18. Finn
Chapter 18
Finn
I’m just finishing up a call when I hear the first thud on the roof. Then the second.
And the call was important. Vital even, despite the hour. I always answer Quinn’s calls, no matter what time it is. Hell, we went to college together, back when we both thought energy drinks and coding would change the world. These days, we’re lucky if they just keep it from ending.
“Yeah?” I answer groggily. The call comes in on the landline—the one that only very few people have access to. Because apparently in 2025, we still need landlines. Like we’re living in some kind of tech-noir dystopia. Which, considering recent events, might not be far off.
“Finn, hey, I’m not sorry to wake you.” Quinn starts, which immediately sets off all my internal alarms. No one starts a conversation at 2:30 AM with not sorry unless the world’s about to implode. Or worse—someone’s touched his servers.
“What happened?” I sit up, already reaching for my glasses because whatever this is, I’ll need to see it clearly. Preferably with both eyes functioning.
“Who is it?” Theo mumbles from beside me, curling into my heat like the world’s most lethal space heater.
Shit. I woke him up. Add that to my growing list of crimes against pack harmony.
“Go back to sleep.” I press a kiss to his forehead, trying to salvage at least one person’s rest tonight. He mumbles something that might be Italian or might be a curse—with Theo, it’s usually both—before burying his head under a pillow.
Never and I mean never wake a sleeping omega.
“Now that I might be sorry about.” Quinn’s voice lacks its usual sass, which is never a good sign. Quinn without attitude is like Jinx without chaos—unnatural and probably dangerous.
I let the covers fall away and grab my pants, hastily pulling them on as I creep toward the door. Leaving it cracked, just in case I can sneak back in later. Though who am I kidding—with my luck, this call is about to ruin any chance of sleep for the next week.
“Talk to me.” I make my way to my office—and by office, I mean what used to be my walk-in closet before screens and surveillance equipment staged a coup. My ergonomic chair squeaks a welcome as I sink into it. At least something’s happy to see me at this hour.
“There have been some developments.” Quinn says, which is basically government speak for shit hit the fan.
“You got into her servers?” I’m talking about Cayenne, of course. Our resident hacker who’s probably giving Quinn an aneurysm right about now.
“No, the witch had everything on self-destruct.” Quinn curses in the background, and I have to hide my smile. Of course she did.
“She even had Never Gonna Give You Up play through the speakers.” Now he does laugh a little, and honestly? That’s the most on-brand thing I’ve heard all week. “But we had a breach.”
I’m already pulling up my access to PCAS and OG, because sleep is clearly a fantasy at this point. “Where?”
“Omega Guardians.” The words hit like a punch to the gut. “We had to evacuate the entire building.”
My fingers freeze over the keys as scenarios—none of them good—flood my mind. The Omega Guardian building houses dozens of omegas. Omegas we promised would be safe. Omegas who trusted us to protect them.
Quinn continues into my silence, probably because he knows exactly what kind of guilt spiral I’m entering. “Everyone’s okay, but we had to move fast.”
I almost don’t want to ask. But information is what I do, even when it hurts. “What—” My voice catches because failing to protect omegas is basically number one on our Things That Keep Us Up At Night list, right above Jinx’s Impulse Control and slightly below Apocalypse .
“They’re playing with us, Finn.” Quinn growls, and I can practically see him pacing his office, probably surrounded by enough empty energy drink cans to fill a recycling center. “We caught it, but it could have been bad.”
Still, he’s dancing around whatever happened, which means it’s worse than bad. Quinn only gets vague when he’s truly scared.
“It had to be Sterling Labs.” He grumbles.
“Quinn, what happened?” I try to get him to focus, to give me something concrete I can actually work with instead of these anxiety-inducing hints.
“Air filtration systems. Gas. I don’t know what the fuck it was because I’m no scientist. But my sensors went off just past midnight. The security for the humidifier for the building went off. Jumped from fifty percent to fifty-five.” He pauses like this should mean something to me. “It doesn’t seem like much, you know, but it woke me up and something didn’t sit right.”
“You put security on a humidifier?” The words come out before I can stop them. Though honestly, after Cayenne’s little hack-and-parkour exhibition, maybe we should all be a bit more paranoid.
“I put security notifications on everything after Cayenne’s stunt.” His grunt carries equal parts frustration and pride, which pretty much sums up everyone’s feelings about our resident chaos agent. “I got up and went to check it in person, which took me ten minutes to get there. When I got to the basement, there was a can attached to it. If I hadn’t followed my gut...”
He trails off, and my stomach drops. Quinn’s gut instincts are about as reliable as Theo’s ability to cause trouble—which is to say, extremely.
