Chapter 4: He Knows

Elliot POV

For a few seconds, I could not move.

I stood behind the curtain with my hand clenched in the fabric, staring down at the black SUV. The city moved around it, a motorbike passing, neon bleeding red across wet pavement, but none of it touched the hollow opening in my chest. Inside that car, like a threat shaped into a man, sat Sebastian Wolfe.

He was not searching for my window; he already knew which one was mine.

The realization hit me the way a bad hit on the ice did: not the pain first, but the sickening understanding that something had just broken. I had never told anyone where I lived—no paper trail, no teammates over, and no pieces of myself left where they could be picked up and used. Six years of absolute discipline, and Sebastian Wolfe was sitting outside my building at one in the morning like he owned the asphalt beneath his tires.

My phone buzzed.

You should invite me in. It's cold outside.

Every hair on my arms lifted. He hadn't moved, and he knew I was behind the glass, reading it.

How did you get this number?

His reply was instant.

You ask the wrong questions.

Rage cut through my panic like a blade. I held onto it with both hands because anger was cleaner and safer than the alternative.

Get away from my building.

A long pause followed, and then: Come downstairs and make me.

I grabbed my jacket.

The smart move was to wait him out, I knew that, but Sebastian Wolfe parked outside at this hour was a disaster waiting to happen. A neighbor, a dog walker, someone with a phone and a sports blog, the last thing I needed was a photo circulating of the league's most recognizable Alpha camped outside my address.

I went downstairs to end it quickly. I believed that completely, right up until I shoved the heavy glass exterior door open and the winter air hit my face.

Sebastian stepped out of the SUV, and the sight of him nearly made me halt on the pavement. His broad shoulders filled the night, taking up space with that innate authority he carried onto the ice. The amber streetlights caught the rough line of his jaw, the gold crucifix glittering at his throat, and the heavy quality of his attention as his gaze locked onto me, slow, total, and missing nothing.

"You really came down," he said, his voice carrying easily over the idling engine.

"You need psychiatric help."

One corner of his mouth curved. "You look good when you're furious."

"Stop showing up where you shouldn't be."

He leaned back against the driver's side door, entirely at ease. "You say that like I'm a stranger."

"You are."

"No." His hazel eyes held mine steadily, stripping away the distance between us. "I'm the man who broke your stick and hasn't stopped thinking about you since."

I forced contempt into my posture to cover the sudden, violent leap of my pulse. "Is that supposed to impress me?"

"No. Just honesty."

"Why are you here, Sebastian?"

He was quiet for a moment, the humor draining from his face. "Because something happened in that locker room."

Fear sliced through my abdomen. I locked my jaw, keeping my voice deadpan. "Nothing happened."

He pushed off the car and came toward me, not fast, just a steady, deliberate advance that carried the particular inevitability of a hunter who had already tracked his prey to the den. He stopped a mere two feet away, and retreating now would look exactly like what it was: cowardice.

The sheer Alpha presence of him pressed against my senses like weight on a hairline fracture, the kind of pressure that tells you exactly where the bone is about to snap. Six years on heavy doses, and I had never felt an Alpha's aura this clearly; that was the part that terrified me most. My defenses had completely crumbled.

"My instincts don't need your permission for the truth," he said quietly.

"What does that mean?"

"It means I've been around enough Betas to know what they smell like. And what they don't."

The city noise seemed to die out completely, leaving only the dark street, the cold climbing through the soles of my shoes, and the frantic thudding of my pulse hammering visibly at my throat.

"You're imagining things."

"No." There was no hesitation and no doubt.

"Then you're insane."

"Possible." His jaw tightened, his gaze dropping to my mouth before snapping back to my eyes. "But I know what I felt when I touched you. And I know what your body did."

The playboy mask was gone. What remained was pure, unadulterated Alpha focus, the kind that didn't blink, didn't negotiate, and didn't look away from what it had decided to claim.

"What do you want from me?" I whispered, my throat tight.

"I want to know why your body answered mine."

"Step back."

"That's not an answer, Elliot."

He leaned in closer still, and his scent hit me full force, that warmer, deeper current of cedar and winter wind that my suppressed Omega instincts recognized with a desperation that made my knees weak.

"You should be more careful," he said.

"Is that a threat?"

"No." Something changed in his face, turning older and harder as a sudden stillness took him over, exposing a grim gravity he usually hid behind arrogance. "There are people asking questions about you. Someone followed you after the game tonight."

The anonymous text exploded in my memory: Pretty things get stolen. The ice that flooded my chest had nothing to do with the winter wind.

Sebastian watched the color drain from my face, reading the reaction instantly. "You got a message," he stated.

"Why would I tell you anything?"

"Because I've seen this before." His knuckles whitened as he shoved his hands into his jacket pockets. "Three years ago. Someone I knew. The league moved quietly, and it was over before anyone could stop it. I learned the charter afterward, every clause, every protection, and every loophole they left open because they assumed no hidden Omega would ever be smart enough to use them."

He looked at me with a fierce, protective intensity that made my breath catch. "I've been waiting two years for a reason to use it. And now I have one."

I could only stare at him.

"Your suppressants are failing," he continued, his voice dropping to a gravelly murmur. "Someone on the medical staff has noticed. The questions being asked are not casual, Elliot. You're in real danger."

Sebastian Wolfe, my rival, the man who had shattered my stick and ruined my championship hours ago, was standing on a deserted sidewalk telling me he wanted to keep me safe.

"Come somewhere safe," he said, reaching out, his gloved fingers hovering just an inch from my wrist. "With me."

"You ambush me at my home and expect me to just go with you?"

"I expect you to survive your own stubbornness."

He stepped inside my guard before I could rebuild it, his massive frame blocking out the streetlights until the night contracted to nothing but him and the suffocating warmth of an Alpha whose biology had locked onto mine.

"What did you take before coming down here?" he asked softly.

I froze, the air dying in my throat.

"Suppressants," he whispered, the word a devastating certainty. "How many, Elliot?"

Panic hit me, white and total. I opened my mouth to tell him to get the hell away from me, but the words wouldn't form. My vision swerved, and the triple dose I had choked down upstairs suddenly hit my system like a lead weight, clashing violently with the heavy Alpha pheromones rolling off Sebastian.

My knees didn't just tremble this time; they completely buckled.

I dropped fast, my boots sliding on the icy pavement, but before I could hit the concrete, Sebastian's arms locked around my waist, catching my entire weight against his chest. The contact sent a violent, agonizing jolt of heat straight down my spine.

"Elliot!" His voice lost all its calm, sharp with sudden panic as he hauled me up against his bulk.

I tried to push him away, but my fingers couldn't find purchase on his leather jacket, and my head fell back against his shoulder as my eyes stared blindly up at the dark sky. My phone slipped from my paralyzed grip, hitting the pavement with a sharp crack.

The screen lit up in the snow, displaying the unread notification that had arrived just as I bypassed the lobby. It was a new message from an unknown number, and Sebastian's gaze tracked the light, his eyes widening as he read the text glowing against the dark concrete:

Time's ticking, pretty boy. The agent is in your lobby.

From behind the heavy glass doors of my building, the distinct sound of the security lock clicking open echoed into the quiet street.