I scanned the room, tried to inventory every threat and point of exit, and counted three. The only one that mattered was Wolfe, standing there with a baby who’d just rewritten the physics of sound.
I said, “You really went with the full Pottery Barn, huh?” Dead flat, no smile. The echo in the space made it land like a gunshot.
He didn’t acknowledge it. He crossed the room in three long strides and stopped close enough that I could see the grain in his lapel, the faint ghost of cigar smoke in the thread. The suit was new, but his eyes looked like they hadn’t slept.
He angled Grace toward me, expectant. I took her. I did it with both hands, like someone accepting a live grenade.
She went completely quiet. Not even a whimper. Just a soft, contented sigh, the kind that says: Good, everything is how it should be. She pressed her face against my chest and grabbed the front of my jacket in one tiny fist.
The room vibrated with the aftershock. I could feel Ashe watching from the corner, reading the move for what it was: an experiment, a test, a demonstration that whatever had happened last night wasn’t a fluke.
Braham gave me half a second to settle her, then laid it out with all the bedside warmth of a criminal arraignment. “Gracehas imprinted. On you.” The words had weight, no apology for the inconvenience. “It is not reversible.”
I rocked the baby once, more for my own nerves than hers. “You going to tell me what that means in plain English, or do I need to buy a subscription to Wolf Weekly?”
Braham didn’t smile. “Imprinting is a biological event. Rare. It happens when a shifter, usually a pup, makes immediate contact with someone they read as… necessary.” He paused, as if editing out a less flattering descriptor. “Separation will cause physiological distress. If it goes on, it will kill her.”
I stared down at Grace. Her eyes were open, calm, but I could feel the pulse under her skin—steady, relentless, tuned to something older and more stubborn than even my own reflex for running. I tasted the lollipop and let the sugar cut a line through my panic.
I said, “So I’m basically a car seat with abandonment issues.”
The wolf’s gold eyes flickered. “If you wish.”
I let the silence expand, ran the numbers in my head. All the exit plans I’d mapped last night, the back doors and fire escapes, the scenario where I went home and pretended I’d hallucinated the whole thing—gone. Replaced by a six-pound infant whose only crime was needing me in a way I’d spent my entire life avoiding.
Ashe cleared his throat, the first noise he’d made. “You have experience with infants, Mr. Flynn?”
I looked up, tongue against my teeth. “Sure. I’m the designated godfather to every family pet east of the river.”
Ashe didn’t blink. “Should be sufficient.”
I was willing to bet it was his idea to buy the high-end crib, too.
Braham watched the exchange, then focused on me like we were the only two people in the room. “This is not negotiable. She will not survive unless you remain close.”
I didn’t argue. I just nodded, tight and short, then said, “For how long?”
He considered, and I saw the calculation in his face, the way he weighed outcomes before he let himself answer. “Until her biology adapts. Could be weeks. Could be longer.”
I shifted Grace to my left arm, and she snuggled into my shirt like she’d been designed for that slot. “And when she grows up, you’ll tell her she was rescued by a war criminal and a man who can’t keep his own houseplants alive.”
Braham’s face didn’t move, but there was a flicker of something in his eyes—humor, maybe, or just the recognition that I’d given up the fight for at least this round.
He said, “You’ll need to stay here.”
“Here? As in—” I gestured around, baby on hip. “This glass box?”
He nodded. “Safer than the alternative.”
I bit back three sarcastic retorts. The truth was, my apartment was a soft target, and anyone who could find me was probably more dangerous than I wanted to admit. I let out a slow breath and said, “Fine.”
Braham finally moved, stepping back half a pace. He didn’t break eye contact. “If you need anything, ask Ashe.”
I glanced at Ashe, who gave me the smallest nod of acknowledgment—mutual recognition of another professional in the business of surviving idiots.
Grace shifted in my arms, exhaled a wet, powdery breath, and closed her eyes.
For a second, I let myself look at Braham. Not the alpha. Not the CEO. Just the man: broad through the chest, jaw set like concrete, hands big enough to crush, but careful enough to cradle a kid without waking her.
