Chapter 15
Orien’s hand settles on the small of my back as he guides me through the entrance to the Blue Note, the touch light enough to appear casual to anyone watching, but grounding all the same.
I feel it everywhere.
The bruises across my ribs protest every breath after last night’s fight, hidden beneath my sweater and jacket, but the one along my jaw had been impossible to conceal.
I’d pulled on a black turtleneck before leaving the apartment, hoping the raised collar and dim lighting would disguise most of the damage, but the purple shadow still creeps above the fabric near the hinge of my jaw.
The lounge is quieter than usual this early, with only a scattering of regulars occupying booths and bar stools while staff move through opening routines.
As we enter, Ghost straightens in his chair as his attention snags on the bruise, and concern crosses his face.
Orien’s thumb brushes once along my spine before he guides me to one of the wall booths. “I’ve got some things to handle in the back.”
“Go work,” I tell him. “I’ll be fine here.”
Orien steps closer and tips my chin up with two fingers. His eyes track over the bruise with an angry flare of his nostrils before he leans down and kisses me.
When he pulls back, his mouth brushes my jaw, avoiding the bruise. “I’ll have Ghost bring you some water. You need to hydrate.”
As I settle into the booth, Orien stops at the table where Ghost sits and speaks to him for a moment before he disappears through the secured door to the back rooms.
Ghost rises and comes to my table. “Everything okay?”
“Yeah. Nothing to worry about.”
“Whiskey sour?”
“I’m completely predictable, aren’t I?”
The corners of his lips twitch, and he returns to the bar. Ice rattles as he builds the drink, while around us, the Blue Note settles into its daytime rhythm. Two regulars argue quietly over a chessboard near the window while Angel wipes down tables.
Ghost returns and sets a whiskey sour on the table, along with a tall glass of water.
I huff at the water. Orien refused to leave the apartment until I put down a liter of the stuff. At this point, I’m going to be running back and forth from the bathroom, if I don’t float away first.
“Don’t ignore basic survival needs,” Ghost says dryly. “And if you need painkillers, ask Angel. He has the good stuff.”
The Omega, who backs Ghost up behind the bar in the evenings, casts me a saucy wink. Based on what I’ve heard, the fragile-looking Omega used to ride with a biker gang, and after his Alpha bit the dust, Rowan took him in.
Now, I wonder what kind of good painkillers he’d give me if I asked.
Before I can respond, Ghost returns to his table, where the Blue Note ledger sits open.
As soon as he sits back down, Angel scurries over. He leans close, speaks briefly, and waits for Ghost to note it down in the ledger.
He nods once, his murmured response lost beneath the hum of other conversations, and Angel leaves without exchanging anything beyond a few words and a single notation in Ghost’s perfect script.
A few minutes later, William slides into the seat across from Ghost. The Beta works as a lab technician at the place used by all the police stations, and I find myself hoping he has no connection to the man we have planted there, too.
Once again, Ghost makes notes, the man walks away, and I take a long sip of my whiskey sour to wash down the reminder of why I’m even here.
The chess players break out into an argument, the taller one annoyed with his current position. Around me, the bar staff moves through their routines with the ease of a place that’s been running this way long enough for muscle memory to take over.
Three more exchanges unfold. Each one adds a piece to the puzzle I’ve been assembling since my first week, and each one leaves me feeling slightly worse about building it.
It’s not financial, nor mercenary. That much has become clear.
The faster I can confirm it, the faster I can stop sitting here cataloguing the movements of people who have done nothing to deserve it.
The answer’s in the ledger.
I finish my whiskey in a long swallow and stand, my bruises protesting. I leave my glass at the table as I cross toward the bar. If anyone’s watching, I’m just flagging down a server. Nothing to draw attention.
A woman at the bar shifts down a stool to give me room, nodding in acknowledgment. I nod back, choosing a spot close enough to eavesdrop on his phone if it rings but far enough away not to trigger his natural caution.
It’s a balance I’ve been working on for weeks, learning how much distance to leave before his instincts start sounding alarms.
My patience pays off when his phone buzzes on the table.
Ghost checks the screen, frowns, and stands, phone pressed to his ear as he heads for the far end of the bar where the sound system pipes in from overhead speakers.
His body turns away from his table as he leans against the bar, the conversation already absorbing his full attention.
I close the distance in three quick steps, my back to the bar and Ghost’s retreating figure.
No one’s watching. They’re all too busy with their drinks, their conversations, and their new chess game.
I position myself where a quick reach for a napkin will explain away my presence if Ghost happens to turn around.
The handwriting is evenly spaced, the black ink forming careful columns with headings that aren’t dollar amounts or street names.
Instead, they’re labeled with Open, Active, Pending, and Settled, with names and dates that form a history of exchanges too complex for me to decode in the thirty seconds I’ve allowed myself.
But I don’t need to decode the entire system to see what matters.
No Vartanian names appear in any column. No notation of territory, no mention of corridors, no coded references to our holdings or operations. Just small, careful arrangements of protection, mediation, and settled debt. A ledger of balances, not threats.
My chest tightens as I grab a napkin and return to my booth, sliding into my seat with casual grace while my limbs shake with relief.
