She slides my mug across the table without looking up from her own pour.
"How's Reeves?"
"She did the thing again." Wren drops into the chair across from me. "You know how I told you she organizes the bathroom when I'm in the shower?"
"The thing with the towels."
"The thing with the towels. Except now she's moved on to the spice rack. I came home yesterday and everything was alphabetized. Alphabetized, Max. Who alphabetizes cumin?"
"Former military. They can't help it."
"Look, I love having a bodyguard and I love that she takes her job so seriously but, come on! It's creepy and nice at the same time."
"The Graves specialty."
She grins over her mug. The grin fades into the look—the one I've started recognizing over the past few weeks.
The recognition goes both ways. She must see it on my face–everything that happened between me and the brothers.
I couldn’t hide it even if I wanted to.
Not from her.
Wren sets her mug down. Leans forward on her elbows.
"Okay, what happened?" She says it the way she says everything—straight, no runway, no softening. "And don't say nothing. You've had this look on your face since you walked in. Like someone rearranged your insides and you're still figuring out where everything goes." She waves a hand at me. "Spill."
It takes everything in me not to laugh. What a fucking ironic thing for her to say.
The Graves brothershaverearranged my insides.
I stare into my coffee. The cream swirls. I try to figure out what to say.
"There are three of them," I say.
Wren blinks. "Three what?"
"Stepbrothers." I drag my thumb across the placemat. "You know Bane. He’s the youngest" A breath. "There's also Atlas. The oldest. He runs everything. And Zero."
"Zero." She says it like she's tasting it. "That's not a real name."
"It's the only one he answers to."
She waits. Patient.
"The thing is..." I stop. Start again. "They're all… alphas. All three of them. And I'm—"
An omega." No hesitation. No surprise. I explained it to her the second night in this apartment—what we are, why our biology made us targets, why we ended up in that facility. She didn't know the word for it before me. Just knew the fevers and the shame. I gave her the language and she gave me the silence afterward, and we sat on the ugly couch and let the shared knowing be enough.
"And they all—" I wave my hand. A gesture that means everything and explains nothing.
"Want you?"
The bluntness makes heat crawl up my neck. "Yeah."
"All three."
"Yeah."
