Ficorpio
Chapter 1
Chapter 1
Adrian Sterling and I were famous in our circle for being the perfect couple in public and strangers in private.
Most days, he acted like he couldn’t stand me. But once the bedroom door closed, he was anything but half-hearted.
I knew why.
He looked down on me for being a Beta.
And he was a top-tier Alpha.
The person who was supposed to become his partner had been my younger brother, Evan—an Omega everyone called exceptional.
But Evan ran.
So I, an utterly ordinary Beta, was pushed in to take his place.
By the time my father finally managed to drive the Carter family business into bankruptcy, I knew it was time for me to leave too.
The divorce went smoothly.
But…
I stared at the video Adrian’s closest friend had sent me on my phone.
In the clip, the Alpha was drunk out of his mind, clutching a liquor bottle and crying like his world had ended.
“He leaves when he wants, comes back when he wants! He doesn’t feel bad for me at all—he’s obviously got someone else out there!”
“He’s got that kind of personality! Other than me, who the hell could take care of him like that? Who else could satisfy him?”
Just when everyone in the video seemed to think he’d finally burned himself out, he shot upright from the couch.
His voice turned aggrieved, but stubbornly serious.
“Tell me the truth—if I go back and act like his dog, would he take me back?”
“My people can’t save your father’s company this time. Bankruptcy is the only option for now.”
The Alpha on top of me spoke without warning.
His voice yanked my muddled mind back into the present.
I looked up at Adrian, only to be jolted fully awake by a bead of sweat dripping from his chin onto my skin, hot enough to sting.
That did it. I was completely conscious now.
“Once this rough patch passes, I’ll hand him one of Sterling Group’s smaller subsidiaries to play with,” Adrian went on, his breathing still uneven. “But this time, I’m putting someone by his side to keep an eye on him.”
I understood.
A man like my father had never had much real ability, but he was arrogant enough to think every job was beneath him and every ambition within reach.
It didn’t matter how many companies you handed him.
There was only ever one ending.
Bankruptcy.
Under normal circumstances, I would have been thrilled. I would’ve wrapped myself around Adrian, praised him in a honeyed voice, and coaxed a little more generosity out of him.
But today, I didn’t.
“No need.”
“Hm?”
“I’m saying you don’t need to give him a company. And from now on, you don’t need to help him at all.”
Adrian looked at me like he hadn’t understood a single word.
Chapter 2
Chapter 2
Honestly, over the years, he’d already given my family far too much.
My father had caused one mess after another, and every single time, Adrian had been the one forced to clean it up.
The fact that he’d done that much for my family at all was already more than most people would have done.
Besides, what happened back then… my family had wronged him first.
So if my father had finally driven himself into bankruptcy, that was entirely his own doing. There was no reason for Adrian to hand him another company on top of everything else.
But the Alpha above me suddenly stopped.
Confused, I looked up and met his eyes.
Only to realize Adrian seemed angry.
“Elliot, I never said I was abandoning your family. This time, sure, I can’t work a miracle and bring that wreck of a business back from the dead.”
He looked down at me from where he loomed over the bed, impatience written all over his face.
“But do you really need to get mad at me over this?”
“I… I’m not mad.”
“Enough.” His tone turned even flatter. “I already said I’ll set your father up with another company. It’ll be about the same size as the last one. Stop sulking and saying the opposite of what you mean.”
For one wild second, I genuinely wondered if Adrian was incapable of understanding human speech.
So I abruptly sat up in bed, yanking the blanket around myself to cover my body.
And I got irritated too.
“I’m not mad. If anything, I’m happy he went bankrupt. And the thing I want most is for you to stop helping him.”
The confusion on Adrian’s face only deepened, mixed now with outright shock.
Then again, that made sense.
In his eyes, my whole family was rotten.
And he wasn’t wrong.
What he didn’t know was that what happened back then—the substitute marriage—had never been my choice.
The person who was supposed to marry Adrian in the first place was my younger brother, Evan.
An Omega.
And, by every standard that mattered in this world, a far more suitable match for someone like him.
But the real problem was Evan.
A few hours before the wedding, he ran.
Left his own wedding behind and disappeared.
And my father, desperate to keep the Sterling family from taking offense, decided to shove me into Evan’s place.
As long as the ceremony happened and everything was finalized, even if the Sterlings wanted to back out afterward, there wouldn’t be much they could do.
But in that whole mess—being forced in as a replacement—not one person ever asked whether I was willing.
Adrian hated that my family had switched the bridegroom at the last minute.
My father only cared about what he could get from the Sterling family.
And me—
Me, the one delivered straight into Adrian Sterling’s hands.
I had never imagined myself living with an Alpha.
Even less had I imagined that my future partner would be an S-class Alpha with overwhelming needs.
But what was done was done.
There was no point picking apart the past now.
So I endured it.
Chapter 3
Chapter 3
I crushed everything that had happened back then into pieces and swallowed it whole.
I played the part of the good son. The good spouse.
All these years, because of my father, I had always felt like I had no right to speak in front of Adrian.
Every time I faced him, there was guilt lodged in my chest.
But now—
Maybe this was the moment to settle everything.
My father was bankrupt.
I no longer needed to ask Adrian to clean up whatever disaster Richard Carter might leave behind.
And when I looked at Adrian now, guilt was no longer the only thing I felt.
“Elliot, have I ever treated you badly all these years? Have I ever mistreated your family? Was there anything you wanted that I didn’t give you? So why do you have to make such a big deal out of this?”
Today was the last day of Adrian’s susceptibility period.
Because of it, I hadn’t gone out once these past few days.
I’d stayed by his side the entire time.
Without a bonded partner’s pheromones to soothe him, Adrian had a harder time with it than most Alphas.
For Adrian, suppressants could only keep his emotions in check for a little while.
Which meant these past few days hadn’t been easy on me either.
And now, with the way he’d just spoken to me, my temper finally snapped.
Wasn’t he the one who’d wanted us apart from the start?
I still remembered the look on his face at our wedding—that flash of shock when he saw me standing there instead of the person he’d expected.
He didn’t like me.
He didn’t like Betas.
From beginning to end, the only partner he’d ever wanted was an Omega.
A man like him, from a family like his, had long since outgrown the need for a socially equal match. Wealth like theirs didn’t have to play by those rules anymore.
Too bad.
When people are too sure of themselves, they usually end up paying for it.
“Adrian Sterling, let’s get divorced.”
His brows drew tight.
The look on his face was pure confusion.
Then he leaned back slightly, and the marks streaked across his body came fully into view—raw red scratches, all of them left by me over the last few days.
At a moment like this, they felt horribly out of place.
Because what we were talking about now had almost nothing to do with that.
“Are you serious?”
“Of course I am. Do I look like I’m joking?”
The Alpha let out a bitter, mocking laugh.
Then he rolled out of bed and stood. He bent down, grabbed his pants from the floor, and pulled them on without a second thought.
When he turned back to me, his gaze was cold enough to cut.
“Elliot, you’re really something. You’d divorce me for those people? Jesus, your heart is made of stone. All these years, and I still couldn’t warm it up.”
I stared at him, completely thrown.
I had no idea what he meant.
He couldn’t possibly think…