The rogue shook his head hard enough the chains rattled.“I don’t know names.I fucking swear that I don’t.Just new money.New muscle.Different rules.”His voice dropped to a hoarse whisper.“New monsters.”
Dorian straightened.
That was confirmation enough.
Malik stepped back.“We’re done here.”
The rogue sagged, relief flashing across his ruined face—just before it curdled into raw terror.
Rafe moved first.
There was no ceremony to it.No warning.One moment the man was breathing, the next his body went slack, life extinguished with brutal efficiency.Clean.Final.The kind of ending E.S.E.reserved for monsters who had forfeited any claim to mercy.
The rogue was dead before his body slumped in the chair.
For a long moment, no one spoke.The room seemed to exhale around them, the low hum of the lights suddenly too loud, the copper tang in the air sharp enough to taste.Dorian stayed where he was, watching the body as if it might still move, as if the violence of the last hour hadn’t quite finished echoing through his bones.
Then Victor turned away first.Ivan followed.Malik and Jamal said nothing as they filed out, shoulders squared, expressions set.
Dorian washed the blood from his hands in the sink outside the room, the water running pink, then clear.It didn’t help.
They showered separately on the sublevel, steam filling the small concrete rooms, water pounding down like penance.Dorian stayed under it longer than necessary, head bowed, palms braced against the tile as the heat worked into his muscles.
It wasn’t the scene that had just played out that haunted him.No, that was justice, that was justified.No.He kept seeing the alley.
The blur of motion.The whistle of displaced air.The certainty—cold and absolute—that if he’d been half a second slower, his head would have been on the ground.
He’d had time for one thought in that instant.
Not yet.Not before he even got to kiss his mate.
By the time they rode the lift back up to the command center, the edge had settled into something harder.Quieter.Control layered over violence, the way it always was with them.
Command was calmer when they stepped back in, lights dimmed slightly for the late hour, screens still alive with data.Elara was gone into the residential side of the floor, waiting for her mates—but Riley stood near the central console, arms folded loosely in front of her, posture careful.
She saw them.
For half a second, she hesitated.Then she crossed the space between them and wrapped her arms around both Wolves, careful, almost tentative, as if unsure she was allowed.
Dorian didn’t hesitate at all.
He folded into the embrace, one arm coming around her shoulders, the other bracing her back, solid and warm and real.He lowered his head and pressed a kiss to the crown of her hair, breathing her in.
The what-if hit him hard then—sharp and unwelcome.
If he’d been slower.
If that strike had landed.
He tightened his hold just enough for her to feel it, then eased back before it became anything else.
Later, one of the wall screens switched automatically to a news feed.The sound was low, easy to ignore—until it wasn’t.
A reporter for a local news station in Seattle, smiled into the camera, polished and confident, the kind of expression that preceded trouble.
“Good evening, Seattle, I’m Sienna Maddox.In two weeks,” she said, “I’ll be bringing you a story that will change the way you view the world as we know it.”
Dorian felt the room shift.
