Chapter 23
TWENTY-THREE
Rowan
The adrenaline of a live broadcast usually has a serviceable half-life of about ninety minutes. It’s a specific kind of chemical high, a sharp, buzzing clarity that coats the nerves and makes you feel like you can dodge bullets, or slander lawsuits, right up until the moment you crash.
I didn't get ninety minutes. I got about forty-five seconds.
I walked off the stage to the cacophony of Mitchell King shouting at his lead producer, a sound that bounced off the studio walls like a ricochet.
The audience was in a state of riotous confusion, a sea of murmurs and shifting bodies, while the red "ON AIR" light finally flickered dead above the exit.
My heels clicked against the polished concrete of the wings. I felt ten feet tall. I felt like I had just surgically removed a tumor from the industry with nothing but a single piece of rider paperwork and a backbone made of contract law.
I adjusted my cuffs. I expected high-fives. I expected Juno’s shark-like grin, the one he wore when he’d successfully charmed a viper. I expected to see Mateo standing there like a triumphant mountain, arms crossed, nodding a silent approval.
Instead, I found Stephen. Alone.
He was waiting in the shadows of the cable run, his silhouette sharp against the gloom. He didn't wait for a greeting. He grabbed my arm before I cleared the last technician’s station.
His grip wasn't romantic; it was an extraction hold.
"Move," he said.
His voice was tight, a wire pulled to its breaking point, stripped of the polished warmth that had been there only minutes ago in the dressing room.
"Stephen?" I stumbled, my folio slipping in my grip as I tried to keep up with his punishing stride toward the loading dock. "Did you see his face? We broke the narrative. We actually—"
"The penthouse is burned," Stephen cut me off. He didn't look at me. He shoved a heavy, industrial fire door open with his shoulder, the metal groaning.
The cool night air hit me instantly, smelling of wet concrete, exhaust fumes, and the damp grit of London.
"Vance leaked the address," Stephen continued, his tone devoid of inflection, which terrified me more than shouting would have. "It’s on every doxxing forum in the hemisphere. We have photographers swarming the lobby and a brick came through the living room window three minutes ago."
The victory in my chest curdled instantly into cold lead. The spreadsheet of my life flashed red.
"My mother—"
"She’s safe. I had a team move her again just in case, but the Manchester site is dark. This is about us." He guided me toward a waiting black sedan, its engine already idling with a low, predatory hum. "Get in."
I paused at the curb, looking frantically around the empty loading bay. "Where are Mateo and Juno?"
"In the car. Get in, Rowan."
I didn't argue. I slid into the passenger seat. Stephen slammed the door with a finality that rattled my teeth and was behind the wheel in seconds. The tires screeched against the damp asphalt as we peeled out of the loading bay, merging aggressively into the London traffic.
I turned in my seat, the leather straining against my twisting spine, to look at the back.
Mateo was there, filling the space like a physical barricade. He was taking up two-thirds of the bench seat, his massive frame effectively blocking out the world. And curled into the corner, shielded by Mateo’s massive bulk, was Juno.
He looked wrecked.
The ethereal rebel, the man who had worn a tuxedo like a weapon just last night, was pale, his skin possessing the translucency of wet paper.
His eyes were squeezed shut, his head resting heavily against the cool glass of the window.
His hands were gripping his knees so hard his knuckles were white bone against the dark fabric of his trousers.
"Juno?" I asked, straining against the seatbelt. "Are you okay? The broadcast... did something happen backstage? Did Mitchell touch you?"
"Drive," Juno rasped. He didn't open his eyes. The word sounded like it had been dragged through broken glass.
"We’re two hours out," Stephen said, his eyes glued to the rearview mirror, watching for a tail with calm paranoia. "Traffic is clearing. I can make it in ninety minutes if I ignore the speed cameras."
"Make it in sixty," Mateo growled.
The air in the car was suffocating. It wasn't just the climate control blasting hot air to combat the clammy London night; it was the pressure. The tension coming off Stephen and Mateo was a physical weight, heavy enough to pop ears. Mateo’s hand was clamped onto the door handle with enough force to warp the high-end plastic.
Stephen’s jaw was a rigid line of granite, a muscle feathering near his temple in a spasm of pure, white-knuckled stress.
And the smell.
