16. Cayenne
Chapter 16
Cayenne
Full circles are funny things. Here I am, back in the same spot where my girls found me this morning, legs stretched toward a yard I can barely see through boxes I’ll never unpack. The emerald beanie feels different in my hands now—less like comfort, more like goodbye.
Amazing what a few hours and some creative interrogation can do to your perspective.
The basement apartment holds shadows I didn’t notice before. Or maybe they’ve always been there, and I’ve just been too busy playing house to see them. Every corner feels like it’s watching, wondering if I’ll turn out just like him.
Just like Sterling.
Just like father dearest, who didn’t just let my mother run—he made her run. Who’s been playing chess with people’s lives while I fumble around trying to save them, accidentally leading him right to his targets.
The sound of footsteps on the stairs doesn’t surprise me. Neither does the rich scent of coffee that precedes Ryker’s entrance. He’s always known exactly what I need, even when I wish he didn’t.
“Thought you might need this.” His voice carries none of its usual alpha power. Just quiet understanding that makes what I have to do so much harder.
“Thanks.” I accept the mug without looking up, but he settles beside me anyway, close enough that his leather jacket brushes my arm.
“Quinn’s going to kill me,” he offers after a moment. “For letting Aria anywhere near an interrogation.”
A laugh bubbles up despite everything. “Pretty sure Aria can handle herself. Did you see what she did with that nail file?”
“I saw Jinx falling in love.”
This time my laugh comes easier. “They do share a certain creative approach to violence.”
His shoulder presses against mine, warm and solid. “You okay?”
Such a simple question. Such a complicated answer.
“I really didn’t know.” The words spill out before I can stop them. “About Sterling. About any of it. I thought it was just a coincidence—the name, the company. Even when things started connecting, I never thought...”
“That he was your father?” Ryker’s voice stays gentle, but I catch the way his hand tightens on his knee.
“God.” I let my head fall back against the wall. “All this time I’ve been investigating him, trying to stop him, and he’s been what? Watching me? Tracking me? Using me to find his targets?”
“You couldn’t have known.”
“Couldn’t I?” The bitter laugh tastes like old coffee. “The encryption methods, the way the systems were structured—they felt familiar. Like looking at code I could have written. Should have realized why.”
Ryker shifts, turning to face me fully. His knee presses against my thigh, grounding me in the present. “Listen to me. You are not him.”
“No?” I finally meet his eyes. “I break into systems for fun. I manipulate code to get what I want. I?—”
“You risk your life to save people.” His hand cups my face, thumb brushing away tears I didn’t know had fallen. “You took a bullet protecting someone else. You use your skills to help, not hurt.”
“While accidentally leading him right to them.”
“While trying to save them.” His other hand covers mine where it clutches the beanie. “There’s a difference.”
The warmth of his touch seeps into my skin, making it harder to hold onto my resolve. Harder to remember why I need to leave all this behind.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I ask, even though I know the answer. “When you figured out who he was?”
“Because I saw how you look at his name in the news. The disgust, the determination to stop him.” His thumb traces my cheekbone. “I didn’t want to be another person who betrayed your trust.”
The irony of that statement would be funny if it didn’t hurt so much.
“You smell like tequila and bad decisions,” he murmurs, but his hand doesn’t leave my face.
“Pretty sure that’s my new signature scent.” I lean into his touch despite myself. “Goes well with my daddy issues and tendency to get shot at.”
His laugh rumbles through his chest, through mine where we’re pressed together. “Your friends are... something else.”
“Told you I had backup.” The memory of Aria’s precise nail work brings a genuine smile. “Though I notice you didn’t stop them.”
“Would you have?”
“Watching Jinx fall in love with Aria’s interrogation technique? Not a chance.”
His thumb traces my bottom lip, the gesture so casual it feels deliberate. “It wasn’t just Jinx watching.”
Heat coils low in my abdomen, radiating outward until my skin prickles with awareness. His pupils expand in the dim light as his gaze follows the path of his thumb, leaving a trail of sensation that makes my lips part involuntarily, breath coming faster despite my best efforts to appear unaffected.
“See something you like, alpha?”
“I’ve been seeing something I like for two months.” His voice drops lower, rougher. “Been holding back, trying to do the right thing.”
“And now?”
“Now I’m thinking maybe the right thing isn’t always the smart thing.”
The confession hangs between us, heavy with possibility. With all the moments we’ve been dancing around since I arrived.
“Ryker...” His name comes out somewhere between warning and plea.
