The name is a shard of glass in my throat.
How did he manage to get close to her?
Had it started with Teddie—some harmless introduction that turned into something else? Or was there another thread woven through this, someone I hadn’t accounted for? Harper, maybe.
Damn it. There’s a piece missing. I can feel the absence of it like a loose tooth, like a draft under a closed door. Something small but essential, and without it, the whole picture refuses to come into focus.
And that’s the part that unsettles me most.
I’m the strategist. The watcher. The one who maps the exits before anyone else realizes we are trapped. I pride myself on spotting the tripwires before a single foot is lifted toward them.
But this time?
I’d walked straight through the dark and never even saw the string.
The weight of it is crushing, a physical pressure on my sternum that makes it hard to draw a full breath. What was the motive? Money? Power? A grudge so old and buried I never knew it existed? The questions are a swarm of hornets in my skull, each one a fresh, stinging accusation.
Sam played us. He playedher. He wrapped himself in the cloak of her trust and used it as a weapon to stab her in the back.
The soft scuff of a shoe against the floor pulls me from my spiral. I don’t have to look. I can feel her. It’s like a compassneedle spinning wildly and then suddenly, impossibly, finding its true north.
Brylee.
My mate.
My omega.
She’s a fragile silhouette against the harsh fluorescent lighting, a bruised violet in a world of stark white and clinical green.
“Luka?” Her voice is a whisper, a wisp of smoke in the hurricane of my fury.
I can’t answer.
The words are there somewhere, but they’re trapped behind the rage, dammed up with the weight of my own disgust. If I open my mouth, it won’t be an explanation that comes out—it’ll be a flood. I shake my head instead, jaw locked tight. My hands curl into fists at my sides until my knuckles burn white.
Failure pulses through me, hot and merciless. I let her get hurt. I let a snake slip past the gate and coil itself in our nest. I was supposed to be watching. I was supposed to know.
She understands. She always does.
Without pressing me, without demanding anything I can’t give, she reaches for my hand. Her fingers slide between mine, warm and steady. The contact is a spark in a darkened room—a small, stubborn light against the cold stone of my anger. She tugs gently.
I follow.
I feel like a shadow trailing behind her, all bulk and silence, moving because she moves. She doesn’t lead me to a quiet corner or an empty office. Instead, she stops at a narrow door tucked between two larger ones, so unremarkable I’m not sure I’ve ever truly seen it before.
She opens it, and I’m surprised to see it’s a supply closet.
The door shuts with a soft, final click, and the world narrows to darkness.
The air is tinged with clean linen and sharp ammonia. Shelves crowd the walls, pressing in. But beneath the sterile scent, something warmer begins to bloom—her. Drizzled caramel and warm honey. The smell of home. Of safety.
It anchors me there in the dark, a steady weight in the storm of my thoughts, keeping me from splintering apart.
“Breathe with me,” she whispers.
Her hands rise to cradle my face, palms warm against my skin. Her thumbs sweep slowly over my cheekbones, a steady, deliberate rhythm meant to draw me back from the edge.
In. Out.
