The Masked Alpha: My Enemy, My Obsession

POV: Nova

SIX YEARS LATER

​"Sixty thousand dollars by midnight, Miss Sinclair," the billing administrator said. His voice was completely flat, coming through the tinny phone speaker with zero emotion. "We have held room 402 for six years out of courtesy. The board has reached its limit. If the wire transfer is not confirmed by twelve o'clock, we pull his feeding tubes and transfer Eli to the county charity ward."

​"A charity ward is a death sentence for a comatose patient," I said, holding the phone tight against my ear. "You know as well as I do that those wards don't have dedicated oxygen monitors. He won't survive forty-eight hours."

​"Then I suggest you find sixty thousand dollars in the next three hours," the administrator replied. "Or start making arrangements with a funeral home. Goodnight, Miss Sinclair."

​The line went dead.

​I ended the call and leaned my back against the cold brick wall of the back alley behind Club Venom. I pulled up my personal bank application. The digital screen displayed my total life savings: five hundred and twelve dollars and forty cents.

​Fifty-nine thousand, four hundred and eighty-seven dollars short.

​I was twenty-four years old, living as an unregistered rogue wolf in the human slums, working sixteen hours a day just to buy another month of oxygen for my brother. Eli was twenty-seven, trapped inside his own mind ever since the night our parents were executed and our estate was burned to the ground.

​If I used my wolf strength to rob an armored bank truck, the Royal Alpha Council’s enforcers would track my bloodline signature within an hour and put a silver bullet through my spine. If I did nothing, Eli died at midnight.

​I put my phone into my pocket, pushed open the rear metal door, and walked back inside the club.

​The noise hit me instantly. Club Venom was a double-decker night venue operating in the neutral border zone. The main floor was packed with low-ranking wolves, human tourists, and cheap alcohol. The upper floor was reserved for high-paying wolf clients—wealthy Alphas who called themselves Doms. They wore full face masks, paid thousands of dollars for private VIP booths, and demanded total compliance from the hostesses they hired.

​I walked up to the central bar counter where Clara was wiping down the beer taps with a rag. Clara was human, my roommate, and my only friend in this city. She didn't know I was a wolf, and she certainly didn't care about polite feelings.

​"Let me guess," Clara said, taking one look at my face. "The hospital called, and the guy on the phone didn't offer you a discount."

​"I need sixty thousand dollars by midnight," I said, leaning my hands on the sticky wood. "Or they kick Eli into the street."

​Clara snorted loudly and dropped her rag onto the counter. "Sixty grand? Nova, you have five hundred bucks to your name. What are you going to do, rob a bank in the next three hours?"

​"I need ten thousand dollars tonight as a down payment," I said. "If I give them ten thousand, the administrator promised to delay the transfer until Monday. That gives me forty-eight hours to figure out the rest."

​"Ten thousand dollars in three hours?" Clara stared at me like I had lost my mind. "Selling cheap beer to broke rogues on the main floor? Are you insane? You make twenty dollars an hour plus tips here. You could work for six months straight without sleeping and you still wouldn't have ten grand."

​"I know the math, Clara," I said dryly. "I am asking you how I get put on the high-tier rotation tonight."

​"You don't want the high-tier rotation," Clara said flatly. She leaned over the bar and lowered her voice. "Those VIP guys upstairs are not looking for someone to hand them a vodka soda and laugh at their stupid jokes. They pay ten thousand dollars a night because they want total control over a girl. They will want to bend you over, boss you around, treat you like a shiny toy for two months, and tell you when you are allowed to breathe. Your pride is way too big for that. You would punch a guy in the jaws before the first hour is up."

​"My pride does not keep Eli breathing," I said. "Which room has the highest spender tonight?"

​Clara looked at me for a long moment, realizing I wasn't joking. The sarcastic smirk vanished from her face.

​"Room Four," Clara said quietly. "The guy bought out the whole upper floor for the night so nobody else could book the surrounding rooms. He pays five thousand dollars every ten minutes just to sit in there."

​"Five thousand every ten minutes?" I repeated.

​"Yes," Clara said. "But listen to me, Nova. Something is wrong with that guy. He wears a heavy leather mask that covers his whole face. He hasn't ordered a drink, he hasn't touched any of the girls who went in earlier, and security stays ten feet away from his door because he looks like he kills people for fun. Even the pack Alphas who come in here give his door a wide berth."

​"Is he paying cash or credit?" I asked.

​"Direct digital credit transfers," Clara said. "The moment a hostess enters his room and stays for ten minutes, the club system auto-credits her account. But the girls who tried earlier came running out in less than two minutes because he just sat there staring at them until they panicked."

​"They panicked because they wanted to tease him for extra tips," I said. "I don't care about teasing him. I care about the ten thousand dollars."

​"Nova, seriously," Clara warned, reaching over the bar to grab my forearm tight. "Do not mess with a guy like that. If he gets aggressive, the club guards will not protect you. He has enough money to buy this building and burn it down with us inside."

​"If he pays Eli's bill, he can burn the building down after I get the receipt," I said.

​I pulled my arm back, turned away from the bar, and walked toward the private staircase at the back of the room.

​My wolf, Shade, stirred inside my mind. This is a bad idea, she whispered. That man upstairs is an Alpha. A powerful one.

​Shut up, Shade, I snapped back mentally. Fear is for people who have money in the bank.

​I walked up the carpeted stairs to the VIP hallway. The air upstairs was quiet, completely cut off from the loud bass of the dance floor below.

​Two massive security guards stood outside VIP Room Four. They were broad-shouldered wolves built like brick walls, wearing dark suits with radio earpieces. As I approached, both guards stepped into the center of the hallway, blocking the door.