“Tell me to stop.” But his hand slides into my hair, angling my face up. “Tell me you don’t want this.”
I should. God, I should. It would make leaving so much easier.
Instead, I find myself leaning closer, drawn to him like code to chaos. “I’m trouble.”
“Good thing I like trouble.” One corner of his lips tip up into a crooked smirk, “Trouble.”
But he doesn’t close the distance, doesn’t take what we both know he could. Instead, his fingers card through my hair, gentle in a way that makes my chest ache.
“Quinn thinks we should move you,” he says, voice still carrying that rough edge. “After what we learned tonight.”
“About Sterling being my father, or about his quantum tracking program?”
“Both.” His thumb traces patterns on my scalp that make thinking difficult. “The facility on Thirteenth Street changes things.”
I hum noncommittally, trying not to lean into his touch like a cat. “Running out of safe houses?”
“Running out of patience.” The admission carries weight. “Watching you get shot once was enough.”
“Pretty sure that was my line.”
His other hand finds mine, still clutching Jinx’s beanie. “You’re wearing his mark, you know.”
“What?”
“The hat.” His fingers brush over the emerald wool. “Jinx doesn’t make these for just anyone. Hasn’t made one since his sister.”
The revelation hits harder than it should. “I didn’t know he had a sister.”
“Doesn’t anymore.” His voice carries old pain. “That’s his story to tell. But the point is, you’re not just some assignment to us, Cayenne. Not just someone to protect.”
God, he’s making this so much harder.
“What am I then?”
His forehead touches mine, breath ghosting across my lips. “Everything.”
“Everything,” he says, but then laughs softly. “Which is ironic, considering how much I hated you at first.”
“Oh?” I pull back just enough to see his face, though his hand in my hair makes retreat difficult. “Do tell.”
“You were chaos incarnate. This wild card thrust into my perfectly ordered pack.” His thumb traces my jaw. “I had everything figured out. The feral alpha I could channel, the steady beta who kept us grounded, our omega who gave us purpose. A perfect machine.”
“Sounds boring.”
“Sounds safe.” But his smile holds self-deprecation. “Then you blew in with your hack-first-ask-questions-later attitude and completely disrupted my system.”
“That’s kind of my specialty.”
“Then Jinx marked you.” His voice drops, something possessive threading through it. “Didn’t even ask. Just claimed you like he had the right.”
“You saying he didn’t?”
“I’m saying...” His thumb traces my jaw, contradiction in every touch. “I’m saying you were supposed to be an assignment. A problem to solve. Something to fix and send on your way.”
“And now?”
“Now you’re embedded in our code. Part of our system.” His laugh holds no humor. “I hated that at first. Hated how Jinx marked you without thought, without considering the complications. Hated how naturally you fit.”
“Into your perfect pack of broken men?”
“We didn’t think we needed anyone else.” The admission costs him something. “Four pieces of a whole. Each fracture lining up just right. Then you came in and showed us all the spaces we didn’t even know were empty.”
“By being a pain in your ass?”
“By being exactly who you are.” His fingers card through my hair. “Fearless. Brilliant. Impossible to control.”
“Most people don’t consider that last one a feature.”
“Most people are idiots.” His voice drops lower. “Do you know how rare it is? Someone who can match Jinx’s chaos, challenge Finn’s mind, inspire Theo’s art?”
“And what about you?” The question comes out barely a whisper. “What spaces am I filling for you?”
“Every single one.” His fingers trace patterns in my hair, gentler than a man his size should be capable of. “You know, I was twenty when I lost my parents.”
The shift in conversation catches me off guard. “Pack territory dispute, right?”
“That’s the official story.” His voice carries old wounds. “Reality was messier. Politics, betrayal... I came home from the Academy to find everything I knew in ashes. Had to step up, become Alpha before I was ready.”
Something in his tone resonates with an old hurt in my chest. “I was nineteen when my mom died. Cancer. Spent my last semester of college in hospital waiting rooms, learning to hack medical systems to get her better treatment.”
“Did it help?”
“No.” The word still tastes bitter. “Just taught me that some things can’t be controlled. No matter how good your code is.”
His hand tightens fractionally in my hair. “Is that why you do it? Try to save everyone?”
“Maybe.” I lean into his touch, letting myself be honest in a way I usually avoid. “Better than feeling helpless. What about you? Is that why you try to control everything? Keep everyone safe?”
“Coming home to destruction...” He swallows hard. “Built this pack from broken pieces. Jinx half-feral, Finn running from his own ghosts, Theo needing protection. Swore I’d never let anyone hurt them again.”
