Chapter 10
Skylar
Rourke Securities sits behind old brick and rain-streaked glass, understated from the street and less subtle once I’m inside.
The lobby is quiet, controlled, and built by someone who knows where people look first. Reinforced reception desk, clean sight lines, cameras angled without being obvious.
Badge access past the lobby. Smoked glass along the interior offices.
No wasted movement from the two staff members who glance up when I come in, clock my badge, and do not ask me to explain myself in front of the room.
A tall Beta with calm eyes meets me before I reach reception. “Detective Grayson?”
“That’s me.”
“Sloane Vale.” He offers his hand, adding no extra performance to the shake. “Mr. Rourke is waiting in conference two.”
He turns and leads me through the secured door, and I follow him down a corridor where every camera is placed better than the ones in Emrys’ building.
Kade Rourke is standing when I enter the conference room.
He has one hand braced on the back of a chair, sleeves rolled to his forearms, his tattoos disappearing under black fabric.
Cedar and whiskey reach me before he speaks, rough at the edges, and my body recognizes him with enough force that I close the door behind me a little harder than necessary.
Kade’s eyes move over me once. “How is Emrys?”
I set my folder on the table. “He slept. He ate this morning. He’s shaken, but steady enough to be annoyed when people fuss over him.”
Kade’s grip tightens on the chair back, then eases. “Good.”
“I’m leading with the thing you need.” I open the folder and slide the first page across the table, knowing full well I could have called him from my desk or even sent this information through his lawyer.
“The protective order is being rescinded. The updated timeline doesn’t support the original charge, and the exterior footage does not support keeping you framed as the primary threat.
Your lawyer should get formal notice once the paperwork is entered.
If nothing stalls, you should be able to go home tomorrow. ”
Kade tenses and then relaxes as he looks down at the page. His jaw tightens once, and the cedar in the room deepens before he pulls it back under control. “Tomorrow.”
“That’s what I was told.”
“Does Emrys know?”
“Not yet. I didn’t want to tell him until the notice was solid enough to hold.
” I tap the page once. “This is close enough that I’m comfortable saying it to you.
I’ll tell him when I have confirmation.” I give him a moment to digest that before pulling out the stills from the traffic camera and lay them beside the order update.
I really shouldn’t be doing this part but getting involved in both Kade’s and Emrys’ lives seems to be the norm now.
The old me would have handed this information off to another detective at this point, too worn down by the idea of a pack to even care about the biological pull.
And now... I brush it off and explain the stills.
“There is something else. I put in requests for last night’s entrance and street footage after Emrys called. I wanted to see whether the man he saw near the front light shows up anywhere. We also reviewed footage from a block over, which is ultimately what proved it couldn’t be you.”
Kade’s brows furrow a little. “I still don’t know why they were so hung up on making sure they dragged me in that night.
Your precinct has always been so... helpful.
” He drags a hand down his face, a rumbling growl running through his chest. “I’m assuming you don’t have much more than this which is why you brought it to me? ”
“You said you had suspicions that this assault was connected to your side of things so I’m here for information.”
I could have informally called him to the station but I needed this. For some reason. A reason I’m refusing to read into.
Kade walks over to his seat, gesturing me over as he shakes his mouse. The screen wakes to a diagram of companies, dates, contacts, and account trails. Sloane comes in without knocking, carrying a thin stack of printed records, and takes a seat near the end of the desk.
Kade turns the screen toward me. “Three approaches in six months. Different fronts, same underlying ask. They wanted a whole lot of shit, mostly client data, private movement patterns, route logs, and security staffing. The first came through as a legitimate inquiry. We declined. The second buried the same ask under integration language. The third was rather blunt but under a different name entirely.”
Sloane sets the printed file beside the tablet. “Dana traced the second and third approaches back through the same registered shell before the chain splits offshore. Different account names, different domains, same spine underneath.”
I lean over the table and read the dates. The spacing is wrong between pressure, refusal, and pressure again. Then Emrys gets attacked outside their building, and a call comes in early enough to put patrol on top of Kade with the wrong story ready.
“You preserved the originals?” I ask.
Kade gives me a look that says the question is offensive but fair. “Dana has originals, exports, metadata, and trace notes. Sloane has the internal access timeline. Nothing leaves the company except through Baxter until he clears it.”
“Good.”
Kade’s shoulder brushes mine when he reaches across to move the screen closer.
“This is the overlap,” Sloane says, pointing to the second and third approaches. “Dana is still working backward through the offshore split, but this is enough to show the approaches were coordinated.”
I put my stills beside their diagram. “And you think this connects with that night. I’m assuming you believe the call was tied up in this as well? That’s a lot of coincidences.”
Kade’s hand flattens on the table. “I don’t believe in coincidences, and it was too fucking perfect. I hadn’t even been home that long and Emrys does come home late on occasion. It had to have been planned. Does Cardinal Network mean anything to you?”