​"Room is closed," the guard on the left said in a low growl. "Client bought the floor."

​"I am staff," I said, pointing to the plastic badge pinned to my black dress. "I am logging the shift check."

​"The client told us he does not want hostess company," the guard replied.

​"He hasn't rejected the official shift rotation on the door panel," I said smoothly. "If I don't log my entry, my manager docks my pay. Let me open the door, log the entry, and if he tells me to leave, I leave."

​The two guards exchanged a brief look. The guard on the right shrugged. "Your funeral. He is not in a talking mood."

​The guard swiped his master keycard across the lock, and the heavy steel door clicked open.

​I took a deep breath, pushed the door open, and stepped inside.

​The door shut behind me with a heavy thud, locking out all sound from the hallway.

​VIP Room Four was large and dimly lit. Sitting on the central leather couch was a tall man in a dark suit. His head was covered by a thick leather mask that concealed his entire face except for his mouth and his eyes.

​His eyes were green. Sharp, bright green, like polished glass. The moment the door closed, those eyes locked directly onto mine.

​The pressure inside the room was immediate. He didn't say a word, but his posture radiated authority, wealth, and dangerous power. He looked like a man who gave commands and expected total obedience without argument.

​"I am Nova," I said, standing near the door. I kept my voice flat, dry, and free of fear. "I am assigned to check on the VIP rooms for this shift. Do you want drinks, company, or should I just stand here looking pretty for ten minutes?"

​The masked man didn't answer immediately. He stared at me through the eye slits of his mask, taking in my appearance from my cheap black dress down to my scuffed shoes.

​"Sit down," he said.

​His voice was deep, rough, and carried a natural weight that made the air feel heavy. It was not a request. It was a direct command.

​Shade growled in my head. Ooh, authoritative.

​Shut up, Shade, I thought back.

​"I prefer to stand," I told the masked man. "It keeps things brief, and I have work downstairs."

​"Sit," he repeated.

​He didn't raise his voice. He dropped his tone lower, adding a sharp edge of threat to the word.

​I weighed my options quickly. If I argued and walked out, I got zero dollars. If I sat down for ten minutes, five thousand dollars landed in my account.

​I rolled my eyes mentally, walked across the carpet, and dropped onto the small chair sitting opposite his couch. I crossed my legs and looked directly into his green eyes.

​"The room costs five thousand for ten minutes," I said, pointing to the digital tablet on the glass table between us. "Sign the tablet on the table so I know I am not wasting my breath sitting here."

​The masked man looked at me for three seconds. Then, without a word, he reached his left hand forward to touch the digital screen.

​To reach the tablet, he pulled back the sleeve of his suit jacket three inches.

​I looked down at his exposed wrist.

​My entire brain stopped functioning.

​Burned deep into the skin of his left wrist was a thick scar: a long, thin dagger with a serpent coiled completely around the blade.

​A dagger with a serpent.

​Suddenly, I was not twenty-four years old in a nightclub anymore. I was seventeen again. I was trapped inside the dark ventilation shaft of my family’s house, choking on thick black smoke, looking through the metal slots of the vent grill. I was watching my mother and father lie dead on the floor. And I was watching the lead killer walk away from my burning home, pulling his sleeve down over that exact same brand on his left wrist.

​A dagger wrapped in a serpent.

​I had spent six long, painful years dreaming about that mark. I had memorized every line, every scale on the snake, every sharp edge of the blade. It was the only clue I had to the murder of my family.

​And now, the man wearing that brand was sitting three feet away from me in a private room, wearing an expensive suit and dropping thousands of dollars on a Friday night.

​My chest went ice cold.

​My first instinct was pure rage. Shade roared inside my mind, wanting to burst through my skin, grow claws, and tear his throat open.

​I forced myself to stay completely still. I locked my muscles, dug my fingernails into my palms, and slammed Shade back into her cage.

​If I attacked him right now, I would fail. He was an Alpha wolf with massive physical power, and he had two armed guards right outside the door. If I made a scene, his guards would put a bullet through my head before I could even touch his collar.

​And if I died tonight, Eli’s life support would be turned off at midnight.

​Revenge meant nothing if I ended up dead on the floor before accomplishing it. I needed to be smart. I needed to survive tonight, get Eli's money paid, and figure out who this masked bastard really was.

​The masked man tapped the digital screen, completing the payment. He pulled his left sleeve back down, covering the dagger brand, and leaned back against the leather couch.

​Then he turned those green eyes back to my face.

​"You are staring at my wrist," he said. His tone was smooth, but there was a sharp, dangerous curiosity underneath it.

​I forced my face to stay completely blank. "I was making sure you actually signed the tablet and didn't just scribble on it to waste my time."

​"You are a terrible liar, Nova," he said, leaning forward slightly. "Your eyes changed the second I moved my arm."

​"I am here to do my job, sir," I said flatly.

​"Your job is to entertain me," he said. "So why do you look like you are planning my murder?"

​Because I am planning your murder, I thought. I am going to figure out your name, find out where you live, and cut your throat while you sleep.

​Out loud, I placed my hands on the armrests and began to stand up. "If you don't like my face, I can leave. You still get charged for the ten minutes."

​"No," he said.

​He reached into his inner suit pocket, pulled out a thick black folder, and slapped it hard onto the glass table between us.

​"What is this, a pop quiz?" I asked.

​"It is the money for your brother," he said calmly. "And the contract that gives me total control over your life for the next two months."

​I froze halfway out of my seat, staring at him. "How do you know about my brother?"

​"I know everything about you, Nova," he said in a cold, unstoppable voice. "Open the folder."