Chapter Five
~ Jai ~
I’d spent the night back at my place above the bakery—door triple-bolted, the baby’s powder scent still jammed in every one of my sinuses, and a seven-hour loop of old jazz records just loud enough to cover the echo in my head—but when the elevator opened to Braham’s penthouse the next morning, it was a different space.
First clue: a new crib, pale wood, tucked against the far wall beneath the windows. Not a pack-n-play, not a hand-me-down. Sleek, custom, probably worth more than my last car. In front of it, a bench stacked with supplies—diapers, wipes, rows of sterilized bottles lined up like artillery shells.
Second clue: the view. Morning light off Mt. Hood cut cold amber across the walnut floors and sank deep into the black leather furniture, made everything look both more expensive and less forgiving.
Third clue was Ashe Wilson, stationed just left of the door, arms loose at his sides, brown eyes already cataloguing me before I’d even crossed the threshold.
I could see how fast he ran the math: my posture, my hands, whether I was carrying, the faint red at the edge of my left sleeve from last night’s creative exit.
But the main event was Braham Wolfe, standing in the center of the room in a dark suit that looked vacuum-sealed to his body, and the newborn pressed against his chest in one big hand.
She was screaming, a raw, tearing sound that filled the glass-walled space and made it feel like the sky was going to break.
I stepped in, popped a new cherry sucker, and tried to look like a man who hadn’t spent the last ten hours debating whether to torch his apartment for insurance and start over in Wyoming.
The second my foot hit the tile, the baby’s howl dropped out.
Not gradually, not like she was catching her breath.
It went from banshee to nothing in a single heartbeat, the kind of silence you can feel in your teeth.
Her fists unclenched. Her eyes found me and locked on, like she’d been waiting for me to show up and fix the world.
Braham’s gold eyes were already on me, that same deadpan predatory frequency I hadn’t located a countermeasure for. He didn’t move, didn’t speak, just shifted his grip on the kid with enough gentleness that I felt a muscle in my jaw twitch.
I scanned the room, tried to inventory every threat and point of exit, and counted three. The only one that mattered was Wolfe, standing there with a baby who’d just rewritten the physics of sound.
I said, “You really went with the full Pottery Barn, huh?” Dead flat, no smile. The echo in the space made it land like a gunshot.
He didn’t acknowledge it. He crossed the room in three long strides and stopped close enough that I could see the grain in his lapel, the faint ghost of cigar smoke in the thread. The suit was new, but his eyes looked like they hadn’t slept.
He angled Grace toward me, expectant. I took her. I did it with both hands, like someone accepting a live grenade.
She went completely quiet. Not even a whimper. Just a soft, contented sigh, the kind that says: Good, everything is how it should be. She pressed her face against my chest and grabbed the front of my jacket in one tiny fist.
The room vibrated with the aftershock. I could feel Ashe watching from the corner, reading the move for what it was: an experiment, a test, a demonstration that whatever had happened last night wasn’t a fluke.
Braham gave me half a second to settle her, then laid it out with all the bedside warmth of a criminal arraignment. “Grace has imprinted. On you.” The words had weight, no apology for the inconvenience. “It is not reversible.”
I rocked the baby once, more for my own nerves than hers. “You going to tell me what that means in plain English, or do I need to buy a subscription to Wolf Weekly?”
Braham didn’t smile. “Imprinting is a biological event. Rare. It happens when a shifter, usually a pup, makes immediate contact with someone they read as… necessary.” He paused, as if editing out a less flattering descriptor.
“Separation will cause physiological distress. If it goes on, it will kill her.”
I stared down at Grace. Her eyes were open, calm, but I could feel the pulse under her skin—steady, relentless, tuned to something older and more stubborn than even my own reflex for running. I tasted the lollipop and let the sugar cut a line through my panic.
I said, “So I’m basically a car seat with abandonment issues.”
The wolf’s gold eyes flickered. “If you wish.”
I let the silence expand, ran the numbers in my head.
All the exit plans I’d mapped last night, the back doors and fire escapes, the scenario where I went home and pretended I’d hallucinated the whole thing—gone.
Replaced by a six-pound infant whose only crime was needing me in a way I’d spent my entire life avoiding.
Ashe cleared his throat, the first noise he’d made. “You have experience with infants, Mr. Flynn?”
I looked up, tongue against my teeth. “Sure. I’m the designated godfather to every family pet east of the river.”
