20. Cayenne
Chapter 20
Cayenne
Minor chords seep through plaster and wood, vibrating in my bones before reaching my ears. Each haunting note of Chopin carries invisible spores of melancholy that colonize every corner of the mansion, multiplying in strength until even the air tastes of impending tragedy.
I find him in his music room, where afternoon light paints constellations through leaded glass. His fingers create warfare on ivory keys—beauty and violence wrapped in perfect precision. The contrast strikes me as appropriate, considering what I’m here to do.
The nursery plans spread across his drafting table mock me with their hope—architectural dreams weighted down with coffee mugs and colored pencils. Binary code murals intertwined with fairy tales, because of course Theo would find a way to merge our worlds into something beautiful. Something I’m about to corrupt with deletion.
“Your anxiety is throwing off my tempo.” His fingers never stop their dance, but the melody shifts into something that carries questions in its undertones. “Either come sit down or stop hovering like malware in my system.”
“I don’t want to disturb your practice.”
His laugh holds none of its usual music. “Darling, you’ve been disrupting my carefully ordered world since the moment you arrived. Why stop now?”
He shifts on the bench, making space beside him, and I find myself moving before I can execute better judgment. His scent wraps around me like encrypted code—vanilla and night-blooming jasmine with an undertone that whispers of secrets we’ve both kept too long.
“Tell me,” he says as his fingers paint devastation in perfect pitch, “are you here to talk about what’s eating at you, or to pretend everything’s fine?”
The question hits like a system crash. Trust Theo to see right through my defensive programming.
“Can’t I just enjoy the music?” I settle beside him, our shoulders brushing. “Maybe I just wanted to hear what you’re working on.”
“Liar.” But his smile holds fondness as his hands move across keys. “I’m composing a piece about a beta who thinks she has to save the world alone.”
“Sounds derivative.”
“Sounds like someone I know.” The melody shifts again, something haunting that makes my chest ache. “Someone who’s been watching me draw nursery plans with heartbreak in her eyes.”
“Theo...”
“Did you think I wouldn’t notice?” His voice stays gentle even as his music carries storms. “The way you trace every detail like you’re trying to memorize it? The way you look at all of us lately, like you’re taking photographs with your eyes?”
I watch his hands move, creating beauty I’ll never fully understand. “You see too much.”
“I see exactly enough.” He turns those dark eyes on me, fingers never missing a note. “I see a woman who thinks sacrifice is her only option. Who can’t understand that sometimes letting people help isn’t weakness.”
“Some things can’t be helped.”
“Some things,” his shoulder presses against mine, “need to be fought together.”
“Not this.” I stand, needing distance from his gentle understanding. “Not when it’s my father. Not when every beta who’s died is because of my blood, my legacy.”
“You think that matters to us?” His hands still on the keys, silence filling the space between notes. “You think we care who your father is?”
“You should.” The words taste bitter. “Everything I touch leads back to him. Every system I hack, every attempt to help—it all feeds his program. My own code betraying everything I try to protect.” I gesture at his nursery plans. “I can’t... I can’t let him use me to hurt anyone else. Especially not the pack.” I glare at his nursery plans, poking one with my finger. “Though I’m definitely vetoing the Disney princess theme if you’re really planning on subjecting innocent children to that. Even my dubious genetics deserve better than talking mice on the wall.”
“So you’ll what? Face Sterling alone? Try to out-manipulate the master manipulator?”
“I’ll face my father.” The words come out stronger than I feel. “Clean up the mess my own blood created.”
Theo’s laugh holds no music. “You sound just like Jinx after Emma died. So convinced his chaos would destroy everyone he loved that he tried to run.” His fingers trace a single minor key. “Want to know how that worked out for him?”
“That’s different.” I wrap my arms around myself, trying to hold in all the broken pieces. “Jinx had history with the pack. Had earned his place. I’m just... I’m the daughter of a man I’ve never even met. A man who’s been hunting betas while I played house in his shadow.”
“Never met?” Theo’s hands still completely on the keys. “Then help me understand why you think you have to face him alone.”
“Because...” The words stick in my throat. “Because maybe if I face him, if I look him in the eyes, I’ll understand why. Why he let my mother run. Why he’s doing this to betas. Why he...”
