Chapter 52: "I’m going to eat lasagna, Cap,"

I immediately frowned, my grip tightening around my glass of water until my knuckles turned white. "No, you’re not."

​"Come on, Cap," Reid said, his voice dropping into that low, casual register as he took a slow step away from the kitchen island, closing the distance between us.

He leaned his hip against the counter right next to me, his massive frame easily blocking out the morning sun hitting the kitchen windows.

"Think about it. It’s a perfect setup. It’s certainly going to be more fun than going to my own house and listening to a two-hour lecture about corporate logistics."

​"I don’t care about your family drama, McCoy, and I am definitely not letting you anywhere near my family," I shot back, keeping my voice down but letting every ounce of my captain’s authority lace the words. "We are not friends. We are teammates who have a... a completely messed-up situation behind closed doors. Why the hell should I let you come to my parents’ house?"

​Reid didn’t flinch. In fact, my resistance only seemed to make his smirk widen, that signature, snobbish arrogance bleeding right back into his smoky grey eyes. He leaned in a fraction closer, the faint, lingering trace of his frozen pine pheromones brushing against my senses.

​"Come on, Cap," he murmured, his tone dripping with absolute, unbothered confidence as he tilted his head. "I’m doing a perfect job keeping your little secret, aren’t I? The least you can do is bend to my whims a few times."

​I stared at him, my chest tightening with a sudden, suffocating wave of irritation. My blank face completely froze as the reality of what he was doing settled deep into my stomach.

​"Hm. You just want to blackmail me now to come have dinner with my family, isn’t it?" I hissed, the words cutting through the quiet space between us like a knife.

​"Yeah," Reid chuckled, completely shameless as he straightened up, a lazy, victorious grin breaking across his handsome face.

He rolled his broad shoulders back, entirely unbothered by the venom in my eyes.

"You can picture it however you want, Cap, but I’m going to that dinner."

"And do what, exactly?" I asked, and he blinked.

​"What?"

​"Once you’re there, what are you going to do?"

​I crossed my arms, wincing slightly as the movement caught the edge of my bad rib, but I kept my eyes locked on his.

"You’re going to walk into a house full of people you don’t know, sit at our table, and do what? Act like a snobbish prick? Tell them how much better your family’s chefs are? Or are you just going to sit there and drop hints to see how much I sweat?"

​Reid stared at me for a beat, the sudden, fierce barrage of questions actually throwing him off his stride for a fraction of a second.

The smug, untouchable smirk on his face faltered, his smoky eyes widening slightly as he processed the fact that I wasn’t just rolling over and letting him play the blackmailer.

​But he was Reid McCoy, and he was an Alpha; it didn’t take him more than a heartbeat to recover.

​"I’m going to eat lasagna, Cap," he said smoothly, the arrogance sliding right back into his voice like a well-tailored glove.

He leaned forward, resting his palms on the edge of the kitchen counter, effectively pinning me with his sheer size.

"I’m going to smile, I’m going to be the charming rookie who’s just deeply concerned about his injured captain’s well-being, and I’m going to have a normal Sunday evening. No board meetings. No inheritance audits. Just a regular, chaotic family dinner. That’s what’s going to happen."

​He tilted his head, his gaze dropping down to my lips before rising back up to lock with mine, dark with a sudden, playful intensity.

​"Unless, of course, you’re worried you won’t be able to keep your composure with me sitting right across from you."

"Don’t get cocky," I snapped, my voice dropping into a sharp, icy register that usually made the rookies on the ice immediately look at the floor, but he didn’t flinch.

​I pushed past him, my shoulder deliberately clipping his chest as I walked over to the sink to rinse my glass.

"You think you can just charm your way through my family? You have no idea what you’re walking into, McCoy. My house isn’t some quiet, polite corporate estate where everyone smiles and hides what they’re thinking. It’s loud, it’s chaotic, and my siblings will tear you apart the second you act like a snob."

​"Sounds perfect," Reid chuckled, completely unfazed by the warning as he followed me with his eyes. He leaned back against the counter, crossing his long legs at the ankle. "I can handle a little noise, Cap."

​"It’s not just noise," I muttered, my back to him as the water ran over my hands.

​My mind immediately flashed to Marina.

​The rest would be easily fooled—they were all Betas, completely blind to the thick, suffocating tension that followed Reid like a shadow. But Marina was an Alpha. A terrifyingly proud, fiercely protective Alpha who knew exactly what I was hiding.

The moment Reid stepped through that front door, carrying that heavy, dominant frozen pine scent that had literally been hammered into my core all weekend, Marina would smell it. She would know instantly that a dominant Alpha had claimed her ’Beta’ brother’s space.

And then she would question it.

I, who had been very cautious and never let an Alpha close by because I was scared of them finding out my secret, was bringing an Alpha home. Of course, she would see everything wrong with that equation.

​And if Reid dared to drop even a single arrogant hint, or if my composure slipped for a fraction of a second under her sharp eyes, she would put the pieces together.

And an Alpha sister protecting her favorite sibling’s life-ending secret was far more dangerous than Coach Devin or Russo’s locker-room teasing.

But there was no stopping Reid. I have a feeling he will show up at my house unannounced if I do not take him along, and that would be an even bigger disaster.