Chapter Thirteen #2
Malik paled further, turning quickly toward his guard. “Secure the building. Double the guards. And, for the love of god, triple-check the perimeter! It’s too late for us to move locations now!”
As both men swiftly exited, slamming the heavy metal door behind them, Fallon sank back against the bars, giggling helplessly. “Did you see his face? Priceless.”
Violet shook her head fondly. “Honestly, I can’t even blame him. I’d be terrified, too.”
“Just once,” I sighed dramatically, smiling despite myself, “it would be nice not to get mistaken for the mafia.”
Fallon chuckled again, eyes sparkling wickedly. “But then life would be boring, wouldn’t it?”
Riven snorted quietly from across the way, leaning against her bars with a broad, fierce grin. “I don’t know what I expected from you three, but it definitely wasn’t this.”
“Stick around, kid,” Fallon winked at her. “We’re just getting started.”
Salem
October 24th
6:03 P.M
I’ve been through my fair share of life-or-death situations, and being in security definitely plays a big part in that.
But even before that, I grew up with a drug-addicted single mom and a revolving door of mean boyfriends.
They never lasted. She’d drain them dry and then pack us up and move on.
I’ve slept in cars. I’ve shivered through nights on the street with nothing but concrete under my back and fear curling in my gut.
I’ve survived places most people would run from.
Places where danger wasn’t a possibility, it was a certainty.
But nothing in my past, not the cold, not the hunger, not even the fights for my life, has prepared me for this.
Odette is gone.
The world feels like it’s cracking apart beneath my feet.
Micha has been determined. His face is a mask, flat and unreadable, but I can see the rage simmering behind his eyes like storm clouds about to break.
He’s shut himself down completely, locked away whatever he’s feeling.
I don’t know if he’s trying to protect himself or all of us.
Ravik’s been in the gym for hours. Four punching bags destroyed, maybe five by now.
He doesn’t speak either; he grunts and breathes like every strike he lands is a scream he can’t let out.
His fists slamming into canvas and sand are rhythmic and violent.
It’s how he processes pain: through motion, through force.
But the rage he’s carrying isn’t leaving his body. It’s feeding on him, growing.
And Haze... Haze is the wild card. He vanished sometime after midnight.
No note. No call. Just gone. He came back right before dawn, drenched in blood.
Not his—at least, I don’t think so. His expression was empty.
Hollow. He hasn’t said a word since. He’s like a ghost in his own skin, pacing the halls like he’s waiting for something to pull him back to life.
I’m trying to keep us together and focused, but Odette’s last words keep echoing in my head. She said one of the men who took her... was someone who’d had her before. Someone from her past. Someone who already hurt her once—and now he’s got her again.
It’s killing me.
Henry… God, Henry’s unraveling. I’ve never seen a man come apart like that.
The moment he realized she was gone, it was like something inside him snapped.
He collapsed to his knees and laced his hands behind his head.
He keeps muttering Not again. His grief is raw, bottomless, the kind of pain that makes people do desperate, irreversible things.
He’s not her blood, but the way he cares, he might as well be her father.
I keep thinking, if we were bonded, I’d know what she was feeling. I’d be able to sense her. I’d have something. But we hadn’t gotten that far. We were still learning each other, still circling the edges of something we all wanted but hadn’t reached yet. I haven’t even kissed her.
And that’s something I will fix. When, not if, we get her back, I’m not wasting another moment—no more waiting. No more pretending time is something we’re guaranteed.
I will bring her home. And I will tell her what having her as my omega means to me, with my words, with my hands, with everything I am.
But right now… I need to hold this broken family together even as we all fall apart.
Odette
unknown
time is irrelevant
Riven was still grinning, perched like a storm about to break open. “So,” she drawled, glancing between us with curious eyes. “When exactly are your terrifying alphas arriving?”
Fallon stretched her legs out like she was lounging poolside. “Soon,” she said, like that was a promise written in blood. “Give it a few hours, maybe less.”
Violet looked at her nails with theatrical boredom. “Depends on whether Voss or Dare decides to dismember someone first or wait until he’s done screaming.”
I leaned back against the cold bars, feeling the ache in my lower back from sleeping on the metal floor last night. “I think Haze will be the first through the door,” I murmured, a hint of a smile curling at my lips. “Probably shirtless. Maybe covered in blood.”
