Page 14 of Reckless: Corruption

Chapter 4

Cayenne

Consciousness returns like a bad hangover,every nerve ending screaming as my eyes flutter open to find Mona’s face inches from mine, her dark eyes studying me with all the warmth of a taxonomist examining a particularly disappointing beetle.

“You didn’t die.” She tilts her head. “Impressive. Boring, but impressive.”

I try to move and immediately regret it. The stab wound in my stomach throbs with every heartbeat, and Alexander’s additional artwork has painted me in watercolor bruises from neck to ankles. My shoulder—the one he used for target practice—feels like it’s on fire.

I catalog the injuries methodically. Two knife wounds, multiple lacerations, probable concussion, dehydration, and enough bruises to look like modern art. None immediately fatal, all precisely calculated to maximize pain while minimizing damage.

Alexander is nothing if not thorough.

“Here,” Mona says, pulling a syringe from her oversized sweater like she’s a street magician with boundary issues. “Daddy keeps these for the alphas, but he won’t miss one. Or ten.”

I eye the needle. “Is that... adrenaline?”

“Better. Nanite repair agents wrapped in a protein binder. Technically illegal. Completely fun.”

“Will it work?”

“Probably. It works on rats. And you’ve got a lot of rat in you. Scrappy. Stubborn. Unkillable.”

She jabs the needle into my thigh with all the grace of a toddler on espresso. Pain blooms like fireworks—then recedes fast. Too fast.

Heat floods my system. Not heat-heat. Just... functional tissue stitching itself back together like someone hit CTRL+Z on my trauma.

“What are you doing?” I manage through cracked lips.

“Watching you bleed.” She pops a bubble with the gum she’s chewing, the sound echoing in my concrete cage. “You do it interestingly.”

That’s when I notice the surveillance camera above us is covered in what appears to be multiple wads of pink bubblegum. The speaker in the corner drips with... is that whipped cream?

“Did you...” I squint through the pain, “disable our surveillance with snack food?”

“I got bored.” She shrugs, the gesture somehow both elegant and deeply unsettling. “And hungry. The whipped cream was just there. Like, literally just there. Who keeps whipped cream in a torture facility? That’s poor planning.”

Her scent wafts over me as she moves—oleander, sweet but with a toxic undertone that perfectly captures her essence. Where most omegas smell inviting, hers carries a warning: approach at your own risk. It’s deliberately cultivated, I realize—another layer of her carefully constructed chaos.

I try to laugh but it comes out as a groan. “You’re insane.”

“Says the girl who tried to roundhouse kick Alexander.” She settles cross-legged beside me, producing a first aid kit fromsomewhere. “Your form was terrible, by the way. But points for making him bleed. No one makes him bleed.”

“He stabbed me.”

“Yeah, he does that.” She starts cleaning my wounds. “Did you know he used to dissect things as a kid? Not even animals. Just, like, his emotions. Probably why he’s such a dick now.”

The antiseptic stings, but her touch is surprisingly gentle. “Speaking of dicks, don’t you have some fancy pack meeting tonight?”

Her eyes gleam with unholy amusement. “Oh, that. Daddy’s latest attempt at marrying me off. Some pack from Dubai. Very rich. Very traditional.” She applies a bandage with unnecessary force. “I have plans.”

“Do these plans involve property damage?”

“Property damage is so pedestrian.” She produces a lollipop from her pocket and unwraps it with devastating focus. “I’m thinking bigger. A demon possession. Though I have done that one already. Or something like, accidentally setting off the sprinkler system during their presentation about omega submission. Did you know their alpha is deathly afraid of water? Because I do. I know everything.”

“Going full Joker meets Martha Stewart on these alphas, huh?” I ask, picturing the chaos with disturbing satisfaction.

She grins. “More like Harley Quinn meets MacGyver, but with better organizational skills and more Skittles. And fewer copyright issues.”

---