Chapter five
Deklan
I know something is wrong the moment she walks through the door.
It's not the way she looks, though there's that too.
The shadows under her eyes have deepened, and the set of her jaw is different.
Harder. The softness from this morning, the tentative warmth she showed in the kitchen when Knox was teasing her, when Lily was squealing, it's gone.
Replaced by something brittle, like glass that's been held over a flame and dropped into ice water.
But it's the scent that tells me everything.
Her honey-vanilla has curdled. That's the only word for it. The sweet, warm, arousal-tinged fragrance that's been pouring off her since she arrived has shifted, soured, and gone sharp with an edge of fear and something worse. Something I recognize because I've smelled it on myself.
Heartbreak.
Willow smells like she's grieving. And I don't know why.
I lean in the living room doorway and watch her walk past me, spine straight, chin up, Lily balanced on her hip like a shield.
She doesn't look at me. Doesn't acknowledge me.
Just marches down the hallway toward Lily's room with the focused determination of a woman who is holding herself together through sheer force of will.
"Willow, " Knox starts.
"I said I'm fine."
Her voice doesn't waver. It's flat, controlled, the voice of someone who has practiced being okay when they're not.
I know that voice. I've used that voice.
I used it at Mara's funeral when I stood in front of a coffin that was too small and read a eulogy I'd written at 3 AM while JD held my shoulder and Knox sat in the back row, unable to look at the casket.
That voice means I'm falling apart and I will die before I let you see it.
She disappears into Lily's room. The door closes with a soft click.
Knox turns to me. JD turns to me. They both have the same question in their eyes, and I feel the familiar weight of being the one who notices things, the one who figures things out, the one who reads the data and finds the pattern.
"What the hell happened at the park?" Knox says.
I push off the doorway. "I don't know. But I'm going to find out."
"Deklan, " JD starts.
"I'll handle it."
I walk away before he can argue. Not because I don't respect him, JD is the closest thing to a brother I'll ever have, blood or otherwise, but because this requires a different approach. JD leads with authority. Knox leads with charm. I lead with precision.
And right now, precision means paying attention.
I go to my office first. Not because I have work to do, though I do, mountains of it, the financial models for the Blaine Capital acquisition won't build themselves, but because I need to think. I sit at my desk, put on my glasses, and pull up the security feed on my laptop.
The penthouse building has comprehensive security. Cameras in the lobby, the garage, the elevators, the common areas. Not the private residences, we're not animals, but enough to track who comes and goes.
I scroll through the footage from this morning. Willow leaving with Lily at 9:15. I can't track her to Eastwood Park, but I can track her return. 10:45. The elevator opening. Her face on the camera feed.
Even in grainy security footage, I can see it. The brightness in her eyes when she left, nervous, hopeful, a little raw from the morning's encounters. And the flatness when she returned. The dead look. The tight mouth.
Something happened at that park.
I pull up my phone and check the GPS tracker on the SUV. Eastwood Park. 9:32 AM arrival. 10:38 AM departure. One hour and six minutes. Normal duration for a morning outing with a toddler.
But the park is public. Anyone could have found her there.
I open a new browser tab and search for Serena Vance.
Not Vance anymore. Serena Aldrich, née Vance, formerly contracted to the Blaine-Dixon-Kros household through the Omega Nanny agency.
I pull up her file, the one I compiled when JD first mentioned using the service.
Twenty-nine years old. Omega. Matched to JD only, a single match, weaker than a triple, prone to fading over time.
She'd been with us for four months. Shared our bed. Shared our home.
And then she wanted more, and we couldn't give it to her.
Because it wasn't real. Not with her. The match was convenient, comfortable, but it was never the all-consuming, bone-deep connection the agency promised. She was never ours. Not really.
And she knew it. That was the worst part. She knew it, and she stayed anyway, hoping it would grow into something it couldn't. When we ended the contract, she screamed at JD for an hour, threw a vase at Knox, and sent me a fourteen-page email outlining every way I'd failed as a Beta partner.
I read every word. She wasn't wrong.
I pull up Serena's current location data. I shouldn't have access to it, the agency's privacy protocols are strict, but I'm a Beta with a talent for systems and a complete inability to let things go. A few well-placed queries in the agency's database, and there it is.
