It’s domestic. Ordinary. Something I should be able to dismiss with a glance.
I don’t.
Somewhere behind that domestic quiet is the woman who engineeredZ, who created a compound sharp enough to cut through instinct and leave the pieces humming in its wake. I watched a penthouse full of adults lose themselves in the space of a single inhale, watched them claw, grab, and cling with the kind of desperation that should terrify anyone who understands what it means when human behavior stops belonging to them.
Zdoesn’t blur the line between want and need. It erases it.
My phone vibrates against the desk, pulling me just far enough out of my own head to register the latest batch of reports. I skim them without really needing to read—subject after subject describing the same unsettling imprint, and the emotional residue that’s supposed to clear in hours but clings like a bruise days later.
Three days out and people still feel attached. Still circling the memory of a stranger’s hands. Still convinced something fundamental shifted inside them.
A drug shouldn’t be able to do that. But hers does.
I set the phone down, slower than necessary, jaw tightening in a way I don’t bother to check. Because the truth is simple, irritating, and not something I want to confront—it’s getting under my skin too. Not the drug; I didn’t take any but the pull. The interest. The way she looked standing at that glass wall while the rest of the room came apart.
Soft, flushed, and stubbornly present in a place that eats softness alive. She didn’t drown in the chaos she created. She just… observed it. Measured it. As if the whole night were a test she was already grading. And when she realized I was watching her, there was this flicker in her eyes—not fear, not embarrassment. Something closer to defiance. Or recognition. Or maybe it was just the part of me that can’t leave the unknown alone.
Ella steps into view on the monitor, swinging her backpack onto one shoulder, and still talking about whatever middle-schoolers talk about at eight in the morning. Violet listens with a real smile, warm enough that it softens the sharp line of her jaw.
If people like her were smart, they would stay far away from men like me. But she isn’t far. She’s in my territory, playing with something she clearly doesn’t understand, and tied to people whose unpredictability bothers me more than I’d like to admit.
I narrow my eyes at the screen, refusing to acknowledge the truth threading itself through my thoughts like barbed wire.
She’s in my head.
And I have no fucking idea how she got there.
The door to my office opens without a knock.
Only one person gets that allowance.
“You’re still on her,” Maverick says, not a question, just an observation.
I don’t look away from the monitor. “You’re late.”
“I’m right on time,” he answers, stepping fully inside, shutting the door with a quiet click that cuts off the outside noise completely. “You’re the one running behind.”
He crosses the room with that unhurried, coiled walk of his, the one that says he’s already scanned every angle, every exit, and every threat. He doesn’t bother pretending he’s not looking at the screen. Violet wipes her hands on a towel, reaching for a mug in the cabinet like the world hasn’t sharpened its teeth around her.
“She making coffee or starting a war?” he asks. His tone is dry, but there’s steel under it. The humor is just camouflage.
“What did you find?” I ask.
He doesn’t answer right away. Instead, he drops a folder onto my desk instead. “Field notes. Follow-ups. Not going to like ‘em.”
“I already don’t.”
He huffs something close to a laugh and leans a hip against the edge of the desk, eyes still on the screen. “Z’s doing exactly what the party suggested. Attraction spikes fast, plateaus slower than expected, and the emotional echo sticks. Hard. People are reporting fixation two, three days out. It’s not residual high. It’s coded.”
“Imprinting,” I say.
“Yeah.” His jaw ticks once. “If we let this run wild, we won’t just be dealing with addicts. We’ll be dealing with people who think they’re in love.”
The word lands heavier than it should. I ignore it.
“Can we replicate it?” I ask.
“Not yet,” he says. No excuses, no fluff. “We’re close on backbone composition. The binding behavior, though… that’s not standard. Whatever she did to tie the emotional centers into the rush? That’s not in any model the team has seen.”