Fallon pointed a finger at me. “That. That right there is why I like you.”
Violet leaned forward, face serious but eyes gleaming. “Okay, bets. Who’s the first to kill someone?”
“Me,” Fallon said without hesitation.
Violet raised her brows. “Bold. But wrong. It’s clearly going to be Voss.”
“Technically,” I offered, “if one of us kills someone before they get here, we win.”
All three of us looked at each other.
Fallon raised her brows. “Do we need to sharpen something?”
Before I could answer, the door at the far end creaked open again, slower this time. Controlled. A different set of footsteps echoed in, measured, expensive. We all turned toward the sound, our bodies stilling instinctively.
A different man stepped through. He wore a dark suit, perfectly tailored, and a pinched expression like he’d walked into a mess he hadn’t been warned about. He stopped cold the second he caught sight of Fallon. His eyes widened, flicking from her to Violet to me.
“Oh, no,” he muttered, shutting his eyes with a visible wince. “No, no, no. Malik was right we are so unbelievably fucked.”
“Yup,” Fallon chirped, popping the ‘p’. “Hope you’ve got life insurance.”
The suited man glanced at the cages, the door, and the crumbling patience in his bones. “I am not paid enough for this shit,” he muttered, then turned on his heel and stormed out the way he came.
When the door opens again, we could hear a faint strangled scream.
Fallon leaned her head back against the bars and sighed happily. “God, I love it when they panic.”
“Do you think we should be nicer?” Violet asked, smirking faintly.
I stretched my legs out, mimicking Fallon. “Why? This is the most fun we’ve had in months.”
Riven whistled low, shaking her head in amusement. “You three are feral.”
“We prefer ‘proactive,’” Fallon replied primly.
“We prefer alive,” Violet added.
I closed my eyes and let the grin spread slow and certain across my face. “And we’re very good at staying that way.”
We’d just settled into another round of speculative murder-bets when the door slammed open again—this time with none of the measured poise from before.
A guard burst into the room, eyes wide and sweating through his shirt like he’d just sprinted through hell. Screams and shots could be heard from beyond the door louder this time. He was younger than the others, Beta by scent, and looked like this was his first real fuck-up on the job. Poor guy.
Not that we felt bad for him.
“You!” he barked, pointing directly at us, his voice cracking under the weight of too many nerves and not enough common sense. “Get away from the bars. Now!”
Fallon just blinked. Violet tilted her head. I didn’t move at all.
“I said move!” he snapped again, stepping too close—his boot scuffing against the edge of the cage.
Big mistake.
Before anyone else could react, I surged forward, my hand shooting through the bars to grab a fistful of his shirt and yank him forward with all the adrenaline-laced strength I had.
He hit the bars with a choked yelp, face slamming against the cold metal, and right as he reeled back in panic, Violet stepped forward from the shadows, quiet as a ghost.
Click.
The tiniest knife I’d ever seen flicked out from somewhere under her sleeve, god only knew how long she’d had it or where she’d hidden it, and with terrifying precision, she jammed it straight into the socket of his right eye.
The scream that tore out of him was primal, echoing off the concrete like a death knell. He dropped like a sack of bricks, crumpling against the bars with blood pouring down his cheek.
I lowered him gently, panting, my fingers still curled in his shirt as the tremble hit my arms too late. “Violet…”
“What?” she said innocently, wiping the blade clean on his pant leg. “First blood.”
Fallon was already on her knees beside the body, patting him down like it was just another Tuesday. “Gods, this guy has like fifty keys on him,” she muttered, lifting a heavy ring the size of a bracelet. “Nothing’s ever easy, is it?”
Violet leaned down and kissed her cheek. “You’d be bored if it were.”
I was still staring at the body, then at Violet, then back at the knife. “Where the hell did you even have that?”
Violet’s smile was sugar and arsenic. “A lady never reveals her secrets.”
Riven’s voice drifted from across her cell, equal parts amused and horrified. “You guys scare me a little.”
“Good,” Fallon and I said in unison, then cackled a laugh. “Jinx!” we say at the same time, still laughing.
Violet hummed and returned to inspecting the knife like she might polish it again. “One down,” she said. “How many more do you think we can rack up before the boys arrive?”
“Depends,” I murmured, turning toward the door. “On how stupid the rest of them are.”