“Yes.”
The honesty is almost worse than if he’d tried to justify it. Ilook at the others, seeing the same acknowledgment on their faces.
“We were wrong,” Dax says quietly. “The way we handled it. How we treated you. We were wrong.”
“We were fools,” Malik adds. “You weren’t just good. You were doing something different. Something better in a lot of ways. Instead of learning from that, instead of seeing you as a colleague, we saw competition to be eliminated.”
“Why?” I ask. “Why not just... be better? Outperform me fairly?”
“Pride,” Jalen says simply. “We’d built something from nothing, and we were protective of it. Too protective. When you showed up doing incredible work, we felt threatened.”
“So, you tried to drive me out.”
“Not drive you out,” Malik corrects. “But make things difficult enough that you’d back off from the major clients. Let us have the big contracts.”
“Because you thought you deserved them more than I did.”
Another pause. Then, from Dax: “Yes. We thought our pack status, our resources, our experience gave us more claim to those clients than a solo omega.”
The admission sits heavy between us. The big, ugly truth.
I should be angry. Should probably throw the cards at them and storm off. But instead, I just feel... tired. And oddly relieved that they’re being honest.
“That’s fucked up,” I say quietly.
“Completely,” Cole agrees. “We were assholes.”
“You were.” I look at each of them in turn. “You made my professional life so much harder than it needed to be. Every vendor you poached, every client you undercut me on, every time you showed up at a venue I was touring... you made me feel like I had to fight twice as hard just to exist in the same industry.”
“I know,” Malik says. “And I’m sorry. We’re all sorry.”
“Sorry doesn’t get me back the contracts I lost.”
“No,” he agrees. “It doesn’t. But if there’s any way to make it right?—”
“There isn’t,” I interrupt. “What’s done is done. But...” I take a breath. “I appreciate the honesty. And the acknowledgment that you were wrong.”
“We were,” Dax says firmly. “And for what it’s worth, watching you these past few days, seeing how you handle problems, how you think about others… we were idiots. You’re not just a good person. You’re exceptional.”
The compliment makes my cheeks warm. “I thought we were past flattery.”
“It’s not flattery if it’s true,” Jalen says. “You built a business from nothing, with no support, and made it successful enough to compete with established packs. That’s not just talent. That’s extraordinary.”
I don’t know what to say to that. Don’t know how to process the genuine admiration in their voices, the respect that feels so different from the competitive edge that’s defined our relationship until now.
“So,” Cole says after a moment. “Plans for after this?”
The question drops like a stone into still water.
After this. After the storm. After the roads clear. After we all go back to our separate lives.
Nobody answers.
The silence stretches, because none of us has an answer.
None of us knows what comes next.
Or if there even is a next.
