The Alpha Kings Secret Son novel · Chapter 3 of 6

Chapter 3: What Ottoline Knows

Mira confirms the speech clinic deposit from her first paycheck while hiding her plan to stay at Voss Industries, then receives a call from Axel asking about his place at the clinic.

The speech clinic email arrived before the elevator reached the lobby.

Mira read it again with one hand braced against the rail. Enrollment deposit due in full within six weeks. If the clinic did not receive it, Axel’s place would go to the next child on the waiting list.

The amount sat beneath the deadline.

She had written it into three budgets. Rent. Food. Transport. Axel’s medicine. Each version ended with the same gap.

The elevator opened onto the glass lobby. Voss Industries filled the tower above her, all polished stone and controlled access. Roman Voss owned the building, the company, and the job she had accepted before learning who would be waiting at the top.

Mira locked her phone and walked through the revolving doors.

She was staying.

Ottoline opened the flat door before Mira found her keys. Her paint-stained hand held a mug, and a thin line of tea ran over her knuckles onto the floor.

‘You look like someone has charged you for breathing,’ Ottoline said.

‘Roman Voss is my boss.’

The mug stopped halfway to the counter.

‘Your Roman Voss?’

‘I only know one.’

Ottoline set the mug down. Tea spread across a stack of unpaid pottery invoices. She rescued the papers, pressed them against the sink, and looked back at Mira.

‘Tell me he knows.’

‘He knows my name. He knows I can read a financial report. He knows I do not step aside when he walks into a room.’

‘That was not my question.’

Mira took off her coat. Her fingers worked the buttons twice before she noticed and stopped.

‘He does not know about Axel.’

Ottoline studied her face. ‘You are sure?’

‘If he knew, this would be a different conversation.’

‘You saw him again.’

‘I saw him again.’

Ottoline wiped the counter with a cloth, though most of the tea had already soaked into the invoices.

‘What did he say?’

‘He reassigned me to work directly for him. I start tomorrow.’

‘That is not what I asked.’

‘It is what happened.’

‘Mira.’

The warning carried no force. Ottoline had never needed force with her. She had driven Mira to appointments, filled out forms when officials refused to answer her questions, and slept on the floor during the last month of the pregnancy because Mira had been afraid to be alone at night.

Mira crossed to the table and picked up her phone.

‘He did not ask about my family,’ she said. ‘He did not mention the pack. He gave me a file and told me to have the numbers ready by eight.’

‘He remembered you.’

‘He remembered my work.’

‘You expect me to believe that?’

‘I expect you to believe what I am telling you.’

Ottoline poured wine into a chipped blue mug and pushed it across the counter. Mira took it, though she did not drink.

‘Did he touch you?’ Ottoline asked.

‘No.’

‘Did he look at you like he knew?’

Mira thought of Roman standing at the far end of the conference table. The room had turned cold when he spoke to the senior managers. Breath had clouded in the air. Every person near him had stepped back without being told.

Mira had stayed where she was.

Roman’s grey-blue eyes had flashed silver before the color returned. His attention had rested on her for one beat too long.

‘He looked at me,’ Mira said.

Ottoline’s mouth tightened. ‘That is a very careful answer.’

‘It is the answer I have.’

‘You spent years thinking he was some pack officer who ran when things became difficult. Now you find out he owns half the city.’

‘He does not own half the city.’

‘Fine. He owns enough of it to make your salary look like loose change.’

Mira glanced at the phone again. The clinic email waited beneath the lock screen notification.

‘The salary covers the deposit,’ she said.

Ottoline went still. ‘That is why you took the job.’

‘It is one reason.’

‘You said the position was good experience.’

‘It is good experience.’

‘And the part where your vanished mate is now your employer?’

‘That is less useful.’

Ottoline leaned against the counter. ‘Leave.’

Mira said nothing.

‘Leave before he notices. Before the company starts asking questions. Before you are back in that house, waiting for him to decide what you are worth.’

‘He does not decide what I am worth.’

‘Then quit tomorrow.’

‘The deposit is due in six weeks.’

‘We can find the money.’

‘You are behind on your studio rent.’

‘Declan can help.’

‘Declan already helped.’

Ottoline’s expression hardened. ‘Declan helped put Axel’s birth registration through without Roman’s name.’

‘He said it was safer blank.’

‘He said Roman’s people would find you if the record pointed anywhere near them.’

Mira set the mug down. ‘Declan has always enjoyed making a sentence sound final.’

‘He was trying to keep you alive.’

‘He did.’

‘Then let him help again.’

‘No.’

The answer ended the argument for a moment. Ottoline looked toward the ceiling, where Axel slept in the small room at the back of the flat. The sitter had taken him home after school, but his toy blocks still covered the rug.

‘You are planning to stay,’ Ottoline said.

Mira unlocked her phone. ‘I am planning to make the deposit.’

‘That is the same thing.’

‘It is not.’

‘What happens after the six weeks?’

‘Then I decide.’

‘You have already decided.’

Mira opened the banking app. The first paycheck had cleared that afternoon. She moved the amount she could spare into the clinic fund, leaving the transfer unnamed. Ottoline had turned toward the sink and was scraping tea from the invoices.

Mira switched to her email and typed a reply to the clinic.

I confirm that the deposit will be received before the deadline. Please hold Axel’s place.

She checked the wording, removed the sentence about payment timing, and sent it. Then she locked the phone and checked the time as if that had been all she meant to do.

Ottoline faced her again. ‘What did you send?’

‘A reply.’

‘To the clinic?’

‘Yes.’

‘What did you tell them?’

Mira picked up her coat from the chair. ‘That Axel’s place should remain open.’

Ottoline watched her. ‘You are keeping something from me.’

‘Yes.’

The admission took the fight out of Ottoline’s face. She looked hurt, but she did not press again.

A phone began ringing upstairs.

Ottoline’s screen showed the sitter’s number. She answered at once.

‘Hello? Is he all right?’

Her gaze lifted to Mira. Then she held the phone out.

Axel’s voice came through small and careful, each word worked out before he trusted it.

‘Mum? Did you find a way to pay for the talking school yet?’

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