Page 22 of Reckless: Corruption

“You’re just like her.” The words come out wondering, horrified. “A perfect mirror of her chaos, just wrapped in beta skin.”

“Funny.” I taste blood as I smile. “She says I remind her of you. Back before daddy broke you into his perfect alpha shape.”

The noise he makes isn’t quite human.

Good.

Time to find out exactly how much damage two broken Sterling siblings can do to the one who forgot how to break right.

With each exchange, I feel the Sterling legacy written in our movements—his clinical precision versus my adaptive chaos. But beneath it pulses a different influence—Pack Locke’s protection rather than Sterling’s destruction. That’s the real difference between us. He fights to please a father who sees him as a weapon; I fight to return to people who see me as family.

The fight becomes a dance of blood and broken family ties. Each blow carries years of Sterling history—the perfect son, the hidden daughter, the unwanted mistake.

With every hit I land using Mona’s intel, Alexander’s expression shifts from rage to something closer to understanding.

“You still don’t see it, do you?” He catches my fist inches from his face, blood painting both our knuckles.

“Why she’s really helping you?”

“Because unlike you, some siblings actually give a shit about each other?”

His laugh sounds almost sad.

“You think you’re the first one she’s helped? The first one she’s armed with all my weaknesses?”

He shoves me back, but doesn’t press the advantage.

“Ask her about the others. Ask her what happened to the last person she decided to save from this place.”

Something in his tone makes my blood run cold.

“What are you talking about?”

“Why do you think father lets her run around playing crazy omega?” He wipes blood from his mouth, eyes never leaving mine.

“Because she’s the most effective trap he’s ever created. There have been others before you—lab assistants, guards, even a beta researcher from Columbia who thought he’d found an ally in daddy’s unstable omega.”

“And?”

“And no one ever saw them again. Officially, they were terminated for security breaches. Unofficially?” His eyes darken. “Let’s just say Mona’s talent for identifying weaknesses isn’t limited to me.”

From somewhere in the facility, an alarm begins to wail. Alexander’s smile turns sharp.

“Right on schedule.” He backs toward the door. “Better hope you’re as special as she thinks you are, little sister. The last one who trusted her didn’t survive the punchline.”

He disappears into darkness, leaving me with split knuckles and spinning thoughts. Above me, through speakers still sticky with whipped cream, I hear Mona’s laugh echo through the facility—beautiful and broken and maybe more dangerous than any of us realized.

What kind of game is she really playing?

And whose side is she actually on?

Chapter 6

Finn

Forty-eight hours without movement,and my body has become a meditation on stillness.

Other snipers complain about muscle cramps, about minds wandering through endless hours of surveillance. But for me, the waiting crystallizes everything into perfect clarity, each detail sharp as broken glass—like watching pack wars through my father’s study window, learning how patience unmasks intention. He called it reading the dance. Called me a natural, right up until politics and pride painted our walls red.

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