Alphas have scents. I knew that. I managed them. I negotiated clauses about them. I ensured ventilation riders were met. Stephen usually smelled like ink and ozone, a sharp, clean smell; Mateo smelled like cedar and rain on asphalt, grounding and heavy.
But this... this was different.
It started faint, a ghost in the ventilation system, but within ten minutes of hitting the M25, it was choking.
It was sweet to a terrifying degree. Sickly and cloying, like sugar burning in a copper pan. Like caramel catching fire and turning perfectly, tragically black.
It hit the back of my throat and stuck there, coating my tongue. It made my own Beta biology recoil, a primitive, lizard-brain warning that something in the immediate vicinity was in critical, biological distress.
Time ticked by as I watched Juno in the backseat.
He was breathing wrong.
Everyone breathes. It’s an autonomic function. You don't manage it unless you're meditating, singing, or dying. Juno was managing it.
Inhale. Short. Sharp. Like sipping air through a collapsed straw.
Hold.
Exhale. Shuddering. Controlled.
It was the breathing of someone trying to manually override a catastrophic system failure.
"Juno," I said again, softer this time, barely audible over the hum of the tires. I spared a half a second to wonder if the tires were still making contact with the road we were driving so fast.
Of course, Juno didn't answer. He just curled tighter, turning his face to press into the heavy wool of Mateo’s coat.
Mateo moved instantly, instinct overriding logic, his heavy hand coming up to cup the back of Juno’s neck.
It was a grounding touch, "Heavy Pressure," meant to reset a nervous system, but Juno just shivered under it.
I looked at Stephen. His knuckles on the steering wheel were bloodless. He was driving with a terrifying, surgical focus, weaving through traffic at beyond reckless speeds, but he kept glancing at the rearview mirror. Not at the cars behind us. At Juno.
I let it continue like that for a while as I tried to figure out what was going on, but nothing in my head made sense. Finally I gave up.
"What is happening?" I demanded, my voice cutting through the heavy silence. "Is he sick? Was he poisoned? Vance has resources, if someone slipped him something in the green room—"
"He wasn't poisoned," Stephen clipped out.
"He’s shaking," I countered, pointing a trembling finger at the rearview.
Neither of the men who were functional responded.
"He’s in shock," I diagnosed, my brain desperately trying to find a foothold in logic, scanning for a problem I could fix with a phone call or a contract amendment.
"Rowan," Stephen warned, his voice low. "Face forward."
"No," I snapped. "We are a team. We signed the paper. You don't get to shut me out because the plan went sideways. I handle the crises. Tell me the crisis."
I turned back to Juno. The smell was stronger now. It was filling the car, thick and heavy, overriding the ink and cedar. It smelled like scorched earth and desperation.
"You smell like..." I stopped, the words dying in my throat.
My brain tried to categorize the data.
The only thing that smells this sweet, this urgent, is an Omega in critical distress. The kind of scent released when a heat cycle is triggered by trauma or forced chemically.
The spreadsheet in my head returned a #REF error. It didn't compute. The data didn't match the asset.
"Juno," I said, my voice level, the manager voice I used when a venue caught fire or a visa was denied. "You smell like burning sugar."
A shudder ran through him. Visible. Violent.
"Ignore it," he choked out, his face hidden.
"I can't ignore it," I said, my voice rising. "It’s making my eyes water. It’s making Mateo look like he’s about to punch through the window glass just to get fresh air."
I looked at Mateo. His eyes were black pools, pupils blown so wide the espresso iris was almost gone. He was staring at the back of Stephen’s headrest, jaw locked, fighting a biological battle I couldn't see but could certainly feel.
"Stephen." Mateo's voice from the back was very quiet, a rumble that vibrated through the chassis. "How long to the cabin?"
"Twenty minutes," Stephen rumbled back. His voice sounded like gravel grinding in a cement mixer, which was not what he usually sounded like. Not even close. That primal growl was Mateo's domain. Not Stephen's.
"Drive faster," Juno gasped, through his teeth. It was a plea.
I turned back around, staring out the windshield as the high beams cut through the dark canopy of trees. We were off the motorway now, deep in the countryside where the streetlights had given up. The roads were narrow, twisting ribbons of black wet tarmac.
My mind was racing, trying to reassemble the puzzle pieces.
Vance’s video. The deepfake.
I replayed it in my head. The generated image of me, crying, confessing. I lied on the medical forms. If they knew I was passing... I'd lose everything.
