The cheap apartment in the rain-lashed outskirts of Ravencroft smelled of mildew, instant ramen, and the faint, desperate edge of suppressed omega pheromones.
Ravencroft, the harsh, iron-fisted republic where winter never fully left the streets and the Kaelus Corporation owned everything that mattered. Police chiefs answered to their board. Judges took their calls. International borders bent when the conglomerate whispered. Here, a single dad with albinism and a foreign accent didn't get second chances. He got lucky… or he disappeared.
Seo Hyun sat hunched before the flickering laptop, its blue glow carving sharp shadows across his porcelain skin and snow-white hair.
His pink-rimmed eyes ached behind thin silver glasses; albinism made every screen a knife.
Rejection after rejection filled the inbox like fresh graves.
We regret to inform you…
Your background does not meet our current requirements…
Single parents are unable to commit to the demands of this role…
Some were blunter. Asian. Omega. Baggage.
The words blurred together until his chest felt hollow. He had run from Korea three weeks ago, led in the dead of night with nothing but two suitcases, a terrified three-year-old, and the kind of secrets that could get them both killed.
No family here. No pack. Just the constant, low hum of foreign pheromones in the air that made his own delicate winter-milk scent feel even more fragile, like frost on glass that could shatter at the slightest pressure.
He glanced at the tiny figure on the worn couch. His son, Rui, sat cross-legged, blonde hair glowing like warm honey under the TV light. The toddler was utterly absorbed in an English cartoon, characters yelling in bright, bouncy voices.
Rui's little hands clutched the remote like a lifeline. He had spoken nothing but rapid Korean for days, but now he was trying so hard, repeating the words in that adorably broken accent.
"Sponge… Bob… square… pan-tsu!" Rui announced proudly, then frowned in frustration.
"Eomma, wae mal mothae? Why English so hard?" His scent, sweet like milk and faint citrus, with that tiny undercurrent of something sharper, something inherited from a father whose name Seo Hyun would never speak, wafted toward him, soft and trusting.
Seo Hyun's lips curved into an unconscious smile, the kind that lit his entire fragile face like moonlight breaking through storm clouds.
That smile had always been his curse. Too pure. Too easy to want. Too easy to destroy.
His chest tightened with that familiar ache. Rui was the only reason he hadn't crumbled yet. But tonight the weight pressed harder. The savings were almost gone. Heat suppressants were running low, and in Ravencroft the black-market ones were laced with god-knows-what.
What if he couldn't keep this up? What if he dragged his baby back to Korea, back into the shadows that still hunted them?, those hidden issues he'd never spoken aloud, the reason they'd fled across oceans with nothing but fear and a prayer.
He was so close to giving up. So close to booking the return tickets and letting the past swallow them whole.
Then the inbox pinged.
Subject: Offer of Employment – Administrative Assistant Position
From: [email protected]
Seo Hyun stared. Kaelus Corporation. The name alone sent a shiver down his spine. They weren't just a company, they were the spine of Ravencroft's rotten empire.
Tech empires on the surface, underground arms deals and information brokering beneath. They owned the police, bought senators like candy, and had tentacles in every corrupt government across the globe.
People with perfect pedigrees and bloodlines sold their souls for a mailroom job here. A broke, albino omega single dad from Korea? It was impossible.
He clicked anyway, expecting another knife.
His eyes scanned the lines once. Twice. Three times. He even pushed his glasses up and leaned so close his breath fogged the screen.
"Dear Mr. Seo Hyun,
We are pleased to offer you the position of Administrative Assistant in the Executive Support Division, effective immediately. Salary package includes full family medical, housing stipend, and relocation support. Report to Kaelus Tower at 0800 tomorrow."
He got the job.
A broken, disbelieving sob tore from his throat. He lunged from the chair, laptop nearly crashing, and scooped Rui into his arms. The toddler squeaked, still half-glued to the TV.
"Eomma! TV! Sponge Bob... !"
Seo Hyun buried his face in that soft blonde hair, inhaling the sweet milk-and-citrus scent that grounded him. His own faint winter-milk pheromones flared with raw relief, wrapping around his son like a fragile shield. "We did it, baby. Umma got the job. At Kaelus. We're going to be okay. We're really going to be okay now."