Serena Aldrich. Credit card activity. A coffee shop on Eastwood Avenue. 9:47 AM this morning.
Eastwood Avenue. Three blocks from Eastwood Park.
My blood goes cold. She was there. Serena was at the same park, at the same time, as Willow.
Coincidence? Not a chance. Serena has never been to Eastwood Park in her life. She's a woman who frequents rooftop bars and Michelin-starred restaurants. She doesn't do playgrounds.
She went there for Willow.
I close my laptop, remove my glasses, and set them on the desk with careful, deliberate precision. And then I press my fists against the desktop and let the rage come.
It rolls through me like a storm, hot, violent, and barely contained. My Beta instincts don't surge the way Alpha instincts do. I don't growl or snarl or feel the urge to rip something apart with my teeth. My rage is quieter. Colder. The kind of anger that calculates, strategizes, dismantles.
She hurt Willow.
Serena, the woman who couldn't hold our attention because the match was never real, went to that park and said something to Willow.
Something that turned her scent from honey to vinegar.
Something that took the light out of her eyes and replaced it with the dead look of someone who's been told they don't matter.
I know what Serena said. I don't need to hear the words. I know because I know Serena, and I know Willow, and I know exactly which insecurities to target.
You're just a nanny. Just a match. Just a body. They'll get bored. They got bored of me.
The thing is, Serena wasn't wrong about herself.
The match with her did fade. We did get bored.
Not cruelly, not intentionally, but the connection frayed because it was never strong enough to last. She was a single match, a biological convenience, and when the chemistry faded, what was left was... nothing.
But Willow is different.
I felt it the moment she walked in. Not the Alpha lightning-strike that JD experienced, not the predatory hunger that Knox couldn't hide. What I felt was deeper. Quieter. Like a key sliding into a lock I didn't know existed. Like the final piece of a puzzle clicking into place.
She smells like home. Not metaphorically. Literally. Honey and vanilla and something underneath, something warm and soft that my brain categorizes as safe. As belonging. As mine.
Ours.
And Serena went to that park and poisoned it.
I stand up, and I walk to Lily's door. I know Willow is inside there, still. I can scent her.
I stand there for a long moment, my hand raised to knock, listening. The penthouse is old enough that the walls have character, real plaster, not drywall, and if I press my ear to the surface, I can hear sounds from the other side.
Lily's breathing. Slow, even. Asleep.
And under that, so quiet it's almost nothing, the sound of someone crying.
Not loud crying. Not sobbing. The kind of crying that happens when you've trained yourself to be silent about it. The kind that comes out in small, hitching breaths and muffled whimpers, the sound of someone who learned a long time ago that nobody comes when you cry.
I know that sound. I made that sound. In foster home after foster home, in the dark, in the corner of a room that wasn't mine, I made that exact sound.
And it destroys me.
I knock. Softly, and the crying stops instantly. Silence. Then a sniff, a rustle of fabric, the creak of the rocking chair.
"Willow." I keep my voice low. "Open the door."
"I'm fine, Deklan. Lily's napping."
"I know she's napping. I'm not here for Lily." I press my palm flat against the door. "I'm here for you."
Silence. Long enough that I think she's going to ignore me. Then the latch clicks, and the door opens a crack.
One eye. Red-rimmed. Wet. Looking at me like she's trying to decide whether to slam the door or let me in.
"What do you want?"
"To talk."
"I don't want to talk."
"I know." I lean my shoulder against the doorframe. "But I need to. And I think you need to hear what I have to say, even if you don't want to."
She stares at me for a long moment. Then she opens the door wider and steps back.
I step in. Close the door behind me. The room is dim, curtains drawn, the only light coming from the sliver of afternoon sun leaking through the edges. Lily sleeps in her crib, tiny chest rising and falling, oblivious.
Willow stands on the other side of the room, arms wrapped around herself, back pressed to the wall. She's changed since this morning, jeans now, a long-sleeved shirt, socks. Covered up. Protected. Like she's trying to build a barrier between herself and the world.
Like she's trying to hide the scent she can't control.
It's not working. Even through the layers, I can smell the pain. The fear. The residue of tears.
"Serena was at the park," I say.
Her face goes white. "How did you…"