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“We’re done,” Crowe said finally.

Joe looked relieved.

Crowe stood, walked behind him, and placed two fingers against the side of the man’s neck, focusing on the trigger phrase that woke the abilities all hunters had—standard short-term wipe, just enough to obscure the last hour.

The technique slid off.

Crowe felt it fail in real time. Joe’s mind had been rewritten too many times. The pathways were scarred. Another reset would not be effective.

Crowe removed his hand and kept his expression neutral, but inside the frustration sharpened into something colder and more useful.

Multiple wipes. Recent, layered work. That was the tell.

Joe was dismissed with a bland smile and a story about a mistaken identity sweep. The moment the door closed, Crowe allowed himself a single quiet curse.

There was a nest in this city. Organized. Careful. And they had been feeding on this man long enough to require repeated memory work.

He thought of the vow again as he closed the file.

I will not look away.

He had no intention of starting now.

***

He’d returned to his car and sat there for a moment, reviewing the information gleaned from the conversation.

Back at his desk, Crowe pulled Joe’s records and began cross-referencing known associates, coworkers, and recent contacts. He found Carson this way. Most names were ordinary. One, however, sat close enough in the social web to warrant a quiet conversation.

Drew. The supervisor for both Joe and Carson, both names that had come to light with his latest investigation. Crowe knew it was likely Drew had noticed something about the two men, and it would be of benefit to understand how they have been presenting to the world at large.

The meeting was arranged under the cover of a routine workplace wellness follow-up. Crowe used the soft approach first—concern, shared professional language, the suggestion that one of Drew’s people might be in trouble. Drew was polite. Guarded. When Crowe pushed a little harder, testing the edges of influence the hunters sometimes employed, he met unexpected resistance.

Drew’s mind did not yield the way most civilians did. There was a natural pushback, clean and instinctive, the kind Crowe had only encountered in people with distant hunter blood in the family line—whether they knew it or not.

Crowe eased off before the resistance became open suspicion. He left with nothing concrete on Joe or Carson and the distinct impression that pressing further would only alert the wrong people.

In the car afterwards, Crowe sat in silence, jaw tight.

Joe had been a dead end. Drew was a wall.

But the pattern was there. A group of vampires was operating in the city with enough discipline to clean their thralls and enough arrogance to leave living witnesses. Crowe had the scent of them now.

He would find the next link.

And this time he would not miss.

Chapter Twelve

Carson

Carson sat at his desk, staring at the blinking cursor on a blank proposal document. The words wouldn’t come. They hadn’t come for days—maybe weeks. The harmless office noise pressed in like static, from Ruthie’s soft humming in the next cubicle, to the phones ringing in the distance, to the low murmur of voices that no longer felt like they belonged to his world. His fingers trembled on the keyboard, phantom chills racing across his skin where Mathias had touched him last night.

Drew appeared at the cubicle wall, arms crossed, face etched with frustration and fading concern. “Carson. My office. Now.”

The walk felt endless. Carson’s legs were unsteady, his mind flashing to cool hands and those rasping words instead of quarterly targets. Inside the small office, Drew closed the door and didn’t sit.

“You’re done, man. I’ve covered for you as long as I can. The client video shoot? You missed two calls and half the prep meeting. Joe and Tim are carrying your weight and asking what the hell is wrong with you. You look like you haven’t slept in a month, and when you are here, you’re still just gone.” Drew rubbed a hand over his face. “I’m putting you on leave. Unpaid. Get help. Whatever this is, whether it’s drugs, a breakdown, or some guy, it’s destroying you. And it’s destroying the team.”