Sera smiled against his shoulder, boneless and sated and alive in a way that had nothing to do with simply surviving the night. “Better than okay.”
He made a sound that might have been relief or satisfaction or both, and gathered her closer, arranging them with infinite care so her head rested on his chest and his arm wrapped protectively around her. She could hear his heartbeat beneath her ear, still elevated but beginning to slow, and she matched her breathing to its rhythm.
His free hand traced idle patterns on her shoulder, the last of his discipline settling back into place. But it was different now. Softer. As if some wall between them had finally, irreversibly comedown.
Outside, the night pressed in, full of danger and uncertainty and violence waiting in the wings. Tomorrow they would have to deal with whoever had tried to kill them. Tomorrow they would have to be strategic and careful and watch every shadow for threats.
But here, in this room, in his arms, Sera was safer than she hadany right tobe.
And when sleep finally claimed her, it was with Alaric’s heartbeat steady beneath her ear, areminder that they’d survived.
That they’d chosen this.
That they’d chosen each other.
And that was worth fightingfor.
Chapter 12
ALARIC SEVERINpreferred conversations that ended with decisions.
This one would end with damage.
He didn’t hold this meeting at Severin Holdings.
He held it at home in a secondary office that occupied the west wing of his home. It was separated from the rest of the house by a short corridor and thick double doors. The desk was massive, carved from a single slab of dark wood, positioned so he could see the door, the windows, and the hall beyond. Bookshelves lined one wall. The other was glass, looking out over land he owned.
This was not a place for family.It was a place for decisions.He’d chosen it deliberately.
He arrived early because arriving early removed variables.He stood behind his desk, jacket still on, hands loose at his sides, posture composed.The word calm was frequentlyapplied to him, usually by people who didn’t know the difference between calm and restraint. Alaric wasn’t calm. He was contained.
He hadn’t slept much because he and Sera hadn’t wasted the night on sleep. Heat, friction, the relentless need to feel her alive and close after the violence of the day before had left his body gutted and overworked. She’d clung to him in the dark, not fragile, just unwilling to let go, and he’d given her everything he had, over and over, until exhaustion finally caught up with themboth.
His ribs ached where the impact of the truck had bruised him. His shoulder protested when he moved. He ignored it all, the physical pain and the deeper pull toward the bed Sera still occupied, because wanting her wasn’t something he could indulge once the morning started making demands.
For a few reckless hours in the early hours of the morning, he’d let himself want nothing but her. The warmth of her body, the quiet certainty of her beside him, the dangerous idea that he could stay in bed and let the world handle itself. It was an illusion, and he knew it even as he heldit.
The world never waited and want was a luxury. He took that need, that pull toward her, and set it aside with care, the way he did everything that threatened tocompromise a decision. Then he drew a breath, squared his shoulders, and turned back to the work that refused to be postponed.
He needed to focus on the sealed death-trigger file that had disappeared.
The missing file was the problem beneath the problem. Not a failure, not a delay, but a seemingly purposeful absence. Files didn’t simply vanish at Severin. Someone had recognized the shape of something dangerous in that file. They’d acted fast enough to remove it before anyone else could trace its outline, leaving behind a gap that said more than the data itself ever could.
That kind of precision didn’t belong to chance. It belonged to someone who understood consequences and was willing to act before anyone else could react.
And it wasn’t just anyfile.
The archive had been stored inside the death-trigger packet, the sealed archive Bjorn maintained for end-of-life triggers and succession contingencies. It was the section that stayed blocked off, encrypted, and functionally untouchable until the moment Bjorn died. Adead-man’s protocol. Adelayed ignition. Alaric had known it existed, had known Bjorn kept contingencies, but he’d never seen this specific packet opened. No one had. Thatwas the point.
Which meant the timing mattered.
Rebecca couldn’t have been trying to steal a live asset. She couldn’t have been trying to profit from information she’d read. If she took it, she took it unopened. Alocked thing removed from alock.
That left only one question worth asking.
Who wanted it gone badly enough to erase it before it could ever beseen?
Rebecca had taken the file. At least, everything pointed to that probability. Her access. Her proximity. But probability was not motive. Nor was it proof.
