Chapter 20
JENNIFER
The sky over Washington is heavy and low when I wake, swollen clouds pressing down like the weight of a lid on a boiling pot.
The air smells of wet stone and exhaust, the city steaming after a night of rain, and it fits the way my chest feels—tight, restless, like something is trying to claw its way out.
Malek is gone, though that’s no surprise.
He stayed longer than I ever thought he would, a silent sentinel in my apartment until dawn finally cut through the blinds.
No note this time or sharp orders or clipped words, just absence.
And yet, I know he hasn’t left me entirely.
His scent clings to the place: smoke, whiskey, steel, something wilder beneath that I can’t name.
I shake it off with effort and shove myself into the day. There’s no time to dwell on men who walk away. Not when Roman’s shadow is crawling across the globe, and I’ve got the threads to prove it.
The glow of my laptop fills the kitchen, perched between stacks of files, half-drunk cups of coffee, and a plate with toast I never touched.
I hunch over the screen, clicking through lines of data that would look meaningless to most but hum with ugly truths to me.
On the surface, Roman’s empire looks untouchable: cargo companies running clean routes, energy holdings that spin profit charts impressive enough to make Wall Street weep, pharmaceutical research labs tucked neatly under respectable umbrellas.
It’s all polished on paper, built for auditors who never ask the right questions.
But I do.
When I peel back the layers, the dirt is everywhere.
Tankers rerouted without explanation in the middle of the night, manifests scrubbed clean of cargo, pharmaceutical shipments labeled as compounds that don’t even exist, energy companies claiming mines in countries where no permits have ever been issued.
Every one of those threads leads deeper, and every time I tug, the same names surface like bones buried shallow.
Thorne. Cassian. Rafe. Darius.
The Crimson Pact.
At first I think it’s a coincidence, maybe an old ledger glitch, maybe Malek being sloppy, leaving his fingerprints on something I can trace back.
But the deeper I dig, the more I realize it’s intentional.
Roman’s empire isn’t just new money. It’s built on the ashes of the Pact’s collapse.
Accounts that should’ve been closed centuries ago are still alive, feeding Roman like veins to a heart.
The realization makes my stomach lurch. This isn’t just corruption. It’s resurrection.
I push away from the screen, pacing the narrow stretch of my kitchen, the radiator hissing in the corner, paint peeling from the old molding along the ceiling.
The city hums faint outside my window—horns, brakes, sirens far off—but I barely hear it.
My mind is buzzing with too many voices, too many numbers.
Every piece of data I uncover tells me the same thing: Roman isn’t just running guns or building shifter armies.
He’s resurrecting something older, something that should’ve stayed buried.
And the dreams don’t help.
They’ve been gnawing at me since Prague, growing sharper each night.
Not dreams, not exactly. Flames, claws, shadows with teeth.
Cities breaking. Blood running thick in the gutters.
Always those same golden eyes in the dark, unblinking, as though they know me better than I know myself.
I wake breathless every time, sheets tangled, heart hammering so hard I feel like it might split.
I tell myself it’s stress. Exhaustion. My body demanding more sleep than I’m willing to give. But I don’t believe it anymore. Not after last night. Not after the boar.
I rub my eyes and return to the table, shuffling the papers Malek left behind after his fight.
He didn’t mean to. He doesn’t strike me as careless.
But tucked in the stack is something small, heavy enough that I notice when I pick the pages up.
A disc, no bigger than my palm, made of bronze worn dull with age.
It catches the light in a way that makes me pause. Old markings are stamped into it, faint but still visible if I tilt it just right. The edges are smooth from touch, the surface carrying a warmth that doesn’t make sense for cold metal.
My fingers trace the central symbol before I can think better of it.
The world lurches.
I’m not in my apartment anymore.
I stand on a cliff above a city I know but don’t recognize.
Washington—but drowned in fire. The sky is black with smoke, embers falling like dying stars, the sound of collapsing stone rolling like thunder.
Rivers of blood snake through the streets, carrying bodies like driftwood.
The air tastes of ash and iron, burning my throat, searing my lungs.
Below, a throne rises from the wreckage, built of steel and bone. Roman sits on it, his body gleaming as though it’s been reforged, his eyes molten gold. Rows of shifters kneel at his feet, thousands of them, their forms twisted between beast and man, their eyes blank and lifeless.
Chained beside them are women. Human women, their wrists bound, their eyes hollow.
But their blood glows faintly, pulsing under their skin like embers in glass.
The air vibrates with whispers that grow louder with each breath I take, voices chanting words I don’t understand but that scrape against my bones.
Roman rises, slow and deliberate, the fire reflecting off his skin. He looks up, straight at me though I am nothing but a shadow on a cliff far above, and his smile is slow, sharp.
“This is what waits for you, witch.”
The word echoes, louder than the roar of fire, louder than the screams. Witch.
The world shatters around me.
I collapse onto the floor of my apartment, sprawled against the hardwood, the disc clattering out of my grip and spinning once before settling.
My chest heaves, sweat slick across my skin, my pulse a hammer in my throat.
The hum of the refrigerator is the only sound, the city noise outside faint and distant again, but I don’t feel safe.
The vision clings to me, the heat of the flames still searing my skin, the smell of blood and ash still coating my tongue.
The disc lies only inches away, innocuous, ordinary now. But I can’t bring myself to touch it again. My fingers tremble when I shove it into a drawer, slam it shut, and lean against the counter as though wood and metal could block out whatever the hell just happened.
I squeeze my eyes shut, but the images won’t leave me. The throne. The chains. Roman’s eyes locking on mine like he’d been waiting.
I whisper the word before I can stop myself, the same one he used.
“Witch.”
The sound of it feels wrong in my mouth, too heavy, like I’ve dragged something old into the room that shouldn’t be spoken aloud.
I sink onto the couch, drag my knees to my chest, and press my forehead to them. For the first time in years, I feel something close to fear. Not the kind I’ve trained myself to control in courtrooms or raids, but the kind that seeps into your bones and stays there.
Because deep down, I know what I saw wasn’t just a dream. And worse than that, I know it wasn’t just a warning.
It was a promise.