no problem standing up for my pack when they needed it or being a leader, but I liked to think I did it without a condescending attitude.

“U-u-uh…” I felt bad for the receptionist. She was just trying to do her job. But it was all a part of the plan.

“Surely it’s not too much of a request considering the future our companies want to build together. If a tour is out of line, I hate to think of how more important things will be handled.”

“How will we work with people who aren’t even considerate of our time?” Parker added, voice much lower and flatter than I was used to. Huh, he seemed to have a talent for acting.

“Let me see if his assistant is available to touch base with. One moment.”

I was grateful that I didn’t have to bluster any more than that. I didn’t want to have to be abusive with a woman who was just doing her job.

She stepped away from the desk just far enough, so I had to strain to hear the other side of the call, and a few moments later, she returned to us.

“His assistant will be down in just a few minutes to take you on that tour. Thank you for your patience.” It didn’t take werewolf super senses to tell that she was relieved we’d be out of her hair.

Sure enough, maybe three minutes later, the CEO’s assistant arrived through a pair of overly polished elevators. He was a slighter man, with a sort of weaselly look that I didn’t really like. Naturally, I didn’t say that, but I did my best to continue posturing like a knothead while our tour began.

We kept him on his toes; I could say that much. Parker, Hannah, and I peppered him with questions like how many people worked in certain departments, their average profit percentage or productivity rates, just anything that seemed slightly plausible but also pretty obscure. The assistant wasn’t as nervous as the receptionist but wasn’t at ease either.

When all this was said and done, I would need to do something nice for some office workers, just to even out my cosmic karma.

It was exhausting being a jerk, but I kept it up as best I could until we walked into the CEO’s office. Perfect timing because he was just saying goodbye on his phone as we entered.

“Ah, Mr. Reese and crew. I hope you liked your tour of our humble facilities.”

“It was adequate,” I said, offering my hand. Despite our poor behavior, he continued to shake everyone else’s hands as well. Even Hannah’s. But when it came to Lyssa, she stumbled a bit as she tried to juggle all the paperwork she was holding, sending it scattering everywhere.

“Oh my God, I’m so sorry! I-I-I-” she cut herself off and dropped to her knees, hurriedly trying to pick it up.

“It’s hard to find good help, isn’t it?” I remarked, making eye contact with the man and mentally urging him to pay attention to me. I was certain that Lyssa was up to something important, and I figured she could use a little distraction.

“I know what you mean,” the CEO agreed, and yeah, if I hadn’t already known it, I was sure I didn’t like the guy right then and there. He was so smarmy, enough so that I felt like I was going to need to take a shower later just to get his scuzz off me.

“You don’t have to worry about all that, sweetie,” he continued, not even looking to Lyssa. “Arron, would you take some of this paperwork off this young woman’s hands?”

“Of course, sir.”

“There we go. We’ll leave them to that while the rest of us head to my preferred meeting room. This way.”

Lyssa knew what she was doing. Sure, I was nervous about leaving her alone with the CEO’s assistant, but she had herself handled.

So instead, I concentrated on my side of the plan, giving the CEO the same treatment we’d given his employee. But this time, I had a focus, questioning the financials as we settled in the meeting room.

“Do you have a spreadsheet on the breakdown of how you factor employee wages into company productivity?”

“I’m sure our financial team has something along those lines, but I’m not sure why you’d need it.”

“We find that’s a key metric to see which employees are worth retaining. From what your assistant told us, you have several bloated teams. It would be interesting to see why, especially if we work together on some of our proposals.”

“Do you have an example of this kind of spreadsheet? I’m afraid this meeting doesn’t exactly come at the most opportune moment. Our CFO and lead of the financial team are both out. We thought after so much postponement, even a meeting with just me would be better than nothing.”

“I’m sure we do. Once my junior assistant returns-”

In another example of perfect timing, a harried-looking Lyssa came in, the CEO’s assistant wearing an annoyed expression. Man, if I could have seen what was happening inside that office while we were gone.

“Ah, there she is. The spreadsheets, please.”

Lyssa set down the paperwork and began to rustle through it, her eyes wide. After a truly awkward amount of time with all of us watching her, she looked up in horror.

“I… must have forgotten to print them out.”

“You what?” Parker asked, perfectly selling a nasty upper employee.

“I’m sorry! But I have them here, on my drive. If there’s a printer around here, I could get them for you ASAP.”

“Did you just ask if we have a printer?” the CEO asked, his tone entirely snide. “Of course we do. My assistant can do it as his desk.”

“Thank you so much!”

Lyssa reached for her pants pocket, only for all the color to drain from her face. “I am so, so sorry for my unprofessionalism, but I think it’s in my purse, which I left on the floor when I was picking up papers. I’ll just run real fast and grab it!”

She hurried out, making sure to close the door behind her, and I found myself holding my breath, sure that the CEO would figure out what we were up to. But instead, he just huffed a laugh.

