"You're threatening me."
"I'm educating you." He steps closer. "Here's what's going to happen. You're going to continue doing exactly what you've been doing—campaigning, smiling, defending the Crane name. You're going to forget Jamie Dean exists. And in exchange, I'll make sure this photograph and the dozens like it never see the light of day."
"And if I don't?"
"Then I release everything. The photographs. The hotel records. The timeline proving that Carter Crane III was fucking a journalist while publicly calling that same journalist a liar." He pauses, letting it sink in. "Your career would be over. You'd be the hypocrite who couldn't keep his hands off his enemy. It won’t be hard to spin the whole thing to make it look like something the two of you came up with to get back at your father."
Something is building in my chest. Something hot and dark and dangerous.
"That's not all, of course," Warren continues. "Dean's career will be finished." He gestures at the photograph still clutched in my hand "Who would ever trust his reporting again?"
The heat in my chest spreads. Climbs up my throat. Pulses behind my eyes.
"And then there's the custody angle." Warren's voice is almost casual now. "Alpha fathers have strong rights in this state, but not if they go to prison. Did you really think we wouldn’t put a contingency plan into place?" He shrugs. "Courts love a sympathetic narrative. And pregnant omegas are so vulnerable. So many things can go wrong."
Something snaps.
Later, I won't remember crossing the room. I won't remember grabbing Warren by the throat and slamming himagainst the wall hard enough to rattle the books on their shelves. I won't remember the sound he makes—a choked gasp of surprise—or the way his whiskey glass shatters on the floor.
I'll only remember the red haze of rage, and my voice coming out in a snarl I've never heard before.
"Touch him." My hand tightens around Warren's windpipe. His feet are barely touching the ground. "Touch him, and it'll be the last thing you ever do."
Warren's eyes are wide. For the first time since I've known him, he looks genuinely afraid.
Good.
"Carter—" He wheezes my name. "Carter, think about what you're—"
"No. You think." I lean in close, and I can smell his fear now, sharp and acrid beneath his expensive cologne. "You think very carefully about what happens next. Because that's my child Jamie is carrying. My child. And if you go near him—if you threaten him—if you so much as look at him wrong—I will end you."
"Your father—"
"My father isn't here." I bare my teeth. "And my father doesn't know about the baby, does he? You kept that part to yourself. Leverage. That's what you do. You hoard secrets and use them to control people."
Warren's face is going red. I should let go. I should step back and breathe and think about this rationally.
But there's nothing rational left in me. There's only the photograph burned into my brain, Jamie's hand on his belly, my child growing inside him, and this parasite threatening to hurt them both.
"Touch my child or Jamie, and it’ll be the last thing you ever do." My voice is steady now. Cold.
'09?"
His eyes widen.
"I'm a Crane," I say softly. "You forget that sometimes, I think. You see me as the golden boy, the empty suit, the heir who smiles for cameras and doesn't ask questions. But I grew up in this house. I know how the game is played."
Silence. Warren's pulse hammers against my palm.
"You won't—"
"My father just admitted to my face that everything Jamie wrote was true. He's a criminal. You're his fixer. And right now, the only thing standing between you and a prison cell is the fact that I haven't decided to push." I straighten my jacket. "Don't give me a reason to push, Warren."
I turn and walk toward the door.
"Carter." His voice is hoarse. "You can't protect him. Not from everything. Not forever."
I stop with my hand on the doorknob.
