Riley never came downstairs, not that I saw. After a while, I started to worry, and ran upstairs to find him, confused to find the room empty with not a sign of him. I tore open the closet doors and pulled out every drawer, but it was no use. All of his things were gone.

There was no note. It was as if he had simply disappeared—except for his strong, lingering scent, which made me long to hold him, touch him … to at least know where he’d goddamn gone.

It drove me a little crazy. I went berserk, storming through the house, calling for him, throwing open every door in every room to look. The mansion was huge, but the further I went from our room, the less I smelled him, and the more I was certain of what had happened.

He was gone. Riley was gone, and I knew exactly who was responsible.

I threw open my father’s office door without a knock, and he looked up at me with a mixture of admonishment and amusement.

“Shouldn’t you—” he started. I didn’t let him finish. I was absolutely furious. It was one thing to try to set me up, one thing to push me at that disgustingly eager omega at every opportunity, but this had gone too far.

“What did you do? Did you pay him off? Did you threaten him?” I snarled at my father.

“I did nothing of the sort,” he explained, infuriatingly calm. His condescending tone and cold eyes did nothing to help my anger.

“I’m sure,” he said — and he actually sounded happy. Downright delighted — “Riley simply realized he wasn’t made for this world and left, as he should have long ago. As you and I both knew he would.”

I couldn’t control myself. I snapped, the anger trembling through my body, and flew at him.

My father didn’t give a shit about me. For all I knew, he was lying to my face, but even if he wasn’t, he’d made it clear that my happiness was the least of his concerns.

In my anger, I grabbed him, throwing him out of his office chair, and got him down on the ground. “You son of a bitch!”

I lashed out with my fist, my breath heaving, standing over him, ready to hurt him, really do some damage for once. Release my frustration. It had taken me so long to get to this point, but I had wanted it for years and years, to just beat my father to the ground and make him pay, make him hurt like he had make me hurt.

But staring down into my dad’s shocked eyes, I stopped myself. What did it matter? It wouldn’t make him respect me any more or less than he already did. I couldn’t change my history, or what he had done or failed to do in raising me, and I couldn’t bring my mother and his mate back. I couldn’t make that right.

But I could be better. I could be different. I could be not him, a real alpha, strong enough to stop the cycle of pain.

I stepped away from him, furious but certain that I could find no relief from my grief in that room, with that man. I also knew I didn’t want him anywhere near me. I couldn’t even trust my own blood.

“Stay out of my life,” I told him, and I left.

I went home. I couldn’t stand to be around any of them anymore, and I had a mission—I had to find Riley. It was driving me mad.

His website was gone, and I’d never gotten his number—I’d contacted him through his site, and when Riley called me that time before the initial consultation, he did so on a withheld number.

I had literally nothing. No number. No address. Not even a last name. I didn’t even know if we actually lived in the same town. It was hopeless.

I was on my leather couch, still in my suit from traveling, when it finally all hit me. I sank down into a deep, dark place, my chest aching with how much I missed him.

It didn’t make sense. I didn’t make any sense. But Riley had seemed distracted, and he’d been getting those texts … was he with some other alpha, right now? Taking someone else’s knot, letting them think he felt something…

Tears stung my eyes, and I angrily pulled myself from the couch. I tore off my suit jacket and, feeling suffocated, tugged my tie off on the way over to my bar. I undid my collar and few buttons and rolled up my sleeves, and then I poured myself a large glass of whiskey.

Turning to look out the penthouse window, I gazed down at the city below. Riley had to live there; he had walked to our date. Maybe somewhere near the coffee shop … but there were so many buildings in that area, high-rises filled with people. What was I supposed to do, start riding elevators and knocking on doors?

The emptier my glass got, the more tempting that thought became. A sudden rage of anger came over me again and I threw my glass at the wall, the shatter of sparkling glass and the mess of whatever was left inside of it satisfying to me. Nothing but destruction would be, until I found him again.

I had gone insane.

Grabbing the bottle of whiskey, I realized I still had my shoes on and made my way out the door, drinking as I went. I didn’t care when the elevator dinged cheerfully and one of my fellow building residents stepped in, some stick of a woman with too much money on just one diamond-crusted wrist for her entire lifetime.

She gave me a disgusted look, full of judgement, when she saw the state I was in, the bottle in my hand. I nearly threw it at her, but instead I just smirked, and guzzled whiskey until the elevator landed all the way on the first floor.

