"About fourteen years ago, when I was still a young officer, I made a stupid mistake that could have cost me everything, and someone helped me then. Someone… unexpected."
Silence falls again as Alex and I stare at Arnold with tension and full attention.
"Since then there were times when I helped this person in small ways, especially because even though he belonged to acriminal organization, he also did things that could be called…" Arnold hesitates, "noble."
"Ennio Ferro," I say quietly.
Arnold narrows his eyes and studies me closely.
"I assume he must have helped you at some point as well, maybe more than once, because he contacted me back then and asked that I try to, let’s say, conduct the investigation slowly in that case, the deaths of those teenagers on the cliff."
Arnold falls silent again, his fingers still tapping lightly on his knee.
"Certain facts connected in my mind when I checked the registration of your SUV and saw it was you, and the man who kidnapped you belonged to the Hanson family. I figured they must have taken revenge into their own hands just as they had on the cliff before. The bumper of their car was damaged, but the lab found traces of paint from another vehicle, not just from the guardrail. I suspected even then that they might have rammed someone, but something went wrong and they ended up at the bottom of the ocean."
The detective sighs lightly, as if to emphasize how strangely fate arranges people’s lives.
"So I called Mr. Ferro and told him what I saw on the surveillance footage. I told him that quite a few people died in that funeral home and eventually someone might become interested in identifying the perpetrator. I also reminded him that I had already paid my debt to him and that I wasn’t obligated to help anyone in this situation. That’s when Mr. Ferro told me something very interesting."
Detective Arnold takes his phone from his pocket and turns it toward me. The screen shows a young man with straight dark hair, a terrified, bloodied face, and despair in his eyes.
"If you tell me correctly who this person is and under what circumstances you met, I will stand up, walk out of here, and thesurveillance footage will never see the light of day again," he says firmly, looking straight into my eyes. I know he means it.
I study the photograph and slowly reply,
"This picture is from last year. It shows an eighteen-year-old omega who was kidnapped by a group of thugs who intended to deliver him to a brothel owned by the Ferro family. One of those alphas tried to rape him, but I didn’t let that happen, I killed him. Together with Mr. Ferro we returned the omegas to safety, placing them in the hands of our anonymous police contact."
Detective Arnold stands, slips his phone back into his pocket, and without a word starts walking toward the door.
"Wait," Alex calls suddenly, rising from the couch. "Who is that young man to you?"
Detective Arnold pauses for only a brief moment and turns toward Alex. A strange sadness shadows his face.
"He is my son."
Then he walks out and closes the door softly behind him.
I look at Alex, and he whispers, "Is this reallythe lastthing you mentioned?"
I nod slowly, our fingers intertwining.
"So it’s real, Bay?"
I nod again.
"The nightmare is truly over?"
"Yes, Alex. I believe so. We can start living."
ALEX
The next morning I wake up feeling like I’m in a whole new world, one I’ve never known before. Maybe it’s a world that needs to be redesigned from scratch? Bay’s path and mine have been so rough that it feels like the shocks we’ve gone through will keep shaking us for a long time, just from momentum alone.
Thankfully, the day greets me with a strange, quiet sense of normalcy.
And…
The first thing I do is start working on the nest.