“Either she’s someone’s daughter, or one of you is shagging her.”

My hackles rose almost instantly, and it took an iron grip on my anger to stop myself from snapping at him. No one talked about my mate that way.

Thankfully, I had Parker, who piped in quickly to keep the arrogant man going. “Hah! You called it in one. But I’ll let you guess which one.”

“Hah, judging by that as*s, I can put two and two together.”

My incisors grew within my mouth, and I had to focus on drinking from the water bottle beside me to keep control. My inner wolf did not like that, and it was all too easy for him to imagine ripping the CEO’s throat out.

“To resume our previous conversation,” I said with plenty of bite in my voice. “We are concerned that you’re currently hemorrhaging far too much money in bloated and redundant departments, so we’re leaving Hannah here to do a little work and help you identify the best ways to cut costs and maximize your output. That way, there’s progress even if your CFO and whole finance team are suddenly AWOL.”

Mr. Bronson let out a flat chuckle, letting me know he wasn’t amused with my input — which was probably a lot more satisfying than it should have been to me.

The conversation continued from there, and I felt like we’d done well to be convincing. It did take Lyssa a bit to return with the assistant, but when she did, she was appropriately breathless. “Here’s the report! Turns out it was under the desk the whole time!”

And that was when her entire plan clicked in my head, from the purse to the paperwork. My mate was clever, that was for sure.

Now we just had to sit through the rest of the meeting, knowing that we’d essentially committed corporate espionage and perhaps even a felony. Not our first as a pack, especially considering I’d just had to put a feral member down, but still pretty heart-pounding.

And yet, somehow, we got the CEO to agree to our terms, even Hannah starting the following week. Having her as a known entity on the inside and Addison as an unknown entity on the inside would give us the perfect advantage to strategize once we could see what Lyssa had managed to get.

“Have Miss Hannah stop by on Friday to get badged access for the appropriate areas of the building. And if you don’t have any other questions, I’m afraid I have a teleconference in just fifteen minutes.”

“No, we’re satisfied with the current state of affairs,” I said, standing and offering my hand again. There was another round of handshakes, except for Lyssa, and then we were headed out.

It was hard not to act like giddy schoolboys as we exited into a van that was waiting for us, windows tinted so that it was impossible to see inside. Naturally, John was driving, with Theo in the passenger’s seat beside him.

No one said anything as we pulled away. In fact, it was nearly an entire block before I turned in my seat to gaze at Lyssa.

“What?”

“Did you get it?”

“You bet your bottom dollar, I did. Maybe next time give me a challenge, why don’t you?”

I laughed, loud and long and full of pride. That was my mate, all right. I was incredibly lucky to have her.

“All right, I’ll make sure to do that.” Pulling out my phone, I dialed up Jacobian, who was back at our pack’s home base.

“Progress?” I asked simply once he picked up.

“We’ve made our way into their internal network. Pretty much everything is accessible through here, but I gotta tell you…”

My stomach dropped at his tone. “What?”

“Their file encryption is, uh… interesting.”

“Can you not break it?”

“No, I can. Kinda.”

“Kinda? What does ‘kinda’ mean?” I was quickly growing annoyed with the vague talk.

“Okay, so I got past most of it, but there’s this sort of weird bug where the folder names were corrupted and now just read as ‘error.’ The files are all intact, but nothing’s organized.”

“That sounds inconvenient.”

“That is the best word for it, alpha. I can access everything, but I’ll have to sift through manually and organize everything myself.”

“And they won’t be able to tell their system has had this error?”

“No, because I’m pretty sure it’s only on our end. Most likely from trying to access their stuff from an offsite IP.”

“Noted. Do your best.”

“Yes, sir.”

At that, I hung up the call, still feeling pretty jazzed. In fact, I was excited enough to do something I usually never did.

“Hey, this Friday, let’s have a celebration. After Hannah gets badged.”

“What’s the occasion?” Parker asked excitedly. Because of course he was.

“Victory,” I answered succinctly.

“Aye, that’s a good reason if I ever heard one. We can have a nice dinner at this restaurant I just bought.”

There was a jovial round of agreements in the van as we headed back to where I’d left my car from my lunch date with Lyssa. When the van stopped, I looked at Hannah and Parker.

“Either of you hungry?” Sure, Lyssa and I had already eaten, but that didn’t mean I was going to leave my other packmates high and dry.

“Oh, no, I’m good for today,” Hannah said, looking truly weary. “That whole meeting was kind of a lot, so I think I’d prefer to go home.”

“We can drive you to your car,” Parker offered helpfully. “I don’t mind, and I’m sure John and Theo don’t.”

“You guys do that,” I said, already half out of the car and offering my hand to Lyssa. “We have our own plans.”

With a few more polite goodbyes, Lyssa and I stepped away from the van and let it drive off. Somehow, even after all we’d done, it was still the early afternoon.

All the better to spend my time with my mate.