Page 41 of The Alpha's Crimson Vow

I hear his voice before I see his face.

“Katherine is not as important as our mission, Jack.”

The words knock the air straight out of my lungs. I freeze, my hand hovering over the doorframe, my heart suddenly pounding so loudly it drowns out everything else.

Did I hear that right?

Through the small gap, I can see him standing with his back to me, his phone pressed to his ear.

“I tipped her about her cousin,” he says, his tone calm, calculated. “The one that’s been stealing from the company. But now, it’s time for me to return. I have everything I need from Pinnacle Group. It’s time for the usurper to pay.”

The words feel like they stab into me, sharp and jagged.

The file I found on Frank. That was Alex?

My mind scrambles to make sense of them, to connect the dots, but nothing adds up.

What is he talking about? Who is Jack? What mission?

He exhales audibly, and his shoulders sag slightly before he ends the call and lowers the phone. The movement breaks the spell holding me still, and before I know it, I’ve stepped into the room. My feet move without my brain catching up, like they’re acting on their own.

He turns at the sound of me, and the look on his face when he sees me—it’s like a mask slipping. His eyes widen for just a moment, then his expression smooths out into something unreadable.

“Alex…?” His name escapes my lips, fragile and unsteady, as I step toward him with measured caution. My heart feels like it’s splintering in my chest. “What’s going on?”

Silence. Not a flinch, not a blink. Just the intensity of his gaze, fixed on me, piercing through me in a way he’s never looked at me before. It’s not the look of the man I know. The man I have come to care deeply for.

“What mission, Alex?” I ask again, my voice trembling now, betraying the confidence I’m trying desperately to cling to. “I heard you on the phone. You said… you said I wasn’t as important as your mission.”

Still nothing. No response, no explanation. He’s a fortress, impenetrable and unyielding. He doesn’t even step close to me, doesn’t reach for me, doesn’t try to soften the ache his silence is carving into me.

It feels like I’ve been dropped into a dark, endless chasm, clawing at nothing, searching for a lifeline that isn’t there.

I swallow hard, my throat tight with emotion. “The file I saw,” I manage, my voice cracking through the words. “The one that exposed Frank… that was you?”

Finally, a response. A single nod. It’s quick, almost dismissive. Cold. Detached. It’s not him. It’s not Alex.

My breath hitches, then quickens, the pieces of whatever fragile calm I had left shattering all at once. Confusion and pain churn inside me, the video Jame’s showed me replays in my mind like a haunting slideshow. But now, anger starts to boil up from the depths, rising, sharp and hot, cutting through everything else.

“Alex!” I snap, my voice breaking, the sound ricocheting between us. “What the hell is going on?”

The question hangs there, trembling in the space between us. But it’s not just a question. It’s a plea, a demand, a desperate cry for something—anything—to make this make sense.

For a long moment, he just looks at me. His eyes are dark, intense, like he’s weighing something in his mind. Then, slowly, he straightens his posture. His entire demeanor changes in front of me—his shoulders pull back, his chin lifts, and suddenly he seems even taller, broader, more commanding.

The man I see now feels like a stranger.

“This isn’t how I wanted to do this,” he says at last, his voice steady, unnervingly calm. Too calm. It’s like he’s turned into stone, unmoving, unfeeling. Even his tone is different—sharper, more precise. And his accent—it’s… foreign. Completely foreign. It’s like I’m staring at a stranger wrapped in Alex’s skin. “But I don’t have a choice.”

He pauses, letting the his words linger, letting them coil around me like a tightening noose. My pulse spikes, and every muscle in my body tenses as I wait for him to continue.

“It’s time,” he says. “It’s time for you to know who I really am. And where I really come from.”

My stomach twists, and my legs feel like they might give out beneath me. The words barely register at first, like my mind refuses to comprehend them.

“My name is Alex Valkov,” he says, his voice carrying an authority that feels centuries old. “And I am the Prince and heir to the European Wolf Kingdom.”

For a moment, it feels like the world stops spinning, the air pulled from my lungs. I can only stare at him, this man I thought I knew, as the truth shatters everything I believed.

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