Surrender to the Dominant Alpha

Maia

The corridor smelled of chlorine and reheated coffee. The monitors' beeps came and went like a tired ripple. I was checking the IV bag for the third time when my cell phone vibrated in my lab coat pocket - three times, the way my brother and I had agreed for emergencies. My heart skipped a beat, then raced.

"Heitor?" I whispered, my eyes still on the patient. "Talk."

The silence on the other end told me more than any explanation. When his voice finally came, it was rough, with no room for bravado.

"I messed up, sis. They found out it was my doing. There's no escaping it."

The world shrank to the width of the corridor. I signaled the technician to cover my room and slipped into the supply closet. The smell of gauze, of metal. I locked the door from the inside.

"How much?" I asked, in a tone I didn't even recognize.

"It's not money. It's the one in charge. The D'Ávila pack wants... wants a direct settlement."

The name dropped into my stomach like lead. D'Ávila. The Alpha who didn't need to raise his voice for the entire city to hear her.

"Do you have proof?" I forced out, because the nurse's habit wouldn't let me accept a diagnosis without an exam.

"They have my steps, my conversations, the route I took." He sniffled. "I thought I could bypass their quartermaster's office, just once..."

I closed my eyes. Heitor always believed that "just once" was a bridge to an easier world. That was now collecting its toll with tongue and teeth.

"Where are you?"

"Turning the hospital corner. They sent a message: 'Today still.' Sis... they said the boss is coming. Him."

I ran out of air for a second. I started breathing again as if learning anew. The clock showed 9:17 PM. The shift had six more hours. Life had no more margin.

"Stay away from the main entrance. Hide your face. I'll find a way to get you out of there." I unlocked the door, smoothing my lab coat with cold hands. "And don't answer anyone else."

"Sis... forgive me."

The call died. The corridor, returned, seemed different, as if a shadow had preceded the body. I still discharged a controlled fever, readjusted the mask on a man who insisted on pulling it down to his chin, and excused myself to the doctor: "my mother got sick," I lied without stammering. In the elevator, the mirror returned a woman who hadn't slept for thirty-two hours and yet seemed familiar with danger.

At the front desk, the security guard stopped me with an automatic gesture.

"Employee must register exit," he said, without looking up from the monitor.

"Family emergency. I'll bring the certificate." My voice was steel.

He was about to object when the automatic door opened and the air temperature shifted. Two men crossed the lobby before the sensor could fully open the rest of the way. They weren't the first wolves I'd seen, but there was an economy of movement in them that announced training, hierarchy. And, one step behind, him.

Rafael D'Ávila carried silence like a weapon. Tall, broad shoulders contained in a dark suit that seemed to absorb light, his gray gaze swept the front desk unhurriedly and yet reached everyone before any word. There were no crests or ostentation; there was the certainty of a boundary. The security guard straightened his posture without knowing why.

"Nurse Maia Duarte?" The question wasn't a question. It was the exact announcement that he knew.

I didn't answer immediately. My brain raced through dozens of strategies: deny, flee through the sterilization corridor, scream. None made sense with that gaze fixed on me as if measuring pulses.

"That's me." The sound came out firm.

He nodded. one of his men turned his face, attentive to the cameras and side entrances. Rafael didn't get closer than necessary.

"Your brother is waiting outside, as instructed." His tone was low, clean, the kind of voice that, effortlessly, made the whole room listen. "I came so no one gets hurt trying to 'sort it out'."

The security guard tried an intervention:

"Gentlemen, this is a..."

"A hospital." Rafael tilted his chin, and the man fell silent. "Precisely why I walked in."

My body wanted to retreat; my legs advanced. There was a discipline in my fear that I recognized from other nights: when chaos arrived, I became precise. I pointed to the outside wing.

"We'll talk outside. I don't discuss anything near my patients."

He considered it for a second. A thought furrow lined the corner of his eye. He nodded. His men opened the way without bumping into anyone; and yet, I felt the walls observing us.

The night welcomed me, humid. Heitor was a few meters away, hood over his face, his whole body a plea for forgiveness. I raised my hand, asking him to stay put. Rafael stopped beside me, close enough for me to notice a smell of rain and iron, far enough so that no gesture seemed threatening.

"What did he do?" I asked, without embellishment. I already knew half; I wanted the other half from the right mouth.

"He tried to use a supply route to pass merchandise that wasn't his." Rafael didn't dramatize the sentence. "He was caught on internal cameras. More than that: someone was waiting for him to do it, which is the data that interests me."

My heart became a closed fist. He wasn't there to collect fear. He was there to compose a bigger picture.

"We will return whatever is needed," I said, knowing that wasn't the point.