But packed in all the right departments.
Bet his cock is still as thick as?—
I roll my eyes at my own thoughts so hard it’s a miracle they don’t complete a full rotation.
Absolutely not, Martinez. We are not revisiting that particular file. That file is sealed, redacted, and buried in a vault that doesn’t have a key.
Because that was the other thing about Roman Kade.
The rivalry had never been clean.
It couldn’t be. Not when every tied score meant standing shoulder to shoulder at the podium, close enough that his frozen-pine scent infiltrated every inhale. Not when every sparring match ended with us pinned against the mat, breathing hard, his ice-blue eyes inches from mine with an intensity that had nothing to do with combat technique. Not when every late-night study session in the academy library devolved into arguments that generated enough heat to fog the windows, our scents tangling in the air between us until the librarian evacuated the floor.
Enemies to lovers. The textbook definition.
Except we never reached the lovers part.
Because of Maggie Tots.
Margaret Thomson. Daughter of the Thomson banking empire, academy donor’s granddaughter, an Omega with a trust fund the size of a small nation’s GDP and a crush on Roman Kade that was approximately as subtle as a nuclear detonation. She’d arrived at the academy dripping with wealth and entitlement, her presence on the roster less about careerambition and more about proximity to the Alpha she’d decided was hers.
And she’d had the money to get what she wanted.
Maggie Tots hadn’t just pursued Roman—she’d waged a campaign. Fundraising galas where she positioned herself at his arm. Departmental events where her family’s donations ensured preferential treatment. And when my existence proved inconvenient—when the rivalry between Roman and me generated a tension that even Maggie’s inherited confidence couldn’t ignore—she’d turned that considerable fortune toward making my life a living hell.
Complaints filed about my conduct that mysteriously gained traction despite lack of evidence. Training opportunities redirected to her preferred candidates. Whisper campaigns about my designation, my background, my fitness for the program—all delivered through proxies and intermediaries with enough plausible deniability to survive institutional scrutiny.
She nearly cost me my position. Nearly ended my career before it started, all because a rich girl wanted a man and I had the audacity to exist in the same competitive orbit.
As if I wasn’t from a filthy rich family myself.
The irony was almost poetic. The Martinez name carried its own weight—old money, deep roots, the kind of generational wealth that opens doors before you knock. But I hadn’t wanted those doors. Hadn’t wanted anything to do with the dark corners of my father’s empire, the underground channels that funded the lifestyle I’d been born into, the morally bankrupt machinery that turned dirty money into clean influence.
I’d washed my hands of it. All of it. Walked away at twenty-two with nothing but an academy acceptance letter and the stubborn conviction that I could build something that didn’t require blood money as a foundation.
And the punishment for that choice was simple: solitude.
If you won’t submit to your drug lord father, you don’t benefit. Period. No safety net. No family name as a shield. No pack of loyal operatives watching your back. Just you, your badge, and whatever you can build with hands that chose to be clean.
That could have been why the academy assigned us to polar opposite departments. Maggie’s influence, her family’s donations, the careful institutional pressure that ensures certain cadets land in certain places and never cross paths again. By the time we graduated and pursued our careers, there was no going back to the past.
Until now.
Almost laughable, really. Like the universe has been stockpiling jokes all day and decided to deliver the punchline in the form of a six-foot-four blonde with a grudge and a jawline that should require a permit.
I pull myself out of the past just as Roman closes the distance between us.
His stride is exactly as I remember—measured, deliberate, the walk of a man who has never once in his life been in a hurry to reach someone because the world has always been expected to wait for him. His frozen-pine scent precedes him like a cold front, the smoked oud and black tobacco intensifying with proximity until my sinuses are filled with winter forest and barely restrained aggression.
He stops three feet away—close enough to communicate, far enough to maintain the pretense that this is professional.
“Well.” His voice has deepened since the academy. Darker. Carrying the resonance of someone who’s spent a decade issuing commands that people don’t question. “If you’d look at what the past dragged in. Hazel Martinez.”
My name in his mouth sounds the way it always has—like a challenge issued and accepted in the same breath.
“ChiefHazel Martinez,” I correct, and the title lands between us with the weight of every promotion, every commendation, every sleepless night that separates cadet from command. I let it sit. Let him feel the rank differential that doesn’t technically apply between our jurisdictions but absolutely applies in this conversation. “Of this very station. Long time, Roman.”
He tries to smirk.
