Chapter 2 #2
He's probably been doing it his whole life. Keeping one bag packed by the door and pretending it's normal. Swallowing pills that stifled his true nature and calling it fine. Begging me to touch him and I said—
I said no.
The thought hits me like a fist to the sternum.
Not now. Not now. I can't think about that now—about the look on his face when I turned him down, about the way the light went out of his eyes, about how I made a calculated decision to protect him from myself and instead drove him straight out the door and into the arms of people who will—
Stop. Focus. Send the message. Be the machine.
Send.
Margot responds in eleven seconds. She was already awake. Already sensing something was wrong.
Sweetheart are you sure you're okay? You left so fast. I woke up and your room was—I was worried. Which friend? Do you need anything? I can come get you. Please just tell me you're safe.
I read it three times. Each word is Margot's heart on a screen, reaching through the dark for a son who can't reach back. The em dash—your room was–—where she started to describe what she found and couldn't finish.
Bane types the response. His fingers are steadier than mine.
I let him because right now my hands are useless.
Trembling like a goddamn rookie. Atlas Graves, who's stared down cartel enforcers and federal investigators and his own father's rage, can't hold a phone steady because a twenty-year-old with dark eyes and a vanilla scent is somewhere in this city being treated like cargo.
I'm safe. I promise. Just need a few days to figure some stuff out. Please don't worry. I'll call you soon. Love you.
She responds: I love you more. Please call me tomorrow? Just so I can hear your voice?
Bane sets the phone down. Presses his palms against his eyes. His shoulders shake once—a single, violent tremor—and then he's still.
Just so I can hear your voice.
We can fake texts. We can't fake a phone call. We've bought ourselves days. Maybe.
I put the phone facedown on the desk. Stand up.
Sit down. Stand up again. I can't be still.
The energy in my body has nowhere to go—it's fight-or-flight with nothing to fight and nowhere to fly and Max is out there and I'm in this office playing puppet master with a burner phone and it's not enough.
Nothing is enough.
I'm standing at the window, forehead against the cold glass, staring at nothing, when the second phone rings.
Zero. 5:30 AM. His voice is raw—hoarse from shouting, from the cold, from whatever he's been doing to Kline-adjacent operators in the small hours of the morning.
"Caruso talked."
I press the phone hard against my ear. "What did he give you?"
"The Kline operation has a specialty division.
Separate from the drug pipeline. Higher security, separate chain of command, its own logistics network.
" Zero pauses. I hear him breathing—ragged, reined in.
"Omega trafficking. Caruso confirmed. They run intake facilities—processing centers.
Take omegas off the street, run diagnostics, catalog them by scent profile and biology, and sell them to buyers through private auctions. "
Processing centers. The words hit me and I have to brace a hand against the desk because my vision tunnels for a second.
Intake facilities. Cataloging. Private auctions.
Max, who wouldn’t kill a spider without apologizing to it, who reads with his knees drawn up and a pen between his teeth, who smells like vanilla and honey and home—cataloged. Processed. Put up for sale.
"He also coughed up a name," Zero continues. "Dr. Elena Vasquez. She runs the medical side. Intake exams. Biological cataloging. Heat suppression protocols." His voice drops into a growl. "She's the one who processes them. Turns people into product. Find Vasquez, find the facility."
"How solid is the intel?"
"Caruso was very motivated to be honest." A pause. "He'll need dental work."
"I'm running Vasquez through every database we have," I say. My voice sounds steady. The machine is working. The human behind it is clawing at the walls. "Medical licenses, employment history, property records. If she exists in any system, I'll find her by morning."
"She exists. Caruso was specific." Zero exhales. Then, quieter—stripped bare: "Atlas. How long?"
"Seven hours. Give or take."
Silence. The kind that stretches between brothers who know each other well enough that silence says more than words. I hear Zero breathing, and I know he's doing the same thing I am—counting. Carrying it. Trying not to picture what seven hours looks like from the inside.
"I'm going back out," Zero says. "Two more Kline distributors on my list."
"Zero—"
"Don't tell me to be careful."
The line goes dead.
I set the phone down. Pick up the next one. The gears don't stop turning because the human inside the machine is screaming. That's the deal. The machine runs clean. The human bleeds in private.
Except the human keeps surfacing. Keeps flashing images I can't block—Max's face in the kitchen, flushed and terrified during his first heat wave.
Max curled on the couch with a book, feet tucked under him.
Max looking up at me with those dark eyes and saying please and me saying no because I thought I was protecting him.
FUCK.
I pull up the Vasquez search. Medical license databases. Employment records. The machine works. The human drowns.