I don’t push though, because this is Quinn’s way. His brain works like a loading bar—you have to wait for it to process before you get the full picture. Push too hard and you’ll just crash the system.
Finally, he continues. “It only reached one omega. Her apartment was the first the air filtration reached. But she went right into a heat cycle. Our doctors had to sedate her.”
“Fuck. A heat accelerant.” I sit back, my chair protesting the sudden movement. “Is she alright?”
“No.” The word carries the weight of failure we all dread. “The doctors had to put her in a coma.”
I hear him swallow over the phone, probably downing more caffeine. “It was a direct attack. It had to be Sterling Labs. No one else on this godforsaken planet has the ability to speed up a heat cycle.”
Cayenne is going to take this personally. Hell, I’m taking this personally, and I just process the data. She actually lives it.
“What do you need from me?” I ask, fingers flying across the keyboard to pull up the doctor’s reports. Maybe there’s something there, some pattern I can find that will make sense of this mess.
“Two things. One, I need you to talk to Cayenne and find out if the Sterling name is a coincidence.”
“Can’t you ask Aria?” Her best friend would know, right? Though given how protective that pack is...
And by pack I mean those four best friends who would rather take their friend’s secrets to the goddamn grave.
“I did.” His growl carries frustration bordering on violence. “She isn’t talking, which means either Aria doesn’t know or she knows and is protecting Cayenne.”
I close my eyes and sink back into my chair. The name thing has been nagging at me too. Sterling Labs. Cayenne Sterling. It’s either the world’s most unfortunate coincidence or... well, the alternative opens up a whole new level of complicated I’m not sure we’re ready for.
“And?” I prompt because I’m not going to make a promise I can’t follow through on. Especially not when it comes to her.
“I need your team.” The words rush out like he’s afraid they’ll stick in his throat.
That gets my attention. He hasn’t needed us in a long time, and needing us means... oh. Oh no.
“You need someone crazy enough to do something stupid,” I translate, because that’s our specialty, isn’t it? The missions no one else will touch.
“Yeah.” His sigh carries years of friendship and shared regret. “I do. I can’t move on Sterling Labs legally without knowing if the accelerant came from them. It logically could be any other company.”
“Legalities.” I remind him, because someone has to be the voice of reason. Even if reason left the building about three crises ago.
“If we move legally against Sterling, they may destroy the evidence.” He sounds like he wishes he could have called anyone but us. I get it. We’re the nuclear option—the one you don’t want to need but keep around just in case.
Another thud from above interrupts my thoughts. What the hell?
“This isn’t on the books,” I say, already knowing the answer.
“Can’t be.” A pause. “Full support from Malachi but...”
“You aren’t issuing the order.” I finish for him. “Lay it out.”
“Infiltrate Sterling Labs. I need a sample of the accelerant for our labs to compare.” The words come out in one breath, like ripping off a band-aid. If band-aids could get us all killed or imprisoned.
“And if it’s a match?”
“That’s a bridge we’ll cross when we get to it.” Cryptic. Fantastic. Because this situation needed more mysteries. “Get in. Get out. No one can see you or hear you. No death. Nothing. Do you understand?”
I do understand. One wrong move and PCA will deny our existence faster than Jinx can start a fight. Which is saying something.
“Yeah.”
Thud .
What the actual fuck?
“Alright, call me when you have results. Do not update me and tell me nothing unless it’s on this secure line or in person.”
“Understood.” Another thud has me looking at the ceiling like it might give me answers.
“Don’t fuck this up.” And with that vote of confidence, Quinn hangs up.
“Thanks for your vote of confidence,” I mutter, tossing the cordless phone across the room with perhaps more force than necessary. These late-night crisis calls are really doing wonders for my blood pressure.
Another thud, and okay, I need to figure out what’s going on before something—or someone—breaks. Slipping on my shoes and hoodie, I make my way to the attic where I find the window to Jinx’s obstacle course wide open.
What is he doing up this early? It’s not uncommon to find him working out his demons through physical exertion, but something feels different.
As I make my way out onto the roof, I see not Jinx but Cayenne leaping through the beginner course. The very one I can’t even complete, and she makes it look easy.
It’s hot as hell.
When she finishes triumphantly, she eyes the harder course, and my stomach drops. Because I know that look. It’s the same look Jinx gets before he does something spectacularly ill-advised.
Don’t do it.
I make my way across the roof because my gut is screaming that she’s about to do something stupid like attempt ? —
She’s falling.
I cradle Cayenne in my arms, the scent of blood hitting me like a physical blow. My brain immediately launches into emergency protocols, cataloging worst-case scenarios while trying not to panic.
Blood. She’s bleeding. Internal injuries? Impact trauma? Why was she even up here alone?
