And the smell.
Thesmellis everything.
Pheromones—alpha, omega, the thick syrupy overlap of both—baked into every surface. The leather. The carpet. The curtains along the VIP corridor that haven't been washed in long enough that the fabric is basically marinated. Slick and sweat and the chemical edge of whatever they pump through the ventilation to keep the scents circulating on a busy night. Underneath it all, bleach. Lots of bleach. The cleaning crew is fighting a war they've already lost.
I breathe through my mouth. Doesn't help. The pheromones hit the back of your tongue the same way they hit your nose—you taste them before you register them, and by then it's too late. My body reads omega in the air the way a dog reads a trail: involuntary, immediate, total. The bond in my chest flickers. Not Max. Strangers. Residue. The ghosts of a hundred omegas who were in this room last night doing things they chose or didn't choose, and the air still holds the evidence.
A lovely fucking venue for a business meeting.
Or, in our case, a personal meeting. A very fuckingpersonalmeeting.
Atlas chose it. Or rather, Atlas agreed to it when the intermediary suggested it—neutral ground, private back room, a place where neither family had history. The kind of place where men who move in our world can sit at a table without worrying about who owns the walls. Atlas didn't blink when the address came through. Bane did.
I didn't.
I've been in clubs like this–not omega clubs but regular human ones. Before Max. Before any of it. Where you don't give your real name and the drinks come with a room key and the back hallway has doors that lock from the outside. I used to like them. The anonymity. The efficiency. Walk in, fuck something, walk out.
No names.
No morning.
That was a different life.
Now I'm walking past a stage where someone danced last night—the pole still has body glitter on it, catching the overhead fluorescents—and all I can think about is Max's face when I told him he wasmine. The boy who spent eleven years hiding what he was. In a room like this, he'd be currency.
The thought makes my hands curl.
Makes me want to murder.
A bouncer in street clothes—off-duty, here for us—leads us through the main floor and down a corridor. The VIP section. Past two doors with electronic locks and a third propped open with a chair. The back room is smaller than I expected. Concrete floor, exposed brick, a table that looks like it was dragged in from a restaurant supply warehouse. Six chairs. A sideboard with water and glasses. No windows.
I count the exits before my ass hits the chair.
One. The door we came through. That's it. No service exit, at least not one I saw. No second way out. The air in here is marginally better—the ventilation is separate from the main floor, probably by design, so the VIP clients can negotiate without their pupils going wide every thirty seconds. But the walls have soaked up years of this place, and even with the separate system, the faint base note of omega heat is in the brick like moisture.
It's in everything.
There’s two security men at the wall behind Talbot's chair. Earpieces. The tall one has a piece under his left arm—jacket sitting too stiff on that side, fabric bunching when he crosses his arms. The shorter one carries at the ankle. Right foot turned out. Weight shifted off the holster side. Amateur tell.
If I have to kill everyone in this room, I can do it in under thirty seconds. Smaller space. Faster math. The ankle guy first—he's slower on the draw. Then the shoulder holster. Talbot's associate doesn't look armed but I'd snap his wrist anyway. Talbot himself I'd save for last. I'd want him to watch.
Atlas would be furious.
Bane would sigh.
But I could do it.
Talbot is already seated when we arrive. Mid-fifties. Silver hair swept back. The warm, practiced smile—the one thatbelongs on a talk show host or a diplomat, the one that's learned charm is the most efficient form of violence. He looks clean in this room—deliberately, aggressively clean, like a man who chose the dirtiest venue he could find specifically to show how none of it touches him. His associate is beside him—charcoal suit, warm eyes that don't match the company he keeps, leather notebook. Same man as last time.
Ellis? Elliot? I can’t fucking remember. I don’t care to.
Atlas sits across from Talbot. Cufflinks. Pressed collar. The suit he wears to negotiations he intends to win.
He does not intend to win this one. We don’t have the cards.
We folded everything we had to get Max home safe and everything has been fucked since then.
I know because I've spent three days watching my eldest brother pace his office at two in the morning reading the same three pages of a binder he's already memorized, looking for a move that isn't there. Santos pulled out. The warrant evaporated. The whole elegant, months-long, Atlas-Graves-sized legal play is ash.
