It was like being engulfed by a thundercloud. He stepped up behind me and Stephen, his arms spanning the entire width of our huddle. He pulled us all in, crushing us together until there was no air, no space, just the friction of wool and silk and heat.
He buried his face in the crook of my neck, inhaling deeply, checking the scent.
"Clear," Mateo grunted into my skin. "Perimeter holds."
We stood there for a long time. A knot of limbs and varying heart rates. A Beta, an Omega, two Alphas, tangled together in a hallway in Switzerland, defying everything that said this shouldn't work.
I felt Stephen’s pulse against my palm. I felt Juno’s shallow breathing deepen and slow. I felt Mateo’s solid, immovable weight anchoring us to the floor.
I closed my eyes. I didn't need to see the spreadsheet. I could feel the data.
We were a Pack. And we were terrifying.
My phone buzzed in my pocket. A vibration against my hip.
Then Stephen’s watch chimed.
Then Juno’s phone lit up in his hand.
The notifications were rolling in. The reaction. The lawsuits. The job offers. The threats. The work.
Mateo squeezed us once, hard, a final calibration, and then stepped back. The cold air rushed in, but it didn't chill me.
Juno straightened his tie. He slicked his hair back. The shark smile returned, faint but sharp.
Stephen opened his laptop again, his eyes already scanning a fresh legal brief.
I pulled out my phone.
"Email from Mitchell King," I said. "He wants an exclusive on the certification rollout."
"Tell him to wait in line," Juno said, turning toward the office door.
"Tell him the fee just doubled," Stephen corrected, falling into step beside him.
Mateo looked at me. He waited.
I adjusted my blazer. I checked the invisible clipboard in my head.
"Let's go bill them for the damage," I said.
We walked back toward the noise, together.
THIRTY-THREE
Rowan
The penthouse smelled like victory.
Not the cheap, synthetic kind, the kind that came in a spray can and left a film on your skin. This was the real thing: aged oak, the faint metallic tang of champagne left to warm in abandoned flutes, and the deep, resonant hum of an industry that had just been told, politely but firmly, to fuck off.
I stood at the floor-to-ceiling windows, watching Zurich’s skyline glitter like a scattered handful of diamonds. The lake was a black mirror below, the lights of the boats smeared into gold streaks. Somewhere out in the world, Julian Vance was probably cursing us as his credit cards were declined and his empire crumbled into a pile of voided contracts.
Good.
I turned away from the glass.
The others were already here.
