We can fake texts. We can't fake a phone call. We've bought ourselves days. Maybe.
I put the phone facedown on the desk. Stand up. Sit down. Stand up again. I can't be still. The energy in my body has nowhere to go—it's fight-or-flight with nothing to fight and nowhere to fly and Max is out there and I'm in this office playing puppet master with a burner phone and it's not enough.
Nothing is enough.
I'm standing at the window, forehead against the cold glass, staring at nothing, when the second phone rings.
Zero. 5:30 AM. His voice is raw—hoarse from shouting, from the cold, from whatever he's been doing to Kline-adjacent operators in the small hours of the morning.
"Caruso talked."
I press the phone hard against my ear. "What did he give you?"
"The Kline operation has a specialty division. Separate from the drug pipeline. Higher security, separate chain of command, its own logistics network." Zero pauses. I hear him breathing—ragged, reined in. "Omega trafficking. Caruso confirmed. They run intake facilities—processing centers. Take omegas off the street, run diagnostics, catalog them by scent profile and biology, and sell them to buyers through private auctions."
Processing centers.The words hit me and I have to brace a hand against the desk because my vision tunnels for a second.Intake facilities. Cataloging. Private auctions.Max, who wouldn’t kill a spider without apologizing to it, who reads with his knees drawn up and a pen between his teeth, who smellslike vanilla and honey and home—cataloged. Processed. Put up for sale.
"He also coughed up a name," Zero continues. "Dr. Elena Vasquez. She runs the medical side. Intake exams. Biological cataloging. Heat suppression protocols." His voice drops into a growl. "She's the one who processes them. Turns people into product. Find Vasquez, find the facility."
"How solid is the intel?"
"Caruso was very motivated to be honest." A pause. "He'll need dental work."
"I'm running Vasquez through every database we have," I say. My voice sounds steady. The machine is working. The human behind it is clawing at the walls. "Medical licenses, employment history, property records. If she exists in any system, I'll find her by morning."
"She exists. Caruso was specific." Zero exhales. Then, quieter—stripped bare: "Atlas. How long?"
"Seven hours. Give or take."
Silence. The kind that stretches between brothers who know each other well enough that silence says more than words. I hear Zero breathing, and I know he's doing the same thing I am—counting. Carrying it. Trying not to picture what seven hours looks like from the inside.
"I'm going back out," Zero says. "Two more Kline distributors on my list."
"Zero—"
"Don't tell me to be careful."
The line goes dead.
I set the phone down. Pick up the next one. The gears don't stop turning because the human inside the machine is screaming. That's the deal. The machine runs clean. The human bleeds in private.
Except the human keeps surfacing. Keeps flashing images I can't block—Max's face in the kitchen, flushed and terrified during his first heat wave. Max curled on the couch with a book, feet tucked under him. Max looking up at me with those dark eyes and sayingpleaseand me sayingnobecause I thought I was protecting him.
FUCK.
I pull up the Vasquez search. Medical license databases. Employment records. The machine works. The human drowns.
I'm three databases deep, cross-referencing license numbers against known Kline shell companies, when Bane walks in at 6 AM with a stack of printouts and a look on his face that makes me sit up straight.
He's been running property searches for hours—building permits, real estate filings. This is Bane's domain. The legitimate face. The man who reads contracts, pulls public records, traces ownership through layers of corporate shells. He's better at this than he gives himself credit for.
"Meridian Holdings LLC." He drops them on my desk. His eyes are sharp—the bleary exhaustion from earlier replaced by hard focus. "Purchased a warehouse complex on the industrial waterfront eighteen months ago. Three connected buildings. The registered agent is Harwick & Associates—they represent at least four confirmed Kline-affiliated businesses."
I grab the documents. Scan them. Purchase price. Square footage. Zoning—industrial storage. No occupancy permits. No fire inspections. No oversight. My eyes catch on the utility records.
"Power consumption is triple what an empty warehouse needs." I look up.
"Water usage too. Consistent. Year-round." Bane points to a highlighted line. "And there's been a series of HVAC permit applications. Climate control upgrades that make zero sense forstorage. Precision temperature regulation. Humidity controls. The kind of system you'd install to—"
