"We know." Dominic says it without flinching.
"I would have left." I grip the coffee mug hard enough that the heat bites my palms. "If I couldn't feel how broken up you arethrough the bond, I would have walked out last night and never come back."
Through the bond Dominic's guilt flares and Amos' grief deepens. Neither of them argues or tells me I'm overreacting.
"But I can feel it." I stare into the coffee. "I can feel what you're feeling and I know it's real. The guilt, the fear, the... whatever this is that's been pulsing through the bond all night. I can't pretend I don't feel it."
"Niah..." Amos starts.
"I'm not finished." He stops. "I'm not leaving. But I'm not forgiving you either. Those are two separate decisions and right now I've only made one of them."
The kitchen is quiet except for the refrigerator humming. Dominic's hands are flat on the table in front of him, his fingers spread. He looks smaller sitting at this kitchen table than I've ever seen him look.
"What do you need from us?" His voice carries a crack I've never heard from him before. "How do I... how do we make you see that it's real now?"
I look at him across the kitchen. I mean really look.
"You prove it. You don't say it's real, you prove it. Every day until I believe you."
"How?"
"I don't know." I take a sip of coffee. "Figure it out. You're supposed to be smart."
The corner of Amos' mouth twitches before he kills it.
Despite everything there's still work to do on the board presentation and the forensic data. The world didn't stop spinning because my Alphas lied to me.
Amos sets up his laptop at the kitchen table and pulls up the presentation deck. I sit across from him with the Southeast division files.
Dominic makes lunch without being asked. He sets a sandwich beside my laptop at noon and stands over me until I pick it up.
"I'm not hungry."
"Eat it anyway." He doesn't move.
"You can't fix this with sandwiches, Dominic."
"I'm not trying to fix anything. I'm trying to make sure you eat." His hand hovers near my shoulder and then drops to his side without making contact. "You haven't eaten since the toast this morning and your hands are shaking."
I comply, taking a bite of the sandwich because he's right and because my bond marks ache less when he's standing close to me, which is infuriating.
My contribution to the deck is the Meridian Holdings analysis from the Southeast accounts. The anger is still there. It sits in my gut like something I swallowed that won't digest. But working alongside them I can see the competence is real even if the origin was strategic.
A spike of anxiety hits me at three thirty, not a heat spike but a stress response that tightens my chest and makes my jaw clench. I don't notice it happening until Dominic's voice cuts through the haze from across the table.
"You're clenching your jaw." His eyes are on me, steady. "What do you need?"
"I'm fine."
"That's not what I asked."
My jaw unclenches. Through the bond his attention is focused entirely on me.
"I don't know what I need." The honest answer escapes my lips. "I'm angry and I'm scared and I'm working on a presentation that's going to destroy your father. I don't know what I need right now."
"Do you want me to stay?" He sets his phone down. "I'll sit in the chair. I won't touch you unless you ask."
"Stay." The word scrapes my throat. "Just... stay where I can see you."
