Semua Bab Beta Santos : Bab 1 - Bab 6

Santos:I had stopped counting the whiskeys, and I wasn’t interested in starting now. The burn gave me something to focus on besides the day I’d had. For years, I’d convinced myself nobody could hurt me anymore. Apparently, all it took was a proposal and a knock on my office door to prove me wrong.I turned the glass between my fingers. “Another,” I muttered, though Angela had already refused me. She didn’t even bother coming to serve me, and I found myself frowning.Who the hell did she think she was? Men twice her size watched their words around me, yet a human waitress had looked me in the eye and told me I’d had enough. On another day, I wouldn’t have let that pass. Tonight, I couldn’t trust my temper enough to argue.I finished the whiskey and set the glass down. Elena’s face came back to me, along with the words I’d been trying to drown out all evening. “No, Santos. I can’t marry you.”She’d stared at me when I proposed, as though I’d asked something absurd. I’d expected surpris

Santos:My phone started ringing before I reached the car, and I didn’t need to look at the screen to know who it was.Elena.I’d ignored her calls since leaving the packhouse. Whatever explanation she had ready, I didn’t want to hear it. She’d already told me how she felt about marrying me, and hearing it again wasn’t going to make it any easier to swallow.When I pulled the phone from my pocket, her name glowed across the screen.Of course.I rejected the call and shoved the phone into my pocket. Just because Elena wanted to talk didn’t mean I was ready to listen. I’d spent enough of my life being told what I should feel, and I wasn’t about to let her decide that for me too.The evening air was cool, but it did little to clear my head. I’d drunk enough whiskey to put an ordinary man on the floor, yet my wolf was already burning through it. With every step toward the car, the things I’d been trying to forget came back a little clearer.My mother’s face appeared in my mind again.I co

Santos:I should have returned to the packhouse hours ago.Reports were waiting for my approval, my schedule was packed with meetings I had no desire to attend, and half the pack apparently couldn’t make a decision without consulting me. Nikolai had already called twice that morning. Ignoring him would only create another problem, but I still had no intention of returning to the packhouse… at least not today.Morning sunlight flashed across the buildings surrounding the penthouse. I had told Angela this was my home, which wasn’t exactly a lie. I owned it and came here whenever I needed to escape the packhouse, but I had never lived here permanently. Most of my time was spent at the Romanov estate, where being second Beta meant remaining available whenever Nikolai needed me.The penthouse was supposed to be somewhere I could disappear without explaining myself to anyone.At least, that had been the original plan.I bought it shortly after my promotion, convinced it would eventually bec