“Put me down.” She squirms in my arms, but like hell am I letting go when she could be seriously hurt.
“You’re bleeding.” The words come out more accusatory than intended. “We need to get you to medical?—”
“Oh my god.” She stops struggling, fixing me with a look that questions my supposed intelligence. “I’m on my period, you ridiculous beta.”
Oh.
Oh.
Well, that’s... that’s actually worse. She was doing parkour while—My brain helpfully provides about sixteen different statistical studies about beta menstruation and injury rates, none of which are particularly useful right now.
“That’s not better!” I’m pretty sure my voice just cracked. “What possessed you to try advanced parkour while—” I can’t even say it. This is exactly the kind of reckless behavior that’s going to give me an ulcer.
She has the audacity to laugh. “What, you think a little monthly maintenance is going to stop me? Besides,” she pats my chest condescendingly, “physical activity helps with cramps.”
“Physical activity means yoga or light jogging, not launching yourself off buildings at 3 AM!”
My nose chooses this moment to remind me that I have allergies. Fantastic.
My nose twitches again. “Inside. Now.”
She rolls her eyes but follows me down to the kitchen. I park her at the island before my allergies can fully betray me, then rummage through the cabinets. Theo might be our resident artist, but breakfast? That’s my domain.
“You cook?” She sounds so skeptical it actually hurts my feelings a little.
“I cook exactly one thing very well.” I pull out a pan, trying not to feel smug at her surprised expression. “Everything else is a good attempt.”
“Let me guess—toast?”
I crack eggs into a bowl with perhaps more force than necessary. “My omelets are legendary, I’ll have you know. They got me through college.”
“Omelets got you through college?”
“Well, omelets and an unhealthy addiction to energy drinks.” I start chopping vegetables, falling into the familiar rhythm. “Quinn and I practically lived on them. Cheaper than the dining hall, and you can hide a lot of nutrients in eggs if you’re creative enough.”
She props her chin on her hand, watching me work. “Quinn from PCA? You went to college together?”
“MIT.” I slide mushrooms into the pan, letting them sizzle. “Computer Science.”
“Of course you did, you nerds.”
Outside, the first snowflakes start to fall, fat and lazy in the pre-dawn light. Cayenne’s whole demeanor changes as she spots them, something childlike and wondering crossing her face.
“You act like you’ve never seen snow before.” The words slip out before I can stop them.
“I haven’t. Not really.” She presses closer to the window. “Grew up in California. Bay Area.”
California. Well, that throws a wrench in Quinn’s Sterling Labs theory. Unless...
“Just you and your parents?” I try to keep my voice casual as I fold the first omelet.
“Just me and my mom.” Something in her voice makes me look up. “She left my father when I was little. Never talked about him. Never even told me his name.”
The pieces click together with a certainty that makes my stomach drop. “My mom died when I was nineteen,” I say instead of pushing. Sometimes sharing pain is better than seeking answers.
She’s quiet for a long moment. “Cancer got mine. Three years ago.”
I slide the perfect omelet onto a plate, adding a fork before setting it in front of her. Our fingers brush as she takes it, and something passes between us—understanding maybe, or recognition of shared wounds.
“May I ask what type?” I ask softly.
“Pancreatic.” She states, poking at the eggs. “Brain tumor for yours?”
“Car accident.” The familiar ache rises, but it’s dulled by time and acceptance. “Drunk driver.”
“That sucks.” She takes a bite, then her eyes widen. “Holy shit, this is actually good.”
“Try not to sound so surprised.” But I’m already starting another one, oddly pleased by her reaction.
The snow falls harder outside, coating the world in quiet possibility. We eat in comfortable silence, two broken people finding connection in shared loss and breakfast food.
Sometimes the simplest moments mean the most.
“You know,” I check the growing blanket of white outside, “if it lays, we could go sledding later.”
“Sledding?” She perks up like I just offered her unrestricted internet access. “I’ve never been sledding.”
“Never?” The way her eyes light up does something strange to my chest. “Well, we’ll have to fix that. Let me check the forecast?—”
I’m pulling out my phone when Ryker appears in the doorway, all carefully contained alpha energy. “Pack meeting. Now.”
Right. The breach. Quinn’s warning. Reality crashes back like a system failure.
“But it’s snowing,” Cayenne protests, and for a moment she sounds young. Hopeful.
“Later,” I promise, setting my phone on the counter. “If we get enough accumulation, I’ll show you the best hills on the property.”
Her smile almost makes me forget what I’m about to tell the pack. Almost.
I follow Ryker out, my mind already processing how to present Quinn’s information, how to plan our infiltration, how to protect everyone I care about from what’s coming.
Sometimes the biggest breaches come from the smallest oversights.