Rui squirmed, patting his father's white hair with sticky fingers, but his little body melted into the hug. "Eomma… happy? No more sad?"
"Very happy," Seo Hyun whispered, voice cracking like thin ice. "For you. Always for you."
He carried Rui back to the couch, drafted the acceptance with trembling fingers, and hit send before doubt could creep back in. The confirmation came back almost instantly, Welcome to the Kaelus family, and for one bright, shining moment the dread loosened its grip.
But as he rocked Rui to sleep later, humming a half-remembered Korean lullaby, that same dread whispered back. Kaelus wasn't salvation.
It was a black glass monolith that swallowed people whole. And he had just walked straight into its jaws with his entire world in his arms.
—The Other Side of the Glass—
Deep in the abandoned industrial district on the edge of Ravencroft, an old warehouse reeked of rust, oil, and the thick, metallic tang of old and fresh blood.
The concrete floor was smeared with it, dark dried patches from weeks ago overlapping wet, glistening new ones that still steamed faintly in the cold air.
Alistair Kaelus sat on a metal chair like a king on a throne of rust, tall frame relaxed but radiating pure, lethal power. Inky black hair was tied neatly at the nape of his neck, not a strand out of place.
His piercing blue eyes, cold as arctic ice and twice as merciless, watched the scene without blinking. He was the second-in-command of Kaelus Corporation, the man who made the underground empire run smoother than the legitimate one.
Emotions were a myth to him. Guilt was a joke. And mercy? He had never learned the word.
Strong guards, hulking alphas in black tactical gear, stood in a silent ring, rifles loose but ready. In the center, kneeling in a spreading pool of his own blood, was a man in his forties. Ankle twisted at a sickening angle, hands bound behind him with razor-thin ropes that bit deep into flesh.
His face was a ruined map of bruises and cuts, one eye swollen shut. He reeked of terror-sour sweat and fading alpha pheromones that tried, and failed, to push back against the room.
Darius, Alistair's right hand, moved like living death. Slender, almost delicate-looking in his tailored black suit and wire-rimmed glasses, he was anything but.
Beneath that unassuming frame was coiled steel, swift, surgical, assassin-precise. He had just finished the preliminary work: a broken kneecap here, a dislocated shoulder there.
Now he adjusted his glasses with a blood-speckled finger, the motion calm and almost scholarly, as if he'd merely corrected a spreadsheet.
The prisoner spat blood onto the floor and rasped a final, stupid remark. "You think… you're untouchable, Kaelus? The board will hear about this. Your own father..."
Alistair didn't shout. He never did. His voice stayed quiet, velvet over razor wire.
"You stole from the family accounts," he said, each word measured and terrifying in its calm. "Seven million. Three shell companies. You thought my father wouldn't notice? You thought I wouldn't notice?"
The air grew heavier. Alistair's alpha pheromones rolled out like thick, suffocating smoke, dark leather, chilled steel, and the metallic bite of fresh blood.
It pressed down on everyone in the room, guards included, making lungs tighten and instincts scream submit or die.
The prisoner's own scent shattered under the weight, turning thin and pathetic.
No rage crossed Alistair's face. Not a flicker. Just those merciless blue eyes watching the man like a mildly interesting insect about to be crushed.
He stood slowly, towering over the broken figure. The black coat draped over his broad shoulders didn't even rustle.
"Make it clean," he told Darius, voice low and final. "No mess for the cleaners. Then visit his wife. Tell her exactly why her husband vanished. Family lesson. Make sure the children watch."
Darius adjusted his glasses again, a small, satisfied motion. "Understood."
Alistair turned and walked out without a backward glance, boots leaving faint bloody prints on the concrete. His guards fell in silently behind him.
The warehouse door clanged shut, leaving only the wet sounds of Darius beginning the final work, swift, precise, and utterly without mercy.
Somewhere across the city, a fragile albino omega was tucking his son into bed, clinging to the first real hope he'd felt in months.
Alistair Kaelus didn't know his name yet.
But the empire he ruled had already begun to tighten its jaws.
End of Chapter 1.