I stared down at the baby in my lap. She blinked, once, then tucked her face into the crook of my bicep like she’d always known it was there for her.
Ashe set an envelope on the glass, right in my line of sight. “This was under the pup in the box. Handwriting matches Lena’s signature from Ridgeline documents.” Inside was a single index card, the name “Grace” printed in blocky, rushed letters. Theink had bled through in spots, like it had been written fast, with hands that weren’t used to shaking.
I ran a thumb along the paper.
“They wanted me to have her,” I said.
The words tasted bitter.
Ashe didn’t answer. He never offered comfort, which was why he was the only beta I could stand in these moments.
“She shifted,” I said. “Not supposed to be possible at this age.”
“No. Not supposed to.”
“We’re missing something,” I said. “Nobody dumps a baby in an alley and walks away unless the alternative is worse.”
He nodded. “I have a team ready to go to Ridgeline. Quiet, as you requested. If anyone else is at risk, we’ll know before dawn.”
I sipped the scotch. “You trust them?”
“I do.”
“Then go.”
He left without waiting for dismissal. The door’s closing hush was an agreement.
I sat with the silence, hand flexed on the baby’s back, eyes fixed on the single word in blue ink: Grace.
Every instinct in my body was at war with itself. Protect, provide, punish. It was the wolf in me, but also something older—maybe the part that remembered being held at this size, once, for a single night before the world chewed it away.
I let my mind wander, just for a second, to Jai. The way he’d looked at me, angry and alive, like he wanted to bite and be bitten. The heat in that glance had nearly liquefied my self-control.
He was still out there, at risk, refusing to believe in a bond he couldn’t feel. That was a problem I’d have to solve. Preferably in a way that didn’t get him killed.
For now, though, there was this: a pup, a card, a name. And a reason to make the city safe, for her and for the man who hadn’t run as far as he thought.
The baby started to whimper—barely a sound. I rocked her, just once, and she stopped.
That was all it took.
* * * *
At this hour, the city shrank to what you could see from the window. My master suite took up most of the east side of the building, every line engineered to absorb the blue dawn and nothing else.
The bed was king-sized squared, slatted with walnut and fitted with sheets I’d imported because the local ones smelled like bleach and regret. Leather everywhere.
If a person had to sleep, this was how you made it count.
The housekeeper had already been. A travel bassinet, white mesh and brushed steel, was tucked against the wall beneath the window. I set Grace down in it, half-expecting the sudden absence of my body heat to trip some kind of infant alarm. She didn’t even stir. Just let out a breath and rolled her head to the side, unconcerned.
I dropped the suit jacket onto the dresser, collar and first three buttons undone, and stood over her for a long moment. Her tiny hand flexed once, then curled in on itself. The whole time, she never opened her eyes.
The city hum was almost nothing at this height—just the faintest impression of a thousand engines, never one at a time. The rain, on the other hand, was biblical. I pressed my forehead to the cold glass and watched it track down the pane in perfect, vertical lines.
I tried to inventory the threats with the focus it deserved. South: Ridgeline Pack, cut in half before anyone knew it was under threat. West: the shell company that had sent the bikes, and whatever money was behind them. North: the empty space where Jai Flynn should have been, and wasn’t.
Four minutes, maybe five, was as long as I managed before the thread of thought snapped, and I was back to him. The wolf in me would have paced, would have worn a groove in the carpet, but I forced it still. I sat at the foot of the bed, hands knotted in the space between my knees, and tried to see the problem from every angle.