No war exists here.
Which means the document my uncle showed Alexei was manufactured.
Concern replaces the momentary relief. Who would want to force Alexei’s hand against a neutral party?
What could they possibly gain? Use us to wipe out the Blue Note to clear someone on the ledger?
Or implicate our family in a turf war to weaken Alexei’s position?
I pluck an ice cube from my empty glass and crunch down on it with my back molars.
The music shifts to a slower song, the lights dimming another half-notch as late afternoon gives way to early evening. Around me, more regulars trickle in, and a group of four eye my booth, but I spread out, staking my claim to the space.
A fresh whiskey sour arrives, and my empty glass, along with the soggy napkin, are swept away as the bar staff move through the room with the unhurried rhythm of a space that’s seen a thousand nights just like this one.
As the band sets up on stage, Orien emerges from the back hallway and zeroes in on me from across the room. He moves with the same unhurried ease he always does, hands loose at his sides as he closes the distance between us.
Without asking, he slides into the seat across from me, his feet bumping mine beneath the table, and frowns at my empty glasses. “Didn’t I tell you to hydrate?”
As I stare at him, my ears begin to ring. I’ve confirmed what I came for, but this doesn’t feel like victory.
Because if Blue Note isn’t a threat, I have no excuse to stick close to Orien.
My throat closes at the thought, the whiskey turning sour in my stomach. I don’t want to waste what time is left playing games.
So I don’t.
I side around the booth, closing the space between us, and press my mouth to his.
Orien responds without hesitation, one hand coming up to cup the uninjured side of my jaw, fingers curving to hold me in place as his lips part beneath mine.
The kiss deepens, his tongue curls around mine, bourbon and mint flooding my senses, along with a unique flavor that sends my head spinning. Heat builds under my skin, spreading from my chest to my fingers to my toes, and I make a small, hungry sound into his mouth.
His hand slides from my jaw to my hair, fingers threading through the strands as he shifts, one hand sliding under my thigh and lifting me to straddle him in the booth, knees braced on either side of him as the table digs into my back.
Orien pulls back to study me. “What’s wrong, trouble?”
“I missed you,” I breathe into his mouth, my hands clutching at his shoulders.
Orien’s palm cups my ass, fingers digging into the firm muscles, pulling me closer as his mouth moves to my jaw, then my throat, just above my backup nape guard. “Don’t worry, I’m not going anywhere.”
The words send a shudder through me as pain builds behind my sternum. No, Orien’s not going anywhere, but I am.
His other hand slides beneath the hem of my sweater, palm flattening over the small of my back, and I arch into the touch with a moan.
Orien smiles into the curve of my throat. “Hush, trouble, it’s not crowded enough for you to be making those noises.”
His hand moves up my back, tracing each vertebra, and I bite my lip to keep any more sounds from escaping. The music seems to fade around us, the voices at the bar blurring into a meaningless hum as my world narrows to his hand on my back, his thigh under my ass, and his mouth on my neck.
I curl my fingers into his collar, tugging at the soft cotton, and his grip tightens in response, one hand moving to the back of my neck as he pulls me into another kiss, deeper this time, more demanding.
His tongue thrusts deep, the kiss almost bruising in its intensity, and I melt into it, a helpless whine slipping free.
The lights are dim in this corner, the booth tucked far enough from the bar for us to be half-hidden in shadow.
The edge of the table digs into my spine, and pain flares from my bruises, but I ignore it, all my focus on the way Orien’s hands roam over my body, one dipping beneath my turtleneck to trace the line of my ribs.
My breath comes faster, my heart hammering as his thumb brushes my nipple. I want his hands everywhere at once, want him to touch me until I can’t remember what it was like not to be touched.
The knowledge of the approaching end drives my need higher. I don’t want to go back to being just Levon, my brother’s spy and my uncle’s inconveniently designated nephew.
For right now, I want to be Lee, desired for himself and not for what he can do or how he can be used. I want to be the Omega who commands Orien’s full attention.
That ache drives me to shift closer, my hips rocking over his as I wrap my arms around his neck. The movement brings us flush together, his erection hard beneath my ass, and I break the kiss with a gasp, my forehead dropping to his shoulder as I try to steady my breathing.
“Hey,” Orien says, his hand coming up to brush my hair back from my forehead. “You okay?”
I nod against his shoulder.
His free hand settles on my waist, thumb stroking a slow circle through the fabric of my sweater, and I melt into the gentleness of the gesture.
No one has ever touched me with such tenderness.
The thought brings me back to myself, a cold splash of reality in the midst of heat and want. I can’t keep this. In no world can I take Orien home to meet my family.
Because the moment he finds out I’m a Vartanian, he will never believe any of this was real for me, and he’ll kill me for spying on his people.
The realization settles into my stomach like lead, heavy and inescapable. I lift my head to memorize the exact color of his gray eyes in this light, the small scar at the corner of his mouth, the way his hair falls across his forehead.
“I’m good,” I say, steadier than I have any right to be. “Just got a little—”
The front door crashes open, the sound violent as a thunderclap in the quiet room, and a man stumbles through the entrance, and I catch the telltale bulge of a gun under his jacket.