Someone clears their throat. A pen scratches. The COO drones on about projections I already approved. My patience thins. My thoughts drift—whiskey-brown eyes behind a mask, watching the room like she built it as she stands completely sober while everyone else tears each other apart under a drug I didn’t authorize.
And she looked at me like she fucking knew something I didn’t.
“Mr. Redmont?” the COO asks like I might kill him for getting my attention at the wrong time.
I lift my gaze slowly. He swallows like he’s tasting his own mortality. I hum something vague, and he takes it as permission to keep wasting my time.
Another thirty minutes of bullshit before I finally stand. No one speaks. No one breathes wrong. I leave the room without acknowledging a single person. It’s almost funny how they scramble to clear the path.
My office is quiet, all glass, height, and money. The city spreads out beneath me, small and desperate, easy to manipulate. But none of that draws my focus.
Not with last night under my skin like a splinter.
The door opens behind me. Maverick Blackwell’s footsteps are unmistakable—heavy, unapologetic, and loyal in the way that’s a blessing and a fucking nightmare. “Boss.”
I keep my eyes on the street. “Refresh my memory—was it the fight with the football team or the professor’s car that got you tossed out of Dartmouth?”
Mav snorts. “The fight. The car was… extracurricular.”
Of course it was.
He broke the captain’s jaw for implying my grades were bought. One punch. Lights out. Loyalty like that is dangerous, but it’s also why he’s here.
“What is it?” I ask.
He hesitates, which means I’m not going to like whatever comes next. “We have a problem.”
We usually do. “Go on.”
Mav shifts his weight. “It’s the girl from last night.”
A slow pulse hits my throat. “What about her?”
“She’s Cami’s friend,” he says, then adds, “and she’s the dealer.”
I turn.
The humor slides off Mav’s face instantly. “Cami swears she’s harmless, but you know how the Order feels about freelancers on our turf.”
I hold out a hand. He drops a folder into it.
Violet.
Her file is a mix of academic brilliance and personal tragedy. Berkeley research, advanced compound modeling, and molecular breakdowns—shit no casual street chemist should have any business understanding.
I flip through until everything clicks: dosage formulas, compound trials, and neurological impact predictions. All of it leading toward something engineered, deliberate, and potent.
“She didn’t just distribute it,” I say. “She fucking made it.”
“Yeah,” Mav mutters. “And this isn’t your average blend. It’s designer. Precision work. She built this thing molecule by molecule.”
There’s more—a reconstructed cloud fragment, handwritten notes, and chemical equations. A single letter written in the margins.
Z.
I drag my thumb across the ink.
So the quiet girl watching the room wasn’t prey. She was the fucking pedator.