I'm three databases deep, cross-referencing license numbers against known Kline shell companies, when Bane walks in at 6 AM with a stack of printouts and a look on his face that makes me sit up straight.
He's been running property searches for hours—building permits, real estate filings. This is Bane's domain. The legitimate face. The man who reads contracts, pulls public records, traces ownership through layers of corporate shells. He's better at this than he gives himself credit for.
"Meridian Holdings LLC." He drops them on my desk.
His eyes are sharp—the bleary exhaustion from earlier replaced by hard focus.
"Purchased a warehouse complex on the industrial waterfront eighteen months ago.
Three connected buildings. The registered agent is Harwick & Associates—they represent at least four confirmed Kline-affiliated businesses. "
I grab the documents. Scan them. Purchase price. Square footage. Zoning—industrial storage. No occupancy permits. No fire inspections. No oversight. My eyes catch on the utility records.
"Power consumption is triple what an empty warehouse needs." I look up.
"Water usage too. Consistent. Year-round." Bane points to a highlighted line. "And there's been a series of HVAC permit applications. Climate control upgrades that make zero sense for storage. Precision temperature regulation. Humidity controls. The kind of system you'd install to—"
"Maintain biological environments." I finish the sentence. My voice comes out strange. Tight. Because I know what that means. Climate control for keeping omegas at regulated temperatures during heat suppression. A facility designed around bodies. Around biology.
Around Max.
"I'm sending a recon team," I say, reaching for the phone, and my hand is steady now because there's finally something to do. Something concrete. A target. A direction.
"Already called Reyes." Bane meets my eyes. "Team's en route. Surveillance only. No engagement. Document entry points, guard rotations, vehicle patterns. Report directly to you."
I pause. Look at him. My youngest brother. Twenty-four years old. His jaw is set, eyes hard, and underneath the steel there's something I recognize.
Purpose. Fierce, desperate purpose.
"Good," I say.
Now we wait. For Reyes to report back. For Zero to surface. For the databases to give me Vasquez. The waiting is the worst part—worse than the violence, worse than the hard calls. Just sitting in this office while the clock ticks and Max is somewhere I can't reach.
I'm staring at the property maps, tracing possible entry points with a red pen, when Bane's phone buzzes. He reads the screen and the blood drains from his face.
"What?"
He holds it up. A message from our courier service. Someone hand-delivered an envelope to the Graves Industries front desk and now it’s here. Heavy cream paper. No return address. Sealed with wax.
I crack the seal. Same calligraphic handwriting. Same man.
Mr. Graves—
I believe we have matters to discuss. I propose dinner. Tomorrow evening. 8 PM. My associate will provide details.
Your stepbrother is comfortable. For now.
Regards,
Talbot Kline
I read it three times. My jaw aches from clenching.
Your stepbrother is comfortable.
Comfortable. Like Max is lounging at a spa. Like he's not probably locked behind a steel door in a concrete cell in a building full of stolen people. The word comfortable is obscene.
For now.
Two words that carry the weight of everything they haven't done yet. Everything they could do. A deadline wearing a smile. And underneath the civilized penmanship and the wax seal, the real message: I have something that’s yours, and I'm enjoying watching you know it.
Something cracks. Quietly, inside my chest, in the place where the machine meets the man.
I fold the letter. My hands are steady again—but it's a different kind of steady. Not controlled. Cold.
Bane reads it over my shoulder. "He wants to negotiate."
"He wants to perform." I slide the letter into the desk drawer. "Kline didn't kidnap Max because he needs our territory. He did it because he wants us to know he can. The dinner is theater."
"So we don't go."
"We go." I stand. "We go because declining gives him the timeline.
We go because face-to-face is where I read people—their tells, their weaknesses, what they reveal when they think they're winning.
" I meet Bane's eyes. "And we go because every hour Max is in that facility is an hour too long, and I will not waste a single one. "
"What are the rules?"
"Zero doesn't speak. You follow my lead. We're there for our stepbrother. Family concern. Nothing more."
"And what we actually are to him?" The words slip out before my brother can tamp them down. His eyes snap to the floor and his jaw ticcs.
What are we–actually–to Max Carter?
"That…stays invisible." I hold Bane's gaze. "The moment Kline confirms Max is more than a stepbrother—that we've…” I clear my throat. “Touched him—Max's value becomes infinite. He goes from leverage to a weapon that can destroy us."
Bane nods.
Neither of us says anything for a long moment. The clock ticks. The maps wait. Then Bane dismisses himself and I slide back into my seat.
The waiting is the hardest part.
I open the desk drawer. The ransom note sits beside Kline's letter. Two pieces of cream paper. Two threats in beautiful handwriting.
There will not be a third.