Page 101 of Reckless: Chaos

Because she never woke up.

The memory fizzlesand I grip my backpack, my fingers shaking as I open the zipper and flip it inside out. There at the bottom, I tug a thread until the little cotton patch falls away and the letter falls out. With shaking hands, I open the letter, finally reading it after a decade of her no longer walking this earth with me.

As her elegant scrawl stretches across the yellowing paper, my eyes land on the opening.

Dear,ladybug.

It’s as faras I get before an inhumane sound leaves me and I need to pause. My heart breaks from her death all over again. And this time it’s worse as Sterling’s tower looms over us, a glass and steel monument to everything she tried to protect me from.

Gathering my courage, I begin again, this time just letting the tears drip from my eyes. Because they need to fall. I need to feel this moment. I need it to give me the courage I need to break into my father’s tower.

Dear Ladybug,

Today, you’re just hours old, sleeping peacefully after screaming with such fierce indignation that I laughed through my tears. I already see the fighter in you.

I never planned to tell you about your father. I wanted to protect you from that truth forever. But I know one day you’ll have questions I can no longer avoid answering.

Your father is Roman Sterling. Yes,thatSterling. When I met him, he was everything I’d been taught to want—brilliant, powerful, charismatic. He saw me differently than other alphas saw betas.

Or so I believed.

I discovered the truth too late. Themedical researchhe spoke of so passionately wasn’t meant to help betas—it was meant to erase us. Tocorrectwhat he saw as an evolutionary flaw. I found his labs, saw the data on disappeared test subjects, all betas who thought they were receiving treatments.

When I became pregnant with you, his interest changed. You became his new project—the child of an alpha and his “enhanced” beta. He wanted to see how his work affected you before you were even born. We became his living laboratory.

I might have remained blind if not for the night his mistress appeared at our door with a baby girl—Mona. The betrayal cracked everything open, and in that broken moment, I finally saw clearly. I saw what he might plan for you. How he’d use his own daughter as he’d used others.

Your half-brother Alexander was already being shaped in Roman’s image when I met them. There was a hollowness in that child’s eyes that terrified me. If you ever cross paths with him, trust your instincts about what kind of man he’s become.

There are others—half-siblings whose names and faces I don’t know. Children he’s collected like specimens in his grand experiment.

I ran that night. Not for my heart, but for your life.

I don’t know who you’ll be when you read this. I hope I’ve lived long enough to give you strength, wisdom, independence. Everything you’ll need.

Because if you’re reading this letter, it means Roman Sterling has found you, or you’ve found him. Either way, remember this:

He doesn’t see people—he sees genetics. He doesn’t love—he acquires. He doesn’t nurture—he molds.

And whatever he wants from you will destroy you.

Be smarter. Be stronger. Be the woman I know you can become.

All my love,

Mom

I crushthe letter to my chest, tears no longer falling as my eyes land on Sterling Labs. I have siblings. Half-siblings. That are probably nothing like me. And Alexander—already twisted into Sterling’s image before I was even born.

It changes nothing.

Grabbing my backpack, I shove everything back in it as I climb out of the car and rush to the alleyway, pulling out the tire iron. My heart pounds against my ribs as I scan for the manhole cover. There—exactly where the blueprints showed it would be. I work the iron under the edge, muscles straining as I lift the heavy metal.

The plan is to infiltrate Sterling Labs from the bottom up. When we were here before, sneaking in to get Quinn’s data, I took a moment to pull up the building’s complete blueprints. I told the guys it was to double check our exit route, but where we needed to be then wasn’t anywhere near where I need to go now.

There’s an access point in this tunnel that leads directly to their servers. Get in, open the drive, box it up and email it to every news outlet in Puritan City. Then everyone will know exactly what my father has been up to. Or at least just Ginger—she’ll know what to do with it.

In and out.

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