“And then I showed up. Chaos incarnate.”
“With a target on your back and steel in your spine.” His thumb traces my jaw. “Treating danger like a game.”
“Not a game.” I meet his eyes. “A mission. Just like yours.”
“A mission,” he echoes, something shifting in his expression. “You know what scared me most when you got shot?”
“My stunning display of reckless heroics?”
“How still you were.” His voice drops, raw with memory. “You’re never still. Always moving, planning, ten steps ahead. But there was so much blood, and you were just... quiet.”
The pain in his voice hits harder than any bullet. “Ryker...”
“Reminded me of coming home that day. Finding everything I loved destroyed because I wasn’t there to stop it.”
“You can’t protect everyone.” The words come soft, even as I plan my own betrayal. “Trust me, I’ve tried.”
“But you keep trying anyway.” His thumb traces my bottom lip. “Just like I keep trying to control everything. Two different approaches to the same fear.”
“Being helpless?”
“Being too late.”
The confession hangs between us, heavy with shared understanding. His forehead touches mine, breath warm against my lips.
“I’ve watched you fight since the moment you got here,” he murmurs. “Fight our protection, fight our care. Didn’t understand until now—you’re not fighting us.”
“No?”
“You’re fighting that helplessness. Same enemy, different battlefield.”
God, he sees too much. Understands too well. It would be easier if he was just the controlling alpha. The mission handler. Not this man who reads my broken pieces and shows me his own in return.
“Maybe we’re both fighting the wrong thing,” I whisper, even as my heart cracks knowing what I’ll have to do.
His hand cups my face like I’m something precious. Something worth protecting. “Maybe we should try fighting together instead.”
The irony of his trust might actually kill me.
“Fighting together,” I taste the words. “That mean you’ll finally let me into the garage with more than a beginner’s bike?”
His laugh rumbles through both of us. “The Ryker is a perfectly respectable machine.”
“The Ryker is a tricycle with delusions of grandeur.”
“A tricycle that kept you from breaking your neck.” His fingers trail down my neck, touching the spot where Jinx marked me. “Though apparently I can’t protect you from everything.”
“Still bitter about that?”
“Protective,” he corrects. “There’s a difference.”
His hand stills on my throat, thumb pressing gently over my pulse. “Bitter would mean I wanted to erase his mark. Protective means I want to add my own.”
Heat pools low in my belly at his tone. At the possession in his touch. “What’s stopping you?”
“You’re not ready.” But his eyes darken as my pulse jumps under his fingers. “You don’t trust us yet. Not completely.”
The truth of that statement cuts deeper than he knows. Than he can ever know.
“And when I am ready?” I ask, because apparently I’m a masochist who enjoys making my inevitable betrayal harder.
“When you’re ready,” his voice drops to that dangerous register that makes my toes curl, “I won’t be gentle about it.”
“Promise?”
Something dangerous flashes in his eyes at my challenge. His hand tightens fractionally on my throat, just enough to remind me of his strength.
“Careful, little beta.” His voice carries gravel and heat. “I’ve been holding back for two months. Don’t start something you’re not ready to finish.”
“Maybe I’m tired of everyone deciding what I’m ready for.”
The admission carries more truth than I meant it to. His thumb strokes over my pulse as he studies my face.
“You think I don’t want this?” The words come out rough. “Think I don’t lie awake imagining all the ways I could take you apart? Make you mine?”
“Show me.”
“No.” But his control visibly frays as I shift closer. “Not until you trust us completely. Not until?—”
“Until what? Until I’m properly contained? Properly protected?” I lean into his hand, still gentle on my throat. “News flash, alpha. I’m already caught. Already tangled up in all of you.”
“And that scares you.”
It’s not a question. His tactical mind sees too much, understands too well. Knows exactly why I’m pushing him now.
“Everything scares me.” The confession feels like bleeding. “The way Jinx watches me like I’m his next explosion. How Finn reads me like his favorite book. The way Theo pieces me together with gentle hands and careful words. And you...”
His breath catches as I press closer, until our lips nearly touch.
“You terrify me most of all.”
“Why?” His question ghosts across my lips, control splintering with each word. “What makes me so terrifying?”
“Because you see everything. Plan for everything.” My fingers find the collar of his leather jacket, holding on. “And I can’t tell if this is real or just another tactical maneuver.”
His grip tightens, not enough to hurt but enough to command attention. “You think this is strategy?”
“Isn’t everything with you?”
