Chapter Three
~ Jai ~
I hit the revolving glass door with a boot to the chrome bottom, coat collar up, and walked straight into a blast of night air that could have stripped a lesser man’s optimism clear to the bone.
Rain-wet concrete and a wind chill off the river cut me to the quick, the city lights refraction-smeared across the puddles like someone had laid out a runway for drunks and insomniacs.
Above me, Braham Wolfe’s high-rise pulsed gold on every other floor, its lobby sending out an afterglow that felt more like a lighthouse than an invitation.
I didn’t look back. Not even once.
There was nowhere I needed to be, but I walked like I’d left a fuse burning behind me—past a shuttered flower stand, still reeking of lilies and old cellophane, past a food cart griddle still hissing at midnight, past two men in basketball shorts arguing about how to pronounce “gyro” without coming to blows or a decision.
The world is beautiful that way.
A cherry sucker was already in my mouth, dissolved to a dangerous splinter. I bit through the last sharp edge and spat it curbside, watching it bounce off the “NO PARKING” sign like a bullet.
I fished in my pocket, palmed another, and popped it without looking at the wrapper. Cherry again. Always cherry. My thumb found the switchblade in my jacket out of pure habit—didn’t flip it, just ran over the checkered handle with a kind of nervous affection.
It’s good to have a hobby.
The walk was supposed to burn off the residue, but the night was dense with it. Every breath still tasted like Wolfe’s office—smoke, leather, and a subtle musk that had no business sticking in my throat. Every city block I put between me and that desk just gave the memory more oxygen to burn.
I ran the inventory, just like seven years of Ranger protocol had drilled into me:
Threat assessment: Manageable. The men who’d tailed me were paid, not passionate; Braham’s own security was a wall, but it was a wall with rules.
The wolf stuff: It was impossible, so it slotted right next to the rest of my unsolved mysteries, sandwiched between “how does my neighbor afford that many packages” and “what is the actual flavor of LaCroix.”
Braham Wolfe: not filed. Not even close.
You’d think the whole alpha werewolf CEO thing would be the sticking point, but no. It was the way he watched me. Like I was already his. Like the rest of the city was just scenery for this one, specific chess game.
Six-three, maybe six-four. Custom suit that probably cost more than my lease, and it wasn’t just for show; the man moved like he’d been poured into it by the gallon.
The face: not pretty, not exactly. Jaw like a Soviet monument, nose that looked like it had stopped a few good punches and been the better for it. The eyes were the kind of golden brown that you only ever see in animals—a color that says I will keep you alive or I will keep you as a snack.
I should have hated him on principle alone. Instead, my body clocked him in every possible way that counted, and a few that did not.
I walked faster, like maybe if I hit a certain speed I’d reach escape velocity and shed the entire memory.
The “mate” thing was where it got sticky.
Most people, you tell them a six-foot-four slab of predatory intent just declared them “mate,” and they’d either laugh or call the police.
I’d done neither. I’d just watched, feeling my internal warning system flip from yellow to screaming orange and not knowing if that was supposed to be fear or the opposite.
It wasn’t fear.
Not really.
I kept replaying the word in my head. Mate. It wasn’t sentimental. It wasn’t even possessive, in the way I was used to men being possessive. It was geological. Like he’d just discovered a new mineral and now all the textbooks had to be rewritten around this one, inconvenient fact.
I didn’t want to be a fact. I wanted to be a goddamn outlier.
Three blocks from the high-rise, the city quieted. I was halfway to the bridge, the streets glassy and empty except for a single cyclist running the red, when my phone buzzed. Unknown number. Not a text; a call. The screen glared in my hand.
I stared at it for a long second, lollipop pressed flat against my teeth. Every instinct said to ignore it, to let whoever was on the other end stew in their own impatience. Instead, I thumbed “accept” and said, “Go.”
Silence, then the voice. Low, deliberate, a blunt instrument shaped to sound like velvet. “Flynn.” Not a question.
“Present,” I said. “And presumably not alone, if your guys are half as good as you pay them.”
He didn’t waste time. “The pup is in distress. Medical team cannot settle her.”
I let that sink in. “And you’re telling me because…”
“You. She will not sleep, feed, or shift. She has imprinted, I think.” There was a hesitation, barely audible. “On you.”
