Now that I know it's him, the details sharpen. Black t-shirt, sleeves tight around his arms, dark hair pushed back from his face. The shadows carve his cheekbones sharper than usual. His split knuckles rest on the leather armrest, scabbed over but still angry.
He’s dragged the chair close to the bed, his spread legs straddling the edge of it.
He's watching me. Those black eyes steady and unblinking, patient in a way Zero is never patient about anything.
How long has he been sitting there?
"Where's Atlas?" The words come out sharp. Breathless. My pulse is hammering in my throat. "Where's Bane? Is something—"
"Atlas is at home. Bane's asleep." His voice is low. Unhurried. The calm of a man who's been sitting in silence for a long time and is in no rush to break it. "Nothing's wrong."
"Then why are you—"
"Relax, Max."
I don't relax. The last time I was truly alone in a room with Zero, he had me bent over a weight bench. The time before that, pinned to a pool table. My body has learned a very specific lesson about what happens when there's no one between me and this man, and it's screaming that lesson at me now even as he sits perfectly still with his hands visible and his voice low and his posture almost—impossibly—non-threatening.
"How did you get in?"
"Key." He holds it up. A keycard, identical to mine. "Atlas has one. I have one. Perks of being the people who pay the bill."
"You could have knocked."
"I did. You were out cold." A pause. "I brought you something."
He reaches beside the chair. Picks up a white pharmacy bag. Sets it on the bed between us, careful, like he's placing a chess piece.
I open it. An amber prescription bottle. I turn it toward the gentle light and read the label.
My suppressants.
The same ones. The same dosage. Dr. Yao's name on the prescription—Atlas must have contacted her, pulled strings,done whatever it is the Graves family does when they need something they shouldn’t be able to get.
"Atlas got you a ninety-day supply," Zero says. He's watching me hold the bottle. Something moves behind his expression—subtle, guarded. "Figured you'd want them as soon as possible."
I turn the bottle over in my hands. Ninety days. Three months of chemical normalcy. Three months of not worrying about the pilot light, the warmth, the slow build that turns my body into a stranger.
"Ironic, isn't it." Zero's mouth twists. Not a smile. Something darker. "Our family's been moving suppressants through distribution channels for years. Black market, gray market—it's one of the most profitable arms of the operation. And I had a bottle of them in my hands in your bedroom and didn't even know what they were." His jaw works. "Flushed them down the toilet like they were recreational."
"Thatwasyou," I say. He denied it to my face. Smiled about it.
"Yeah." No smile now. Just the word. "I didn't know what they were. I thought—" He stops. Drags his hand through his hair, pushing it back from his forehead in a gesture that looks almost tired. "Doesn't matter what I thought. I did it. And everything that happened after—your heat breaking through, the kitchen, all of it—that's on me."
I stare at him. Zero admitting fault. I never thought I’d see the day.
"Atlas would have had them replaced in a day if I'd told him what I did," he continues. "But once your scent started changing—once I realized what the pills were—I kept it to myself." His jaw works. "Because I wanted—"
He cuts himself off. His jaw locks. His eyes slide to the window, away from me, and in the blue-gray light I watch a muscle jump in his cheek.
"Wanted what?"
He doesn't answer. But he doesn't need to. I can fill in the blank: he wanted my scent unleashed. My biology on display. The omega dragged to the surface so the alpha could respond to it.
He wanted medesperate. And he got what he wanted.
"You should take them," he says, still looking at the window. "The suppressants. The full course. Keep them somewhere I can't—" Another stop. Another jaw clench. "Somewhere safe."
Something in his voice catches on the word safe. Like he's filing himself under the category of things Max's suppressants need to be kept safe from. Which might be the most self-aware thing I've ever heard him say.
