Page 18 of Reckless: Corruption

“Try not to traumatize your suitors too badly.”

Her smile would make demons nervous. “But trauma is my love language.” She produces one final lollipop, pressing it into my hand. “Besides, I need them to run crying to daddy about his demon spawn omega. It’s part of my five-year plan.”

“You have a five-year plan?”

“I have several. All color-coded. Some involving glitter.” She backs toward the door, her movements suddenly silent and predatory. “The real question is, do you want to be part of them?”

Before I can answer, she’s gone, leaving me with candy, combat intel, and the growing suspicion that my sister might be the most dangerous Sterling of all.

Through the speakers—still dripping with whipped cream—I hear distant screaming, followed by what sounds suspiciously like a glitter bomb detonation.

Somewhere in this facility, Mona Sterling is unleashing carefully calculated chaos on unsuspecting alphas, probably while maintaining perfect spreadsheets about their psychological breakdown.

I unwrap my lollipop and smile.

Maybe being a Sterling doesn’t have to mean being a monster. Maybe it just means being monster-adjacent, with really good organizational skills.

As I shift position, a fresh wave of pain shoots through my stab wounds, reminding me of tomorrow’s upcoming session with Alexander. My body instinctively reaches through those stretched pack bonds again, searching for comfort, for connection. The emptiness where they should be feels suddenly vast and terrifying, my beta biology screaming for a protection I’ve spent my life denying I needed.

For the first time since the cell, I feel it—faint but unmistakable. A thread pulling through the fog. Not pain. Not rage. Them.

Maybe it wasn’t the bond breaking.

Maybe it was me keeping the door closed.

And now? Maybe I’m ready to open it again.

For the first time since my capture, real fear crawls up my spine. Not of Alexander or his torture—but of the possibility that even if I survive this, the pack might not be able to reach me in time before Roman implements whatever he has planned next.

I pop the lollipop in my mouth and try to ignore how my hands won’t stop shaking.

Chapter 5

Cayenne

The cell door creaks open,the sound slicing through my restless sleep like one of Alexander’s knives. No footsteps, no breathing, just the mocking invitation of an empty doorway. The silence feels deliberate, weighted with malice.

Mona’s voice echoes in my head: He likes to play with his food.

I push myself up, every wound from yesterday’s training screaming in protest. The stab wound in my stomach throbs with each heartbeat, a heated pulse of pain that radiates outward. My shoulder—still tender from the bullet and Alexander’s knife—protests even the smallest movement. The bruises from our previous encounter have bloomed into a masterpiece of purple and green across my ribs, limiting my range of motion before I even start.

I reach instinctively through the pack bond, seeking strength beyond my physical limitations. Though stretched and thin like damaged code, I feel something respond—a distant pulse that whispers I’m not alone. The connection is too weak to draw power from, but knowing they’re still searching steadies me.

The cell’s dim lighting casts long shadows into the corridor beyond, but something about the darkness feels wrong.Calculated. Like the negative space in a photograph, designed to draw the eye exactly where the photographer wants it to go.

He’s out there. Watching. Waiting to see what his lab rat will do when offered the illusion of escape.

“Trying to figure out if I’m desperate enough to run?” My voice bounces off concrete walls, steady despite the fear churning in my gut. “That’s lazy writing, brother. I expected better plot development.”

A laugh whispers through the shadows, cold as a morgue drawer. “Can’t blame me for using the classics.” Alexander’s voice seems to come from everywhere and nowhere. “Besides, you haven’t earned my more creative work yet.”

I track the sound, remembering Mona’s candy-arranged anatomy lesson. He leads with his right because daddy made him forget he was left-handed. Every forced change leaves a tell, if you know where to look.

“Creative like getting your ass handed to you by an eleven-year-old omega?” The words slip out before I can stop them, a test of Mona’s intel about his triggers.

The temperature in the corridor seems to drop ten degrees.

“You’ve been talking to our dear sister.” His voice carries an edge I haven’t heard before—something raw and ugly. “Tell me, did she share her little sob story? Poor broken Mona, daddy’s favorite mistake?”

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