Ashe didn’t blink. “Should be sufficient.”
I was willing to bet it was his idea to buy the high-end crib, too.
Braham watched the exchange, then focused on me like we were the only two people in the room. “This is not negotiable. She will not survive unless you remain close.”
I didn’t argue. I just nodded, tight and short, then said, “For how long?”
He considered, and I saw the calculation in his face, the way he weighed outcomes before he let himself answer. “Until her biology adapts. Could be weeks. Could be longer.”
I shifted Grace to my left arm, and she snuggled into my shirt like she’d been designed for that slot. “And when she grows up, you’ll tell her she was rescued by a war criminal and a man who can’t keep his own houseplants alive.”
Braham’s face didn’t move, but there was a flicker of something in his eyes—humor, maybe, or just the recognition that I’d given up the fight for at least this round.
He said, “You’ll need to stay here.”
“Here? As in—” I gestured around, baby on hip. “This glass box?”
He nodded. “Safer than the alternative.”
I bit back three sarcastic retorts. The truth was, my apartment was a soft target, and anyone who could find me was probably more dangerous than I wanted to admit. I let out a slow breath and said, “Fine.”
Braham finally moved, stepping back half a pace. He didn’t break eye contact. “If you need anything, ask Ashe.”
I glanced at Ashe, who gave me the smallest nod of acknowledgment—mutual recognition of another professional in the business of surviving idiots.
Grace shifted in my arms, exhaled a wet, powdery breath, and closed her eyes.
For a second, I let myself look at Braham. Not the alpha. Not the CEO. Just the man: broad through the chest, jaw set like concrete, hands big enough to crush, but careful enough to cradle a kid without waking her.
He wore power like a second skin, but there was something in the way he watched me holding the baby—something that almost passed for hope.
I licked the lollipop, switched it to the other cheek, and said, “This wasn’t how I pictured fatherhood.”
He gave the barest nod, the tiniest tilt at the corner of his mouth. “Most things worth doing aren’t.”
I wondered if he was talking about the baby or about me.
I wondered if it mattered.
The room stayed silent except for the hum of the city, forty floors below. The scent of cedar and scotch saturated the upholstery, the kind of territorial marker that reminded you who the space belonged to, and yet the only thing I could smell was the powder warmth of the kid in my arms.
I held her close. I didn’t let go. Not for a long time.
After the initial weirdness of having a newborn clamp onto me like I was the only working Wi-Fi signal in a disaster zone, things got still.
Not quiet. Still. I sat on the long leather sectional, the kid asleep in the crook of my elbow, and did my best not to stare holes through the floor-to-ceiling windows.
Ashe had taken up a position near the kitchen, fake-reading a magazine and not bothering to pretend he wasn’t security. Braham stood at the edge of the living room, suit jacket off, tie still on, sleeves rolled halfway up his forearms.
The moment I got used to the silence, Wolfe started talking.
“Her parents were Cormac and Lena Daly. Betas, Ridgeline Pack, south of Roseburg.” Each syllable landed sharp, like he was itemizing a bill.
“They requested a private meeting. Routed it through official channels, marked urgent. No subject given.” He didn’t soften the next part.
“They never made it to the appointment.”
The lollipop went motionless in my cheek. I kept my hand free, just in case, and didn’t blink.
“They were intercepted just inside city limits.” No hesitation. “Cormac fought. Long enough for Lena to run. She hid Grace, doubled back, didn’t survive. Neither did he.”
I tried to imagine what it would take to separate a mother wolf from her baby, then realized I didn’t have to imagine it. I’d seen it play out in a dozen desert towns, the logic of brutality. Wolves were supposed to be different, but the universe was a champion at recycling tragedy.
I said, “No bodies?”
He shook his head. “No bodies. No scent. No trace.”
Grace snuffled in her sleep, then let out a hiccup. The whole room froze for half a beat. I patted her back, kept my voice soft. “Motorcycles last night. Not a coincidence?”
Braham’s jaw shifted. “No. They were searching. Not for you—for her.”
“Who sent them?”
He took a breath. “Still working that.” He flicked his eyes toward Ashe, who gave a small nod: already on it.
I looked at the baby, her whole head fitting in my palm, and then at the man who was supposed to make all this go away. “Who else knew the Dalys were coming?”
Braham said, “Just my office and the Ridgeline Alpha.”
“And who’s left at Ridgeline?”
“As of this morning?” A pause, microsecond hesitation. “No one I trust.”