A ragged sigh pulls from my lips as I sit back against the windowsill behind the desk. If any of this is true, if any of this does lead back to Kade’s work, there’s a much bigger game at play. “No, it doesn’t. Should it?”
Sloane shrugs. “It’s the name behind these accounts and the one moving the money.”
That doesn’t explain much to me but I’m not surprised. It’s always my luck that I get dragged into something and then the floor drops out beneath me. Kade looks from the still to the company chain. “How long before you move?”
I close the folder slowly, realizing that this investigation just went from dire to personal for an Alpha who clearly has feelings for Emrys.
The kiss we shared suddenly comes back into my head as I try to shove that back down.
Professionalism, Sky, I remind myself. “Kade, you can’t make a move before the case is built enough to hold.
If you act too early, they’ll use it against you, and we lose the cleanest path we have. ”
“I am not asking permission to do your job.”
“No,” I say. “You are asking when you get to decide mine is too slow.” I suddenly hate that I have to follow the book.
“Look, I’m not asking you to sit around and do nothing.
I wouldn’t be that stupid. However, the precinct obviously has a direction they like to lean and you barging in with theories and connections is just going to turn that target right back on to you.
You keep pulling what you have and I’ll keep working the official route.
Until the ink is dry on that rescinded order, please for the love of god, don’t do anything. ”
Kade holds my gaze for another long second. “Do whatever you need to do and do it fast.”
“Working on it.”
I let out an appreciative sigh, allowing Sloane to take over as he works through the operational timeline of this account called Cardinal Network. It sounds like a farce or some made up name to hide something bigger but I’m desperately not trying to build conspiracies.
This was just an attack from someone who wanted to do business with Kade and it got out of hand. That’s all it is. I need that to be all this is.
By the time we’ve exhausted the information we both have, Sloane slips out with a mumbled goodbye, my legs achy from standing in one spot for too long. “I’ve got a pretty damn good place to start,” I say as Kade walks me down to the lobby himself.
The silence feels a bit eerie, the larger Alpha’s presence suddenly way more noticeable as he steps beside me.
We stop before the threshold, and for a moment neither of us reaches for the handle.
His attention sits on me with the same steady weight it had in the station, only now there are no cuffs, no officers, no room full of people making it easier to pretend this is only recognition under pressure.
I twist to look up at him, realizing the mirror of this moment happened not even a few hours earlier. I swallow nervously, putting a few inches between us as my heart does something stupid in my chest. “Fate’s fucking with me, right?”
The line is supposed to break the moment. Kade only looks at me, like he knows exactly what I’m struggling with and has decided not to help.
I step back and reach for the door. “Send everything through Baxter until the order is formally rescinded. I’ll be in touch.” I hurry outside and into my car, driving nearly three blocks before Reyes calls.
I answer on speaker. “If this is about whether I ate lunch, there is a paper bag in my passenger seat with fig jam in it, and I feel like that answers several questions about my health.”
There’s a pause. “I’m going to ignore every part of that sentence until I have more emotional energy.”
“Good call.”
“Tell me you are not sitting between those two like a man who saw a sinkhole and thought, excellent, parking.”
I stop at a red light and look up at the sky, grimacing as it starts to turn gray. Lovely. Just what I needed. “It’s fine.”
“The last time a Beta said it was fine, they ended up mated to a whole pack.” Her voice drops the joke without losing the concern.
“Sky, straighten this out before Morrison hears enough to make it ugly. I’m not telling you to walk away.
I’m just telling you to know what you’re doing before someone else names it first.” She huffs out a small breath.
“And since you’re not here, I’m assuming you were getting something useful. Did you find anything out?”
“Yeah, Kade said—”
Reyes starts laughing. “See, I understood when you ran out after the Omega but you really are torn between them. I love it. Okay, sorry. Tell me what you found.”
“It seems that whoever assaulted Emrys is just trying to get through to Kade. There might be more to it but that’s the shape of things.
” I make a sharp turn and hiss as the car lurches to the side, my concentration shot as heat blooms through me.
I know the repercussions of getting too close to people my biology decides I should want.
I also know that it’ll only get worse if I indulge it while also pulling back.
“Just get back to the station before someone notices you’re missing. Morrison has been pissy all morning for some reason and even though we got her to rescind the protective order, something’s up her ass.”
“Like what?” I ask.
Reyes hums for a second. “I don’t know but I have a feeling that she has a reason for why this investigation veered left so fast.”
I end the call before she can spiral down a set of theories that’ll get us both in trouble.
Right now, I just need to focus, solve the case, and return to the Hex task force with Caldwell.
I definitely don’t need to be thinking about Emrys’ soft lips against mine or how close I got to dancing the same dance with Kade a few moments ago.
I’m definitely thinking about it.