It had been a lie about me. But Vance hadn't just pulled the script out of thin air. Deepfakes work best when they are built on a kernel of emotional truth. A frequency that rings true to the subconscious.
He had accused me of being a passing Omega.
Why that lie? Why not an anarchist? Why not a thief? Why not a corporate spy?
Because that was the specific fear that would destroy someone in our position. That was the nuclear option.
I looked at the dashboard clock. The blue digits fuzzed in my gaze as I tried to make sense of what was happening.
"The cabin," I asked, my voice small. "Is it secure?"
"It’s a black site," Stephen said, swerving around a fallen branch without slowing down. "Off the grid. No digital footprint. Purchased through shell companies. Vance doesn't know it exists."
"Good."
We hit a pothole. The car jarred violently.
From the back seat, a small, involuntary whimper escaped Juno’s throat.
It was the most heartbreaking sound I had ever heard. It was raw, stripped of all the artifice and charm Juno wore like armor.
The car swerved slightly as Stephen corrected, his control slipping for a fraction of a second at the sound.
"Almost there," Stephen murmured, more to himself than us, his hands tightening on the leather wheel. "Almost there."
Ten eternal minutes later, the tires crunched onto gravel.
We were in the middle of nowhere. A small, cottage appeared out of the darkness, barely visible against the dense tree line. The rain was coming down harder now, hammering against the roof.
Stephen killed the engine.
The silence that followed was deafening. The ticking of the cooling engine. The relentless rain. And the sound of Juno’s ragged, starving breaths filling the cabin.
"Out," Mateo ordered.
He didn't wait for us to move. He opened his door and was out in the rain in a second, ignoring the downpour. He pulled Juno’s door open.
Juno practically fell into him. Mateo caught him, scooping him up into his arms like he weighed nothing, shielding him from the rain with his own body.
"Key," Mateo barked at Stephen.
Stephen threw a set of heavy metal keys through the rain. Mateo snatched them out of the air with a reflexes that bordered on supernatural and stormed toward the cabin door.
I scrambled out, grabbing my folio, old habits die hard, and followed, my heels slipping and sticking in the mud.
The cabin was freezing. The air inside was stale, smelling of pine, dust, and long disuse. Mateo kicked the door shut behind us, plunging us into total darkness until Stephen found the breaker switch.
A single bulb flickered to life in the center of the room, casting long, harsh shadows.
Mateo carried Juno to a dusty leather sofa and set him down, but kept his body curved over him, a human shield against a threat that wasn't in the room.
Juno was shaking so hard his teeth were chattering. He looked up, his eyes wild, golden, and terrified. He wasn't seeing the cabin. He wasn't seeing us. He was seeing threats. He was seeing predators.
The scent was overwhelming now. In the enclosed space of the room, stripped of the car’s ventilation, it was heavy enough to taste. Burnt sugar. Scorched earth.
I stood by the door, dripping wet, clutching my bag to my chest like a shield.
"Juno," I said.
He leaned his head back against the cushion, squeezing his eyes shut against the harsh light. He took a breath that rattled in his chest, a sound of fluid and panic.
"I tried," he whispered, his voice cracking. "I thought I could hold it until we got here. I thought I could purge the blockers."
"Hold what?" I asked. I kicked my shoes off and moved closer. My steps were hesitant, careful. The energy coming off the three of them was volatile, a powder keg waiting for a spark.
Mateo moved back, just an inch, giving Juno space but staying within striking distance. Stephen was locking the door, engaging deadbolts that looked industrial, his back to us.
Juno opened his eyes. He looked at me.
And for the first time, I saw him. Not the rebel. Not the manipulator who played the press like a fiddle.
I saw the biology he had been hiding behind the narrative for years.
"How long?" Mateo asked, his voice rough, staring at the floor.
"Suppressants are failing," Juno gasped, clutching his stomach. He turned his head away, a deep, burning flush of shame coloring his neck. "Since the broadcast. When Vance played the clip... the stress trigger... I couldn't stop the spike. I thought I had more time."
I stared, my brain finally discarding the spreadsheet entirely. "Time for what?"
Juno looked at me. Then at Mateo. Then at Stephen’s rigid back. Then finally, painfully, back at me.
His amber eyes were wet, swimming with tears fueled by a hormonal crash I couldn't comprehend.
"Time to tell you the truth," he whispered.