Page 113 of Sold to the wrong Alpha
“Sit down, Marta.”
Brody’s tone admitted no argument, but the beta looked at him with pressed lips as though she was about to answer back. The flush crept up her neck to her cheeks and she shook her head.
“There’s still the omelet and the…”
The squeal of a chair dragging across the tiles interrupted her. Sergei had placed a chair beside his own and was looking at her with an expression that was half order, half plea, his square jaw tilted toward her like a magnet seeking its opposite pole.
“Sit down,” Sergei repeated. It wasn’t a request.
Marta pulled off her apron with a brisk gesture, hung it on the hook beside the fridge and sat with her back straight and her hands in her lap like a student summoned to the headmistress’s office. Sergei put in front of her a plate with sliced fruit and a piece of toast with jam. She glanced at him sideways, her cheeks flushed, and picked up a piece of peach with her fingers.
Ren sought Brody’s eyes across the table. He found them waiting, gray and reddened at the edges as always, but warm. The corner of Brody’s mouth curved a millimeter. Ren suppressed his smile by biting the inside of his cheek and dropped his gaze to his coffee. The understanding between them needed no words. They both watched what was growing between Sergei and Marta with the clarity of people who recognize a pattern they have lived themselves.
“Hey, Sergei.”
Jax’s voice cut through the moment with surgical precision.
“Hmm.”
“What were those sounds last night? From your room.”
The silence was instantaneous. Marta froze with the piece of peach halfway to her mouth. Sergei stopped chewing. Zev looked up from his tablet for the first time all morning with very wide eyes.
Jax leaned back in his chair with his arms crossed and that shark smile Ren knew far too well.
“Because it sounded like someone dying. Or being born. I’m not sure.”
Sergei’s hand moved so fast Ren barely saw it. The clip resonated with a dry smack against the back of Jax’s neck and the alpha’s head jerked forward. Jax rubbed his neck without stopping smiling.
“Worth it.”
“Shut your mouth.” Sergei returned to his toast with a calm that belied the red of his ears.
Marta didn’t look up from her plate. She put the peach in her mouth and chewed with the dignity of a queen in exile.
Rocco let out a short, stifled laugh that he swallowed with a sip of juice. Zev dropped his gaze back to his tablet, but Ren caught the nervous tic at the corner of his mouth. Even he was entertained, though he would never admit it.
The conversation fragmented again into multiple threads. Rocco asked Brody about the purchase of some piece of land that had nothing to do with anything important. Zev murmured something about the Wi-Fi signal in the east wing playing up. Marta offered Sergei more coffee with a tilt of her head that might have looked professional if not for the way their fingers brushed as the cup changed hands.
Jax stretched in his chair and looked at Sergei with a furrowed brow.
“You broke the punching bag.”
Sergei chewed without flinching.
“The big one.”
Another bite.
“The only one we had.”
Sergei shrugged, a minimal gesture implying absolute indifference.
“It was old.”
“It was three months old.”
“Old.”
