WHAT'S MINE

"Leave no one breathing!" Vasco roared, slamming the man in his grip face-first into a steel crate so hard that the metal buckled. "I don't want a single witness, do you hear me?"

"Yes, Alpha!" his men shouted, scattering through the warehouse.

Vasco Kane was the Alpha of the Gravemaw Pack and the leader of the fastest growing mafia in the state. Nothing happened in the underworld without his approval. 

And everyone in their world knew that Aylin Calloway was off limits. 

Even though she was an unprotected omega living alone, the kind of prize men would kill each other for, no one had ever dared to lay a finger on her, because everyone knew who she belonged to.

The only ones who had not known were the idiots who tried to take her tonight. They were 

That was why when he had gotten the call earlier that day that Aylin had been taken by a small crew new to the game and too stupid to ask questions, he had been furious. 

His eyes swept slowly over the wreckage. Not all of them were dead yet, but he would correct that soon enough. 

First, he had to deal with this.

He wiped his bloody knuckles on the dead man's shirt and dropped the limp body.

Then he turned and looked down at the two men kneeling in front of him.

"The only duty you had was to watch her and make sure she stayed safe," Vasco said, his voice terrifyingly calm. “Where the hell is she?”

"We tried, boss," one of the kneeling men stammered, trembling so badly his teeth chattered. "We lost her trail after they took her, and by the time we tracked her here, we saw her driving off, and the warehouse was already like this."

"Bring me someone who was here," Vasco ordered, his eyes glinting dangerously.

Two of his men hurried over, dragging a groaning, half-conscious man between them. 

When they roughly dumped him at his feet, Vasco rested a boot lightly on his throat. 

"Of course you’ll be a low-ranking wolf," he said with a sneer, wrinkling his nose as if he were smelling something disgusting. "What happened here?"

The man swallowed hard against the boot. “I’m so sorry, sir,” he pleaded frantically. “We didn’t know she belonged to you. It was an honest—”

His words broke off as Vasco applied pressure to his throat. 

“That was not the question I asked you,” he growled.

"After we grabbed her, she escaped. Then she returned with a man," the man gasped, his eyes wide with fear. "I… it was unreal, sir."

Vasco's lip curled. "Who?" 

"It was an alpha, sir," the man whispered. "He didn't fight like a wolf. He fought like an assassin."

"Then what happened?" Vasco demanded.

The man hesitated. 

Vasco crouched, placing all his weight on the man’s neck. "Answer me!" He snarled.

"He was taking down everyone!" the man gasped, clawing at the boot. "I ran after he took a bullet for her. I believe they somehow managed to get out of here."

A low growl rolled out of Vasco's chest, and he pressed down slowly with his boot.

"Pl... please, sir," the man choked out. "Forgive..."

A crack echoed as Vasco pressed down sharply, and the man went still.

He turned back to the two men still on their knees.

“There was another Alpha with my woman, and I’m just finding out?!” He thundered. 

"No, sir," one said, his voice shaking so badly he was barely audible. "We have never seen her interact with any other alpha in all our surveillance."

"So he’s lying?" Vasco asked, pointing at the dead man at his feet. "Did he hallucinate an alpha appearing out of thin air?"

The man groaned in agony as Vasco crouched in front of him and grabbed his jaw so hard that the bone creaked.

"You let them take what is mine," Vasco said, his voice as cold as steel. "You useless mongrel."

“We are sorry, alpha,” the second man sobbed, trembling from head to toe. "We had been watching her all day... nothing interesting ever happens, so we went for a smoke."

"For only a second!" the other one quickly interjected. "I swear!"

"Yes, only a second," he continued. "And by the time we got back, she was gone. It happened so fast."

Vasco closed his eyes and drew in a long, slow breath, dragging his wolf back under control by sheer force of will. 

Then he released the man and stood, turning toward the shadows by the entrance of the warehouse. 

"Ajax," he called out to the tall man who had been watching the whole thing in silence. "I want a name. Find out who this alpha is, where he came from, and why he thinks he can just waltz into my territory and take my woman."

"Already working on it, Alpha," Ajax replied evenly, stepping into the light with his phone in his hand. "But right now, we need to leave. Our informant at the police department just called to warn us that the cops are on their way.” 

Vasco’s jaw clenched tight, a low growl rumbling in his chest. 

Ajax quickly nodded at the dead man.

“Remember, he also said the alpha was shot." He rushed out, not wanting to face his boss’s wrath. “That means his blood is somewhere on this floor, and it will be analyzed. Our guy would tell us the results when the police had analyzed it.”  

"Good," Vasco said, calming down a little. 

He gestured at the two kneeling men without looking at them. "Make an example of these two. We don't tolerate failure."

Ignoring the men’s terrified pleas as they were dragged off, Vasco walked out the door. 

"There's more," Ajax added, falling in step beside him. "Our people found two unknown wolves sniffing around outside a few minutes ago. Their scent was not familiar. The boys took care of one of them, but the other one got away."

Vasco's eyes narrowed. "I can bet it’s this mysterious alpha’s people." 

"Should we try to track the car, boss?" one of the younger men called out shakily.

Vasco stared down at the pool of blood flowing from the two dead men at the entrance, and for a long moment he said nothing.

"Send a car to her apartment," he said finally. "If she's there, just watch. She will already be too spooked. Seeing more strange wolves would scare her more.”

“What if she’s not there?” Ajax asked. 

“Find the alpha.” 

"Yes, sir," the man said, nodding, but he hesitated. 

“What is it?” Vasco bit out, making him flinch. 

"There's one more thing. Our scouts spotted more of the crew that grabbed her out on the streets. I think they're still looking for her. Their leader is still out there."

Ajax let out a low, exasperated sigh as a slow, cold smirk spread across his boss’s face. 

"I need him alive," Vasco ordered gleefully. "Let me have some fun."

"Yes, sir!"

The men finished up and scrambled out. 

"She's the key to everything," Vasco murmured as Ajax drove him back to their base. "Without her, it all falls apart."

“We’ll find her,” Ajax replied. Though his voice was calm, his hand tightened around the steering wheel until his knuckles whitened. 

Vasco sank into the car seat as he pulled out his phone and opened a private media folder. 

It held hundreds of photographs of Aylin. There were pictures of her laughing behind the counter at the café she worked at, walking home with her headphones in, standing at her parents' graves in the rain, and asleep at the library with a book under her cheek. 

Some had been taken by his team, some by him. 

He had memorized her coffee order and the exact time her bedroom light went off every night, and he knew which songs made her cry.

Years of planning, watching, and waiting had all been scattered in one night by some reckless miscreants.

Vasco ran his thumb slowly over her face on the screen.

"My little omega," he whispered, his voice all full of desperate longing. "I should have been there to protect you. Something like this would have never happened if you were with me."

He looked up, meeting his right-hand man’s worried eyes in the rearview mirror. “I’ve been watching her long enough. I think it’s time to claim what’s mine.”