Shifter or not, the whiskey was really starting to hit me. I stumbled through the lobby and pushed out into the busy world of the city. It was nighttime and everything was lit up, sparkling with neon that made me dizzy. Or maybe that was the half liter of high-grade whiskey burning through my belly and into my tear ducts.

“Riley!” I called into the open air of the city, helplessly, and got a few looks, but mostly people passed me by. Some drunk, they probably thought. Some suit that got laid off. I was lucky I didn’t get arrested.

I was pushed by the crowd into an alley, and I wandered down it, stumbling over my own feet.

“Riley,” I called, my voice broken. I sounded pathetic even to myself. “Riley!”

A homeless man grunted at me. “Shut up, kid! Some of us are trying to sleep!”

“You shut up!” I yelled back intelligently, and finished my bottle, only to toss it at the brick wall. It hit, and shattered, twinkling into a million pieces just like my glass had.

It made me smile. Sick, that only that could make me smile. I fell backwards against the wall, dizzy, and then leaned over myself and retched, but all that was in my stomach was whiskey, and it didn’t come up. It only burned.

My knees buckled at the thought of never seeing Riley again. We were mates; it was like Richard had said, fated to be together from birth. But he was gone. So gone.

I fell on my ass on the cold, wet, dirty ground, my back against the brick wall, and as the dizziness overtook me, I shut my eyes. I let the alcohol and all of its warmth seep away my sorrow, glow hot over my skin. I let the darkness throb over my head and cradle me.

The next thing I knew, it was dawn, and someone had their hand in my pocket.

“Hey!” I sat up, my head pounding, my body aching from laying on the ground all night. I grabbed the man’s wrist and glared straight into his dirty face, a terrifying alpha snarl on my lips. “Get the fuck away from me.”

“Sorry, sorry, I thought you were dead, sir, don’t hurt me!” he begged, and I realized he wasn’t even a man. He was a boy. A very dirty, lanky boy.

I sighed and let his wrist go, watching as he scurried away down the alley.

I pushed myself to my feet and checked my pockets. My wallet, which he’d been searching for, was still there, and that was good news. I was going to need a lot more whiskey to get through another day without Riley.

I brushed a little of the dirt off my clothes, and started to wander, hung-over and sick to my stomach, in search of a liquor store that was open early. What time was it?

I glanced at my wrist, but my watch was gone. No doubt the boy had taken the expensive Rolex before starting his search in my pockets. I patted myself down for my phone, but then remembered leaving it at home, plugged into the wall.

Oh well. What did time really matter? I was an alpha without his omega, and for once in my life, that was the exact opposite of what I wanted to be.

I wandered the streets, hoping to run into him, until the liquor stores opened. Then I bought my weight in whiskey and didn’t wait to get home to get started. The doorman gave me a concerned look as I pushed past him and made a beeline for the elevator.

The ride up to my penthouse seemed to take forever, so I drank through it. I shoved my way into the apartment and dumped the bottles of booze on my couch.

Later, I decided, I would go out again. Scour the streets. Try to find Riley the old-fashioned way.

But I knew there was no hope, and it was killing me. I was so tired, my body weighed down with the sorrow, that I collapsed in bed and didn’t wake up until the sun was down again.

I spent a week in that miserable state. Alternating between drinking myself stupid, trashing my penthouse, and searching the streets in a drunken haze, hoping to spot Riley.

I was ashamed of myself for not even using my mind, or my money, in my search. I was too drunk and distraught. My liver suffered, my hygiene suffered, and when my bender finally spun to a stop, I was lying on my back on my living room floor in my boxers, passed out.

A red patent leather shoe nudged at my kidneys and I groaned, struggling against the heavy weight of booze and sleep on top of me, not quite able to pull myself back to consciousness.

“Chase, wake up,” a familiar voice called through the thick fog, and it slowly lifted.

I groaned, refusing to open my eyes. “Carla?”

“Chase, get up,” she said again, kneeling by me and gently shaking my shoulder.

I managed to open my eyes blearily to look into Carla’s concerned face. “Get your shit together,” she told me, tossing me a pair of pants. “You’ve got a visitor.”

I looked up from the floor, my eyes scanning, and another pair of heels entered my view. My stepmother walked through the door.