I stopped moving. It’s the only way I ever process anything truly shocking: absolute stillness. A late-night cab crept past, and I could see myself reflected in the window, all sharp lines and dumb surprise.
“What do you want from me?” I asked, careful to keep my voice level.
“I want you to come back.” The sentence was clean, precise, but not optional.
“Or what?” I said, not because I wanted to be difficult, but because I had to.
“Or you will hear her cry until you come back.” No threat, just a fact. And as if on cue, I heard it—a high, thin howl, echoing through the phone, a sound engineered to pierce the skull and gut both.
My chest went cold. “I’m on my way.”
He didn’t say thank you. Didn’t say anything.
The line just went dead.
I turned on my heel, spat the lollipop stick into the gutter, and flagged the nearest cab with two fingers. The driver clocked me in the mirror and just nodded, no questions asked. I gave the address, slumped in the back seat, and tried to find my way back to hating Braham Wolfe.
It didn’t work.
All I could hear was the sound of that cry, and the way he’d said: I want you to come back.
And against every rational impulse, I wanted to.
The city rolled by, neon and sodium and rain. I licked the last taste of cherry from my teeth, and let the night pull me back toward the only place I had left to go.
The cab driver had a sports radio show playing so loud I could count the syllables through the upholstery. Every time we hit a pothole, the screen on my cell phone bounced, the pup’s pitiful howl still echoing in the back of my head even though the call had ended.
I watched the wet city bleed by, colors pooling in every gutter and low spot, and tried to count the number of times I’d promised myself I’d never do this again—run toward a crisis, instead of away.
Apparently the correct number was zero.
I could’ve asked the cab to drop me at the curb, but I told him to take me straight to the loading zone, where Wolfe’s security men were waiting.
There were three of them, all built on the same assembly line as their boss: wide in the shoulders, wide in the jaw, and so silent you could use them as insulation.
The first one nodded, didn’t ask my name. The second opened the door and held it with the kind of exaggerated patience that says hurry up, but do it on your own time.
I did.
Inside, the world changed temperature. The lobby was pure hush—polished marble, glass art installations, a fresh-cut pine tree so perfect I wanted to check for a “Made in China” sticker.
The only sound was the tread of my boots and the soft, infant scream leaking down from the elevator shaft, bouncing off every hard surface.
The sound wasn’t normal. It was the kind of noise you hear in a disaster zone, from a kid who’s lost the one person they ever trusted to show up again.
The elevator was already waiting, doors open, interior cleaned to the point that it smelled like a new car and ozone. I stepped inside, sucked the lollipop so hard the sugar stung my tongue, and braced myself for the long ride up.
Forty-one floors, no stops. The baby’s cry tracked me the whole way, ratcheting higher as I got closer. I cracked my neck, rolled my shoulders, and tried to find my inner calm.
It wasn’t there.
There was only the hollow, anxious echo of that sound, and the steadily rising certainty that when I walked out onto the penthouse floor, I was going to see Braham Wolfe and want—something.
The doors opened on a wall of sound. The pup’s howl vibrated the window glass, drew a line straight down my spine, and did not let up when I stepped into the suite. There was a medical team, two people in scrubs and one in a white coat, their faces showing polite helplessness.
The pup was on the conference table, howling. The second she saw me, her breath hitched and she went silent, a full stop like someone had yanked the cord on a chainsaw.
The med team stared. One of them, a woman with hair in a silver bun, shot me a look so full of hope and suspicion I wanted to apologize on behalf of the entire species.
The pup blinked once, then shifted back into a baby and reached for me, opening and closing her hand in a gesture so deliberate it made my heart lurch.
I scooped her up, careful as you would with a grenade. She fit into my arm, perfectly and without complaint, the way a child is supposed to fit if you ignore every warning about not letting them get attached.
The baby sighed, burrowed her face into the fabric of my jacket, and made a tiny, snuffling snore. The sound, after all that howling, was as loud as a punch to the chest.
The med team’s collective exhale could have moved furniture.
I looked up and found Braham watching me from the other end of the table. He was alone—no security, no business associates, not even Ashe Wilson lurking in the background.
Just Wolfe, all six and a half feet of him, still in his suit, but with the tie gone and the shirt unbuttoned at the throat. His gaze went from the baby to me and back again, the lines of his face carved deeper than I remembered.
I wanted to say something clever, but the only thing that came out was, “You rang?”
He nodded. “She would not stop.”