He stepped back fully now, increasing the distance, and inclined his head toward the door like a formal dismissal. “I’ll escort you.”
She hesitated only long enough to square her shoulders.
They walked side by side toward the door, close enough that the heat of her washed across the space between them, far enough that no one watching would mistake it for solidarity. At the threshold, she faltered—just a fraction—and her hand lifted as if on impulse, stopping inches from his sleeve. Not reaching. Not quite. Areflex arrested mid-motion.
It struck Alaric like a physical blow. The near-contact. The unspoken question in the air. For one suspended second, his hand flexed at his side, wanting to close the gap, wanting to give her something real to hold onto before he pushed her out into uncertainty.
He didn’t move.
The almost-touch fell away. She let her hand drop, drawing her composure around herself with practiced discipline, as though the hesitation had never existed. They paused by her desk just long enough for her to collect her things and offer Rebecca a small, steady smile meant to reassure, meant to convince anyone watching that nothing was wrong. Of course, it did justthe opposite.
As they moved toward the exit, Alaric’s mind continued to work, cold and relentless, stripping the moment down to its bones. Emotion was a liability. He locked it away and followed the logic wherever it led, no matter how ugly the shape of it became.
If she was Branded, then she wasn’t just a thief. She wasn’t a convenient scapegoat or a clever internal compromise. She was a variable someone hadn’t fully understood—and had still chosen touse.
And if she wasn’t a thief, then the situation was both simpler and more devastating than he’d wanted to believe. The breach had been about access. About data. About making something disappear cleanly, and making sure someone else was standing in the blast radius when itdid.
This wasn’t just about stolen data anymore.
It was about leverage layered on top of it. About using access and credibility as tools to make the theft invisible, about isolating a woman until she looked disposable. About testing how quickly he would sacrifice someone he’d trusted when the evidence was dressed up as certainty. It was about provoking a reaction and measuring the fallout.
Which meant this wasn’t anisolated breach.
It was the opening move in a war someone had just dragged him into without permission.
And Alaric Severin did not losewars.
He intended to find out who had done it and make sure they understood exactly what they’d started.
THE RIDE TOAlaric’s home passed in a taut, watchful silence.
He drove himself. No driver. No car service. No witnesses beyond the security cameras he oversaw and the traffic he couldn’t. That, too, was intentional. Daylight flashed across the windshield in pale bands as they passed glass towers and sunlit intersections, reflections strobing faintly in the side window where Sera sat rigidly upright, hands folded in her lap as if she were holding herself together by force alone.
She hadn’t spoken since the building. Neither hadhe.
He was acutely aware of everything about her anyway. The way her breathing still hadn’tquite settled. The slight tremor she kept out of her hands through sheer will. The fact that she hadn’t leaned back once, as if relaxing might make something inside her giveway.
When they reached his property, the gates recognized him instantly and opened without pause. Sera’s head turned despite herself, eyes tracking the perimeter, the layered security, the isolation of the place.
“Here again,” she said finally.
“Yes,” he replied.
Not an explanation. Astatement.
The car disappeared into the garage and the door sealed behind them with a quiet, final sound that seemed to echo too loudly in the enclosed space. Alaric cut the engine and sat still for a beat longer than necessary, waiting for the moment when the world outside fully ceased to exist.
Only then did hemove.
Inside, the house was dim, all clean lines and shadowed depth. No personal clutter. No softness. Everything intentional. He shrugged out of his jacket and draped it over a chair without looking ather.
Sera took two steps in and stopped. Her gaze lingered, flicking toward the hallway, the curve of the stairs, then settlingon the living area just beyond—awide space highlighted by a low seating arrangement and a sleek liquor cabinet built into the far wall. Alaric experienced the echo of it like pressure against his ribs. He wondered what she was remembering. The last time she’d stood in this room. What they’d done here. How easily discipline had slipped then, too—and how much harder it was now, with the Brand awake betweenthem.
The adrenaline left her all atonce.
He saw it in the way her shoulders sagged before she could stop them. In the way her color drained. In the way she swayed, just slightly, before catching herself on the back of a chair.
Alaric was there in an instant.