“Why he didn’t want you?”
The question hits like a knife, precise and devastating. Trust Theo to find the wound I’ve been trying to ignore.
“I spent my whole life thinking the name Sterling was a coincidence.” My laugh sounds hollow even to me. “Now I find out he’s been watching me? Using me? That every time I tried to help someone, I just led him straight to them?”
“And you think facing him alone will what? Give you answers? Redemption?”
“I think...” I look at the nursery plans, at the future I can’t let myself want. “I think I need to know if I’m really his daughter before I let myself be anyone else’s family.”
“Stop.” Theo’s hands slam on the keys, a discordant crash that makes me jump. “Let’s examine this brilliant logic, shall we? You just learned he’s your father—what, two days ago? From a prisoner under duress?”
“But—”
“No.” He turns on the bench to face me fully. “You couldn’t have known about the tracking program. You couldn’t have known about any of it. You were trying to save people while he was hunting them. How exactly does that make you responsible?”
“I still led him to them?—”
“Unknowingly! While actively fighting against everything he stands for!” His composer’s calm cracks completely. “Do you think any of those betas would blame you? Do you think we blame you?”
“That’s not?—”
“And now your solution is to, what? Walk right into his hands? Face a man who’s been playing this game longer than you’ve been alive? A man who let your mother run while pregnant rather than give up control?”
Put like that, my plan does sound somewhat lacking in strategic merit.
“He’s still my father,” I whisper, but the words hold less conviction.
“No.” Theo stands, all omega grace turned to steel. “Biology doesn’t make family. Choice does. And you’ve already chosen—every time you tried to save someone. Every time you put yourself between danger and the innocent. Every time you showed us who you really are.”
His hands cup my face, forcing me to meet his eyes. “You want to know who you are? Look at what you’ve done, not what blood you carry. Look at who you choose to be, not who gave birth to you.”
My chest constricts as his words process, each syllable bypassing firewalls I didn’t know were vulnerable. My vision blurs at the edges, breath coming quicker as logical arguments infiltrate emotional barriers with the efficiency of a zero-day exploit. Because he’s right. Of course he’s right. I’ve spent two days letting the word father rewrite everything I thought I knew about myself.
“I just...” My voice cracks. “I feel like I’m corrupted. Like everything I am is somehow tainted by his code.”
“Interesting theory.” Theo’s hands drop to my shoulders. “Let’s test it, shall we? When you saw that omega being harassed at the club, did you stop to check your genetics before stepping in?”
“That’s not?—”
“When you took that bullet for me, was that Sterling’s daughter acting? Or was that just you, being exactly who you’ve always been?”
“Theo...”
“When you learned betas were dying, did you think oh, I better check my DNA before I try to help? Or did you just act, because that’s who you are?”
My lips twitch against my will, the pressure in my chest releasing in a sound that surprises us both—part hiccup, part surrender, escaping past defenses I thought impenetrable. “Are you actually using logic right now? I thought that was Finn’s job.”
“Sometimes we have to speak beta to be heard.” But his smile holds warmth. “Is it working?”
I sink back onto the piano bench, letting my head rest against his arm. “Maybe. But people are still dying. The tracking program is still active. Sterling is still?—”
“Still a problem we can face together.” His fingers find the keys again, something soft and sweet replacing the minor keys. “With a pack that happens to include military intelligence, professional security, and a beta who’s probably already analyzed twelve different ways to approach this.”
I listen to him play, letting the music wash over me while my mind runs contingencies. He’s right—logically, mathematically, strategically right. A team would have better odds. Resources. Support.
And that’s exactly why I can’t risk it.
Because I’ve seen the way Jinx breaks when he talks about Emma. Watched Ryker’s hands shake when he thought I was bleeding out. Felt how Finn calculates every risk to the pack, and how Theo...
Theo, who draws nursery plans and composes lullabies and believes in happy endings.
“Your music is beautiful,” I say instead of arguing. Let him think he’s convinced me. Let them all think I understand.
“Just remember something for me?”
“What’s that?”
“The pack bond goes both ways. And some of us...” He turns those dark eyes on me, seeing too much as always. “Some of us don’t survive losing people we love. Not again.”
