C9

Suddenly, the overhead fluorescent lights flickered back on with a loud buzzing sound. The hydraulic brakes unlocked with a loud hiss, and the elevator doors slid wide open to the fourth-floor medical corridor.

The trapped pack members began shoving past one another to escape the enclosure. Elowen didn't hesitate; she tried to bolt forward with the crowd, but Calloway’s grip shifted instantly. His large, gloved hand shot out, catching her wrist in a vice-like hold and dragging her back into the corner of the lift, pinning her shoulder blades hard against the metal wall.

His dark blue eyes burned down into hers with terrifying intensity. "Marlowe...?"

Elowen’s throat seized. She was trapped. She wasn't wearing her brown contact lenses, her natural amber eyes exposed beneath her dark hood, and her face was covered by her cloth mask. If she admitted who she was, her family would destroy her mother. She had no choice. She had to put on the mask of her sister once again.

"C-Calloway...?" Elowen stammered, forcing her voice to sound breathless as she pressed her body closer to his chest, throwing her arms around his neck in a fake show of affection. "Oh Goddess, is that you? I... I did not recognize you in the dark! I was so frightened!"

Calloway’s expression hardened. He stood completely still as she hugged him, his blue eyes narrowing behind his clear-lens glasses. He lowered his face until his lips grazed the bare skin of her jawline, his voice dropping into a dangerous, low hiss. "I missed you."

The dark, possessive tone in his voice sent a shudder straight down her spine. The faint scent of his expensive alpha cologne flooded her senses, triggering vivid, embarrassing memories of her hips pinned beneath him on the silk sheets of his executive suite.

Elowen forced herself to pull back, using her hands to push against his broad chest with calculated firmness. "Calloway... stop, people are watching us!"

"What are you doing in the medical ward, Marlowe?" Calloway asked, his voice calm, steady, and utterly cold. His fingers remained locked around her shoulder, refusing to let her create distance.

Elowen swallowed back her terror, keeping her amber eyes cast downward toward his tailored collar to prevent him from seeing her true eye color clearly. "I am... I am visiting a sick friend from the academy," she lied, her voice barely a whisper. "My mother told me to drop off some supplies. What are you doing here?"

Calloway stared at her silently for three excruciating seconds. The silence in the elevator was deafening. Slowly, he released her shoulder. Elowen let out a soft, hidden sigh of relief, but before she could step away, Calloway reached up with his left hand.

His long, broad fingers gently brushed the blonde synthetic hair of her wig away from her neck, his dark blue eyes fixing directly on the skin near her collarbone.

"W-What are you doing?" Elowen stuttered, taking a sharp step back, but her spine hit the cold steel wall of the lift once more.

Calloway’s thumb traced the exact spot where her crescent-shaped birthmark lay hidden beneath her coat collar. A slow, dark smirk spread across his sharp jawline, though his eyes remained entirely devoid of warmth.

He reached down, grabbing her by the waist once more, pulling her body forward, and pressing his lips firmly against her cloth-covered mouth in a quick, possessive kiss.

"I will call you later, Marlowe," Calloway said smoothly, stepping back into the center of the elevator. "I have Lagos Holdings business to clear on the upper floor."

Elowen didn't wait another second. She flashed him a quick, panicked nod, turned on her heel, and sprinted out of the elevator doors, taking the concrete fire stairs two at a time to escape his presence. As she turned the corner of the staircase, she caught a quick glimpse of Alton Prescott—the enforcer she had helped at the supply depot—rushing down the corridor toward Calloway's elevator.

"Hey! Miss!" Alton called out, recognizing her dark coat, but Elowen ignored him completely, her boots pounding against the concrete stairs as she fled into the upper ward.

Inside the elevator, Calloway Sterling stood frozen against the steel wall, watching the dark-coated female disappear around the stairwell corner.

Alton Prescott came running up to the lift doors, breathing heavily, holding a tablet under his arm. "High Alpha! Are you alright? The grid failure was isolated to the central lifts!"

Calloway raised a single hand, silencing Alton instantly. His dark blue eyes remained locked on the empty doorway where Elowen had just fled.

"Sir... why are you staring down the stairwell?" Alton asked, looking confused as he checked his tablet. "Did something happen?"

"She claimed her name is Marlowe Hartwell," Calloway said, his voice ice-cold and dripping with dangerous calculation.

Alton’s eyebrows knit together in deep confusion. "Marlowe Hartwell? Sir, that is impossible. I was just talking to that female five minutes ago in the ground-level supply depot. She helped me pay for the Lagos Holdings medical wraps when my credit pouch was locked in the car."

Calloway slowly turned his head, his dark blue eyes locking onto Alton. "And?"

"And she doesn't know who I am, High Alpha," Alton explained quickly, pulling up a transaction log on his device. "She didn't recognize the Lagos Holdings security crest, she refused to take extra credits from me, and she said she was managing her dying mother's stall upstairs. Marlowe Hartwell would never step foot in a public supply depot, nor would she ever pay for a guard's supplies."

Calloway reached up, taking off his clear-lens glasses. He folded them closed, one temple at a time, slipping them into his front coat pocket. The polite, calm facade vanished from his face, replaced by the terrifying, raw aura of a High Alpha on the hunt.

"When I touched her skin in the dark, she carried the exact vanilla and strawberry scent of the female who shared my bed at Lagos Holdings," Calloway growled softly, his jaw clenching hard. "And when I moved her collar, the crescent mark was right there on her neck."

Alton gasped softly, his eyes widening in realization. "Then... the female who attended the formal press conference with you last week... the female sitting at the Hartwell Estate..."

"Is an impostor," Calloway finished, his voice dropping into a lethal, quiet fury that made the air in the corridor turn freezing cold.

He stepped out of the elevator, his heavy leather boots echoing against the marble floor as Harrison Beckett stepped up beside him with two armed guards.

"Harrison," Calloway commanded without stopping.

"High Alpha," Harrison answered instantly, standing at attention.

"Lock down every exit of the Sterling Crown Medical Center immediately," Calloway ordered, his blue eyes flashing a dark, predatory amber. "Run a full DNA sweep of every unregistered Omega admitted to the isolation ward over the last thirty days. Find out who is lying on that hospital bed, and bring me the female in the dark coat."

Harrison bowed his head. "Right away, High Alpha."

Calloway stopped near the wide glass windows of the fourth floor, staring down at the snow-covered streets of Sterling City. A dark, ruthless smile spread across his face as he pulled a black cigarette from his case and lit it with a flick of his silver lighter.

"You tried to run from me, my little Omega," Calloway whispered to the cold glass, exhaling a thick plume of grey smoke into the air. "But I am going to tear your father's family apart piece by piece until you are back in my bed."