“Not this.” He pulls back just enough to meet my eyes, letting me see the raw hunger there. “Never this.”
“Prove it.”
“Cayenne.” My name comes out like a prayer and a curse. “Don’t push me.”
“Why not?” I shift closer, practically in his lap now. “Afraid you’ll lose control? Afraid I’ll see the cracks in your perfect armor?”
“Afraid I’ll show you exactly why I’ve been holding back.” His other hand finds my hip, fingers digging in. “Afraid I’ll take everything you’re offering before you’re ready to give it.”
“Maybe I want you to take it.”
His laugh holds no humor. “No. When I take you—when I mark you—it won’t be because you’re pushing my buttons. It’ll be because you trust me completely. Because you’re finally ready to let go of whatever you’re planning.”
Ice floods my veins. “What?—”
“I told you.” His thumb traces my bottom lip. “I see everything. Including the goodbye in your eyes.”
My heart stutters, but I force myself to hold his gaze. “Seeing things that aren’t there, alpha?”
“Am I?” His grip gentles on my throat, somehow more devastating than force. “You forget what I do. What I’ve always done. Tactical assessment isn’t just about battlefield strategy.”
“No?” I try for casual even as panic claws at my chest. “What’s it about then?”
“Patterns. Behaviors. The way someone’s pulse jumps when they’re planning something desperate.” His thumb strokes over that betraying pulse point. “The look in their eyes when they’re memorizing details they think they’ll never see again.”
“Pretty sure that’s just paranoia talking.”
“Pretty sure it’s experience.” He shifts, adjusting me more fully into his lap despite the serious turn of conversation. “You’re not the first person who’s tried to sacrifice themselves to protect others. Not even the first one this month.”
“Jinx?” I guess, trying to redirect.
“Theo, actually. Last week.” His free hand slides up my spine, somehow both comfort and cage. “Found him packing a go-bag. Thought if he left, the threats would follow him instead of the pack.”
“Did they?”
“Never got the chance to find out.” His smile carries edges. “Because that’s not how this works. Not how we work.”
“And how do you work?”
“Together.” He breathes the word against my lips. “Even when it’s hard. Even when it’s messy. Even when someone’s planning to betray us to save us.”
His words hit like precision strikes. He knows. Of course he knows. He’s probably known since the moment I started playing docile after the interrogation.
“You’re going to try to stop me.” It’s not a question.
“No.” His answer surprises both of us. “I’m going to let you make your choice. But first...” His hand slides into my hair, grip firm but gentle. “First, I’m going to show you exactly what you’ll be walking away from.”
“That’s cruel.” But I don’t pull away.
“That’s tactical.” His lips brush my temple. “Giving you all the information before you make a potentially lethal decision.”
“Using seduction as a strategy?” I try to make it sound bitter. “Thought that wasn’t your style.”
“This isn’t seduction.” He pulls back just enough to meet my eyes, letting me see the raw truth there. “This is me showing you that I see you. All of you. The chaos and the calculation. The need to protect and the urge to run. And I’m still here.”
“Why?” The question comes out smaller than I intend.
“Because some things are worth the risk.” His thumb traces my bottom lip. “Some people are worth letting go, even knowing they might not come back.”
God, he’s making this impossible. Making me want to stay, want to believe we could face Sterling together. Want to...
“You’re playing dirty,” I whisper against his thumb.
“No.” His smile holds sadness. “I’m playing honest. For once in my life, I’m showing all my cards.”
A crash from upstairs shatters the moment. Probably Jinx, still riding the high from tonight’s violence.
“I should—” Ryker starts to pull away, but I catch his jacket.
“Stay.” The word surprises us both. “Let them handle it for once.”
His eyes darken at my grip on his leather. “Thought you needed time to plan.”
“Maybe I need something else right now.”
“Cayenne.” My name comes out like a warning. “Don’t start something?—”
“That you won’t finish?” I challenge, not letting go of his jacket. “Pretty sure we’re past that point.”
His hand finds my throat again, thumb pressing against my pulse. “Last chance to back away. To think this through.”
Another crash, but neither of us moves. The air between us feels electric, charged with possibility and promises.
“I’m tired of thinking.” I tilt my chin up, baring my throat to his touch. “Show me what I’d be walking away from.”
His control splinters, visible in the way his pupils dilate. In how his grip tightens fractionally.
“Remember you asked for this,” he growls, and then there’s no more space for words at all.
Because he’s finally kissing me.
Not just a kiss—a claiming. A promise. A tactical assault on every defense I’ve built, and god help me, I want him to burn them all down.