Make The Alpha Pay

The scream that tears from my throat doesn't sound human. It's something primal, raw, the sound of a world ending in real time.

"Asher!"

I'm running before my mind catches up, my bare feet slapping against the wet asphalt. The summer storm that had been threatening all evening finally broke just as I heard the screech of tires, the sickening crunch of metal meeting flesh. Now the rain mixes with something darker on the road.

My mate lies twisted on the pavement like a broken doll, his carpenter's hands—hands that built our daughter's treehouse, that traced my face in the morning light—now still and wrong.

Blood pools beneath his head, reflecting the streetlight in a way that makes my stomach lurch.

"No, no, no." The words tumble out as I drop to my knees beside him, my hands hovering over his body, afraid to touch, afraid not to. His chest rises and falls in shallow, ragged breaths.

Alive. He's alive.

The acrid smell of burnt rubber and engine coolant fills the air, mixed with the metallic tang of blood and something else—expensive cologne.

My head snaps up toward the sleek black sports car that sits like a predator twenty feet away, its front end crumpled, headlight shattered.

Alpha Grayson Cross sits behind the wheel, and my heart stops for an entirely different reason.

He's not getting out. He's not running to help. He's sitting there, perfectly composed, his phone pressed to his ear as if this is nothing more than a minor inconvenience.

"Get my lawyer," his voice cuts through the rain and my panic, sharp and commanding. "There's been a... complication."

Complication.

My mate is dying on the asphalt, and he calls it a complication.

I can see him clearly through the spider-webbed windshield. His dark hair is perfectly styled despite the crash, his expensive suit unmarked. There's no blood on him, no sign of distress. Just cold calculation as he speaks into his phone.

"I don't care what time it is, Marcus. Get down here now. And call Judge Elsworth—tell him I need a favor."

Judge Elsworth. Even through my terror, the name registers. The same judge who dismissed the Hendricks family's case against the Alpha last year when their son was beaten by Grayson's security team.

Asher's breathing grows more labored, and I finally touch him, my hands shaking as I stroke his face.

"Stay with me," I whisper. "Please, Asher, stay with me. June needs you. I need you."

His eyelids flutter, and for one desperate moment, I think he's going to open his eyes, going to speak. Instead, his body goes completely limp.

"No!" I press my ear to his chest, relief flooding through me as I hear the faint, irregular beat of his heart. "Help!" I scream into the night. "Someone help us!"

The Alpha's voice drifts over again, still maddeningly calm. "The Delta was jaywalking. Came out of nowhere. You know how these lower ranks are—no sense of traffic safety."

Jaywalking.

I whip around to stare at him, rain and tears blurring my vision. Asher wasn't jaywalking. He was in the crosswalk, coming back from the bakery with June's birthday cake. I can see the white box now, its contents scattered across the wet pavement, pink frosting roses trampled and ruined.

Tomorrow is our daughter's eighth birthday.

Grayson finally ends his call and steps out of the car. He's massive, even for an Alpha, his presence filling the space around him like a dark cloud. His eyes—cold, pale blue—scan the scene with the detached interest of someone examining a broken appliance.

He doesn't look at Asher. He doesn't look at me.

Instead, he walks to the front of his car, examining the damage with a slight frown. "Damn," he mutters, running a finger along a scratch in the paint. "This is going to cost a fortune to fix."

Something inside me snaps.

"You hit him!" I surge to my feet, my voice cracking with rage and desperation. "He was in the crosswalk! You were speeding!"

Grayson's gaze finally settles on me, and I feel the full weight of his Alpha presence pressing down like a physical force. Most wolves would submit immediately, would bare their throat and beg forgiveness for daring to speak.

I don't.

"Careful, little Delta," he says, his voice soft and dangerous. "Accusations like that could get you in a lot of trouble."

"Trouble?" I laugh, and it sounds broken even to my own ears. "You think I care about trouble? You've killed him!"

"Killed?" Grayson tilts his head, almost amused. "He's still breathing, isn't he? Though I suppose that could change if the ambulance takes too long."

The casual cruelty of it, the complete lack of remorse, hits me like a physical blow. This isn't an accident to him. It's not even a tragedy. It's an inconvenience, something to be managed and swept under the rug.

Sirens wail in the distance, growing closer.

"Here's what's going to happen," Grayson continues, straightening his tie. "The paramedics will take your mate to the hospital. The police will file their report—an unfortunate accident caused by a pedestrian's poor judgment. My insurance will cover the medical bills, and everyone will move on with their lives."

"And if I tell them the truth?"

His smile is sharp as a blade. "The truth? The truth is that you're a grieving mate who's not thinking clearly. The truth is that witnesses can be... unreliable. The truth is that I am the Alpha of this pack, and my word carries considerably more weight than yours."

The ambulance rounds the corner, its lights painting everything in harsh reds and blues. As the paramedics rush toward Asher, Grayson leans closer to me, his voice dropping to a whisper.

"Pray he survives, little Delta. Because if he doesn't, you'll learn exactly how powerless you really are."

He walks away then, pulling out his phone again as if nothing has happened. As if my entire world hasn't just been shattered.

I watch the paramedics work on Asher, watch them load his broken body onto a stretcher. One of them—a kind-faced woman with gentle hands—squeezes my shoulder.

"We're taking him to St. Mary's," she says. "Are you family?"

"His mate," I whisper.

"Then you should know—his injuries are severe. The next few hours will be critical."

As the ambulance pulls away, carrying the other half of my soul into an uncertain darkness, I stand alone in the rain. Grayson's car is already gone, disappeared into the night as if this never happened.

But I remember everything. The smell of his cologne. The cold calculation in his eyes. The way he examined his car's paint job while my mate bled on the pavement.

And in that moment, as I stare at the pink frosting roses scattered like fallen petals across the asphalt, something crystallizes inside me. Something cold and hard and utterly unforgiving.

He thinks he's untouchable. He thinks his power, his money, his Alpha status makes him invincible.

He's wrong.

I will make him pay for this. I will tear down everything he's built, everything he values, everything he holds dear. I will show him exactly how powerless he really is.

And when I'm done, when his world is nothing but ashes around his feet, I'll make sure he knows it was me.

The little Delta he dismissed. The grieving mate he threatened.

The woman he should never have underestimated.