Chapter 3

Ryder POV:

"Boss, look at this. The richer they are, the wilder they ride."

I didn't look away from the unpainted drywall. I drew a straight chalk line down the studs where the copper pipe had to run and kept moving.

Behind me, the rotary hammer whined through concrete, kicking plaster dust into the heat.

Tank didn't take the hint. His heavy work boots clomped across the subfloor of the Lake Forest mansion until he was right at my elbow, shoving his phone screen three inches from my face.

"Wait a second," Tank said, squinting at the screen. "That back looks just like yours, Boss."

I looked.

It was my bed. My shoulder. And her face pressed into my neck, dark hair spilled across my skin, lips parted like she had just stopped gasping for air.

Heat slammed straight into my gut.

"She's hot as hell," Tank said, grinning. "Look at that face, she looks half innocent and half—"

I smacked the back of his head with my open palm.

"Ow! What was that for?" Tank rubbed his skull.

"Get back to work."

"I'm going, I'm going! You kick me out and my mom'll skin me alive. Swear to God, I should be back in Houston driving my Porsche, not eating drywall dust like a dog—"

"Tank."

"Working!" He bolted back to the trench.

I walked out onto the second-floor balcony. There was no railing yet, just a concrete slab overlooking the man-made lake. I lit a cigarette and pulled my phone out.

The photo was everywhere.

My wolf had been quiet for three years. Three years in Chicago without a single blueprint on my table, without a pack, keeping my head down and my scent locked tight under soap and grease.

He hadn't shut up since Saturday afternoon.

The second I had walked past her in that Gold Coast hallway and caught her scent—warm vanilla and summer rain, untouched by any male—my wolf had risen up against my ribs and said one word.

Mine.

I hadn't told her. She didn't have a wolf to hear it anyway.

Instead, she had offered me thirty grand a month to ruin her own name, and then she had climbed into my bed shaking and stubborn and completely untouched.

What kind of Alpha stays married to a woman for three years and never even marks her?

I thumb-dialed a Houston number I hadn't called in thirty-six months.

It rang once. Then silence.

"Pull everything on Grant Calloway," I said.

A chair crashed on the other end of the line. "Ryder? Where the hell have you been?"

"Don't ask," I said. "Chicago. Calloway Pack. Send it to this number."

"You disappear for three years and—fine, fine! Give me twenty minutes, I'll strip the bastard down to his teeth."

I hung up just as Tank yelled from the stairs. "Boss! Russo's here!"

I stubbed the cigarette out against the sole of my boot and walked back inside.

Mr. Russo, the general contractor, was coming up the wide front steps, his bald head gleaming with sweat, a gold chain bouncing against his polo shirt.

"Mr. Hol—uh, Ryder," Russo caught himself, smiling nervously. "Everything going smooth up here? The owner's coming through to check the progress."

Before I could answer, a group of suits walked through the double front doors.

Right in front was the face Sawyer was currently pulling a file on. Grant Calloway.

A young she-wolf in a tight pastel dress was clinging to his arm, her hand resting on her barely rounded stomach.

"Can't I just move in with you?" she whined, wrinkling her nose at the unpainted walls. "The paint smell is bad for me and the pup."

Calloway patted the top of her head, smiling like a man without a care in the world while his ex-wife's face was being dragged through every pack chat in the state.

"You'll stay here. Be good."

Russo hurried forward, practically bowing. "Alpha Calloway, plumbing and electrical went in this morning. All non-toxic materials, top of the line, finished by the end of next month, I guarantee it."

Calloway didn't even look at him. He was sweeping the room when he paused, inhaled once through his nose, and looked straight at me on the landing.

His upper lip curled.

"Russo, you hire rogues now?"

Russo sweated harder. "Best plumber I've got, sir. Never misses a deadline."

Calloway's eyes lingered on my tank top, then dismissed me like a stain on the drywall. I kept my Alpha presence buried deep under my skin, flat and dead. He couldn't smell who I was. And he was too busy smelling his mistress's cheap perfume to catch the trace of his ex-wife still clinging to my skin from yesterday morning.

"I need total discretion," Calloway said coldly, his gaze flicking back to me in warning. "Make sure your people keep their mouths shut."

"Of course, sir. Absolutely."

They did one lap of the first floor and walked back out to the driveway.

The man had built his mistress a house and made his wife the scandal.

Down by the window, Tank was staring out at Calloway's silver sports car, his shoulders drooping. "Boss... when can we go home for a visit? I miss my steering wheel."

I gave him one sideways look.

Tank shivered in the hundred-degree heat and went right back to his hammer.

By nine that night, Tank had showered, drowned himself in cologne, and dragged me to a club in River North called Velvet. He lasted ten minutes in the hallway before he lost his way looking for the men's room and shoved open a heavy VIP door at the end of the corridor.

"Whoops, my bad," Tank said, scratching his head. "Wrong—"

He started to pull the door shut.

I caught the edge of the wood with my palm and held it open.

Inside, the booth was lit in deep red. A dozen male models in see-through black mesh shirts were kneeling on the carpet or leaning over the table, pouring champagne. A dark-haired she-wolf was perched on one guy's lap, laughing.

And right in the middle of the couch sat Ivy.

Her black hair was down over her shoulders. A guy in a mesh shirt was holding a glass of strawberries toward her mouth.

She looked up.

Across the crowded room, her dark eyes collided with mine.

My wolf let out a low, vicious growl against my ribs, my fingers tightening on the brass handle until the metal groaned.

"Who are you?" the girl on the guy's lap called out.

I kept my eyes on Ivy, let the corner of my mouth curve up while my blood went ice-cold, and stepped back into the hall.

"Wrong room," I said, and shut the door before I did something stupid.