She turned toward him, eyes locking with his. For one suspended second, the world narrowed to the warmth of her skin under his palm and the awareness humming between them. Not desire exactly. Something heavier. Something like commitment arriving without permission.
Lily cleared her throat.
Neither of them movedaway.
Lily’s gaze dropped to Alaric’s hand—and the faint lightning-bolt Brand glowing there. Then to Sera’s palm, where its twin pulsed in quiet, unmistakable answer.
She went very still.Not surprised.Confirmed.Not just about desire. About exposure. About what it meant if someone realized how easily one of them could be used to reach the other, and how quickly that knowledge could be exploited.
Lily exhaled slowly and reached for her phone. “I’m calling Cade,” she said, already moving away from the table. “Not because I don’t trust either of you. Because whatever this is just crossed out of the technical lane.” She paused, eyes sharpening. “If someone coerced a deletion tied to Severin Holdings, especially a death-trigger packet tied toyour father, then this isn’t just corporate exposure. It’s personal. And it’s Dante-adjacent whether you like it or not.”
Alaric understood the implication immediately. Coercion meant escalation. Escalation meant people got hurt when containment failed.
“Cade needs to know there’s a human vector here,” Lily continued. “Not a hacker. Not an abstract threat. Afrightened person being pushed. And he needs to hear it from me before someone else frames it differently.”
She stepped into the adjoining room to make thecall.
Cade arrived twenty minutes later.
Severin security announced him, Lily’s authorization already logged and cleared. Cade stepped in as if he belonged there anyway, reading the room in under five seconds. The screens. Lily’s expression. Alaric’s position relative toSera.
“This isn’t about the file anymore,” Cade said quietly. “It’s about cleanup.”
The words shifted the axis of theroom.
Alaric moved without thinking, placing Sera subtly behind him. His hand settled at her lower back now. Not hiding it. Not apologizing. The contact was protective,declarative.
She let him.
Lily noticed.
Cade definitely noticed.
“Whoever carried this out didn’t plan it,” Cade continued. “They were used. Which makes them expendable.”
The word hit harder than it shouldhave.
Sera’s shoulders tightened, asmall involuntary reaction she smothered almost immediately. Her chin lifted, posture resetting with disciplined care, but Alaric caught the cost in the way her fingers curled against her palm, nails pressing just enough to ground herself. Expendable wasn’t an abstract term to her. It wasn’t strategy. It was a verdict.
Something cold and feral moved through Alaric. Cade had seen the Brand. Of course he had. The flicker of recognition in his eyes earlier hadn’t been curiosity. It had been assessment. Alaric knew that look well. It was the moment a Dante recalculated the size of the perimeter.
That recalculation included Seranow.
Lily shifted, one hand resting briefly at her abdomen, agesture so subtle it might have been missed by anyone not watching her as closely as Alaric was. Pregnancy didn’t make her cautious. It made herexacting. Risk tolerance narrowed when there was something irreplaceable in the blast radius. Cleanup wasn’t theoretical anymore. It was preventative.
Cade’s gaze moved once more around the room, taking in Lily’s stillness, Sera’s restraint, Alaric’s position without comment. He didn’t need to spell it out. This wasn’t about saving a file or identifying a culprit. This was about whether the situation could be contained before someone decided erasure was preferable over mercy.
The temperature dropped.
Sera didn’t speak. She didn’t say the name. She locked something down inside herself with brutal efficiency, and the cold settle into her like armor. Alaric recognized it. He’d worn that same armor for most of his adultlife.
Lily turned back to her screen. Her fingers froze. “This timestamp,” she said. “It’s recent.”
Too recent.
“He’s not done with her,” Serasaid.
The certainty in her voice hit him harder than anything else wouldhave.
