Page 1 of Breaking the Alpha (Serpent’s Tongue Ink #2)

R iver Baker despised being the center of attention.

His skin crawled every time lustful eyes raked over him.

His stomach churned whenever an unwanted hand grazed his body.

His muscles knotted with tense anticipation with each compliment, knowing the critique would soon follow.

Being the sole focus of a horde of women was in his top three nightmare scenarios.

Which, given his career as a model with ambitions of breaking into the acting world, was illogical at its best and just plain stupid at its worst.

Today, stupid was winning the battle.

With a centering breath, he squared his shoulders, plastered a carefree smirk on his face, and walked into the lioness’s den.

“All right, Jodie,” he greeted his agent while nodding polite acknowledgements to the three other women pacing the office floor. “Lay it on me.”

“Your wife has chosen the Heartbroken High Road strategy,” one of his agent’s underlings reported in the clipped tone all LA management mastered early in their careers.

“Windy Leigh’s posts are focusing on wishing you well on your chosen path, along with ambiguous photos of rain and empty wineglasses and a few cryptic comments about broken vows and stepping aside. ”

“Future ex-wife,” he corrected, as he sank onto the sleek, white leather sofa. “She posted that same crap when she was dropped by that car company. If I ignore it, she’ll get back to flower filters and sunny day hashtags by the end of the month.”

Jodie laughed, and he winced.

Jodie only laughed when things weren’t funny.

“Windy Leigh’s ninety-six million followers have made assumptions of your guilt based on both the photos which came out this morning and her posts, River.

Assumptions your future ex-wife isn’t correcting.

As far as her little army is concerned, you used her good name and reputation to build up your career and then started sleeping around once you didn’t need her anymore. ”

“Photos? All I do is photos.” He gave Jodie’s assistant a tight smile as he accepted her laptop and angled the screen to get a better look. “How bad can it…oh shit.”

“Yes, River. Oh shit,” Jodie echoed in a flippant tone.

“Are you looking at the wedding ring post? I have to admit, it’s effective, and I’d be impressed if it wasn’t my client being targeted in this smear.

Of course, I suspect you’re checking out the pictures of you in some motel room off Rodeo.

The one with the twin redheads on their knees would be my favorite if we cropped out the cocaine, but that’s only because their hair color complements your own coloring so nicely. ”

His blood ran cold as he scrolled through the photos.

The women in the room talked over and around him, bouncing ideas off each other and rattling off updates to the takedown notices their team of lawyers had issued within an hour of the photos being posted.

“It’s not me,” he murmured, his voice tight and gruff. “Jodie, this isn’t me.”

The din of discussion continued over his head, unabated.

“Jodie?”

Another voice joined the mayhem as a heated conversation played out on speakerphone.

“Jodie.”

This time, she heard. Her laser glare fixed on him. “What?”

“Those pictures aren’t me.”

His agent huffed with the exasperation of a thousand trials.

“Of course they aren’t you, River. The warping of the tattoos along your thighs gave that away immediately.

They’re AI generated. But your soon-to-be ex-wife is using this to announce your separation to the world, and her minions are eating it up and spewing it everywhere.

” She crouched in front of him, the feat impressive given her five-inch stiletto heels and skintight pencil skirt. “She’s good. But I’m better.”

His ears were ringing along with the internal alarms shrieking in his head.

This was it.

His marriage was over.

His career was over.

Yet neither of those were what had his pulse skyrocketing. There was something far more pressing, far more important.

He swallowed as he studied the faint swirls in the white marble floor. “What am I going to tell my brothers?”

Jodie’s lips turned up in a terrifying smile. “That’s right. You have brothers. Brothers living in a little one-light cowpoke town. What do they do there? These brothers of yours?”

“First of all, there are, like, twenty streetlights and no cows. None in town, at least. Second, my older brother owns a tattoo shop. The younger one is in college. The oldest is—” He cleared his throat—“busy.”

Jodie rose and turned, River’s internal distress not even a blip on her warpath. “Ladies, new plan. River’s going home.”

“Home?” He jumped to his feet. “Jodie—”

His attempted protest was silenced as his agent paced the floor and her assistant scampered behind her, taking meticulous notes.

“Our angle is set,” she stated with the authority of a woman few dared to question.

“ The Diamond in the Rough Leaves the Big City to Save His Family Business strategy. This I can work with. I—wait. You used to work as a piercer.” She mumbled something unintelligible for a moment.

“This isn’t ideal, but functional. It would be more marketable if we were talking a family diner or farm, but getting you back into a tattoo parlor isn’t the worst scenario.

At least it isn’t a strip club, given those AI pics we’re going to be battling.

We’ll spin it as a return to your roots, maybe play with the idea you were forced to choose between your family and Windy Leigh. ”

He opened his mouth to interject, snapping it shut when she continued without hesitation.

“You’ll need to disappear completely and keep your dick in your pants for a few weeks to give Windy Leigh’s freight train time to run out of steam.

Then we’ll hit them with the hometown boy angle.

It’ll overtake your ex’s narrative and drown out this AI bullshit.

” She paced and her hard face broke into a sly smile.

“It would be good to wrangle a few pictures with a sweet-cheeked, apple-pie-girl-next-door type. We don’t want to imply anything serious, just a few images posted and tagged by a friend.

Think good times. Gang’s back together. Puppy love. We’ll talk hashtags once we have them.”

Running his hand through his hair, his stomach dropped at the thought of facing his brothers. “Can’t we just ignore it? People get bored fast.”

“People get bored of nice, River. They never tire of going on the attack when they’re fed a steady diet of gossip and scandal.

You’ll fly out tonight and disappear. No posts, no calls, nothing.

Be a ghost. We’ll let the anger simmer a little longer, catch them off guard.

Start taking photos as soon as you land so we have an arsenal to choose from. ”

With her plan formulated, Jodie switched from crisis mode to agent mode, hooking her arm in his and walking him toward the door.

“Unfortunately, those photos and this mess with Windy lost us the cologne campaign, but the denim one begins shooting in nine weeks. They want those tattoos of yours on display, so keep up your gym routine and don’t get any new work done above the belt line.

” She patted his cheek. “Don’t you worry, babe.

We’ll take care of this. You go pack and be at the airport by six. ”

With that, he found himself alone in the hall, banished from the war room where Jodie and her crew would spend the rest of the day fixing, planning, and scheduling his life.

Everything they did would be about River Baker.

Every phone call, every text, every threat to every blog site refusing to take down the photos.

The River Baker reputation, the River Baker presence, and the River Baker career would be front and center.

The only thing missing in it all was River Baker.