His laugh holds more sorrow than mirth. “I would believe you’re exactly who I said you are—someone who protects others no matter the cost to herself.”
His words follow me from the music room, haunting my steps like corrupted code I can’t delete. The mansion feels different tonight—every corner holding memories I’m trying not to collect. Jinx’s laughter echoing from the kitchen where he’s probably destroying dinner. Ryker’s solid presence in his study, scratching away at reports. Finn’s quiet footsteps in the library.
My family. My pack. My greatest vulnerability.
The basement door whispers shut behind me, and I lean against it, letting the silence wrap around me like a buffer zone. Everything I own still sits in boxes and bags, a physical representation of my inability to commit. To belong.
Except that’s not true anymore, is it?
My fingers trace the scabbed mark on my neck—Jinx’s claim that never quite took hold. Another small mercy in a universe that deals mostly in cruelty. At least they won’t feel it when I...
I push off the door before I can finish that thought. Start with the books—they’re easiest. Each one finds its place on shelves that have been waiting for exactly this. Tech manuals arranged by system architecture, because even in goodbye I can’t help imposing order on chaos.
“A place for everything,” I murmur, smoothing the spine of Advanced Encryption Protocols. “And everything in its place.”
Clothes come next. Each piece folded with precision I usually reserve for coding. Drawers that have stood empty for two months slowly fill with color and texture and pieces of myself I’m choosing to leave behind.
No, not leave behind. Store. Like data waiting to be retrieved.
The closet is last. I’ve been avoiding it—something about sliding hangers into empty space feels too permanent. Too much like admitting this room could be home.
But when I pull open the doors to arrange my pitiful collection of socks—all matched perfectly—shock ripples through me.
The clothing. Jackets. Sweaters. It is completely stocked. As I manically look through everything—something catches my eye. A glint of metal where there shouldn’t be anything at all.
My hand shakes as I lift out the USB drive.
Not just any drive— my drive. The one they stole. The one that started this whole cascade of revelations and betrayals.
A note sits beneath it, Ryker’s precise handwriting stark against cream paper:
Your move.
My knees give out and I sink to the floor, drive clutched to my chest. Because of course. Of course he’d do this—the ultimate strategic play. Letting me think I had a choice while he calculated every possible move, just like Finn taught him.
“You magnificent bastard,” I whisper, but it comes out wet with something that might be a laugh or might be a sob.
He’s trusting me with everything. Giving me back the weapon I could use to destroy them all. Letting me choose.
The emerald beanie watches from my pillow as I carefully place the drive in my go-bag. Not running away anymore. Not exactly.
Just making the next move in a game I didn’t even know we were playing.
In a way, it’s almost poetic. Ryker, who plans for every contingency, giving me exactly what I need to run. Trusting me with the very thing that could bring it all crashing down.
Or maybe he’s learning from Finn—sacrificing a piece to win the game.
I finish arranging the closet with hands that shake only slightly. Each hanger exactly three fingers apart, just like my mother taught me. The OCD might be hereditary, but at least that’s something I got from her instead of him.
When everything is perfect—when every drawer is filled and every shelf holds pieces of a future I’m trying to believe in—I sit on my perfectly made bed and let myself really look at the room. Let myself memorize how it feels to belong somewhere.
The basement apartment doesn’t feel like a prison anymore. Somewhere between Jinx’s chaos and Finn’s strategy sessions, between Theo’s music and Ryker’s... everything, it became something else. Something that whispers of return rather than escape.
I tuck the go-bag under my bed, already packed days ago. The drive sits heavy inside it, Ryker’s note folded carefully alongside. Tomorrow I’ll figure out how to face Sterling, how to end this without dragging them into my mess.
But tonight...
Tonight I let myself pretend this is just another evening. Let myself listen to Theo’s music drifting down, to Jinx’s manic laughter echoing through vents, to the subtle sounds of a home I never meant to find.
“I’ll come back,” I whisper to the room, to the carefully arranged pieces of myself I’m choosing to leave behind. Not running away. Just running toward something that needs finishing.
The mark on my neck tingles—not quite a bond, but maybe a promise. Maybe enough to lead me home when it’s all over.
If I survive what comes next.