Chapter 11
Kade
Baxter calls at noon the next day, and for once in his life, he has the good sense not to start with a lecture.
I’m at the conference table with Dana on one side, Sloane on the other, and three screens full of shell-company garbage nobody in this room likes enough to call interesting.
My phone lights up beside the tablet. Baxter’s name fills the screen, and my hand is already reaching before I can pretend I haven’t been watching it all morning.
“You’re on speaker with Dana and Sloane,” I tell him.
Baxter pauses for half a beat. “Hello, Dana. Sloane.”
Dana leans back in her chair, arms crossed. “You sound thrilled.”
“I’ve chosen professionalism.” Paper shifts on his end, and my grip tightens around the edge of the phone.
“The protective order has been officially rescinded. The charge is being dropped from active posture. You are cleared to return to your residence, though I would like to state, for everyone enjoying my voice on speaker, that nothing about this particular investigation has been standard.”
I stare at the phone while the words settle. “When did this happen?” I ask.
“The order is rescinded now. I would recommend letting the paperwork finish moving through the system before you plant yourself in the hallway like a vengeful monument, but legally, you can go home.”
“Understood,” I say.
Baxter makes a sound that suggests he understands me too well to believe that. “I have already sent the notice. I’ll forward the entered copy when it lands. Until then, keep your hands off anything that could be framed as interference, and route anything investigative through me.”
Dana reaches for her coffee. “He says that because he likes paperwork.”
“I say it because I enjoy keeping Kade out of jail.” Baxter’s voice flattens further. “Which remains an active hobby against my will.”
I end the call before he can find a new insult and sit back in my chair. My phone stays in my hand, Emrys’ number three taps away. I can see the message I want to send, the call I want to make, the sound of his voice when he answers.
Sloane watches me, though it’s Dana who sighs first. “Oh, you’re gone bad.”
My eyes lift. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me. Gone bad. Rotted from the inside. Completely compromised.” She points her pen at my phone. “You’ve checked that thing twelve times in twenty minutes, and half of those were before Baxter called.”
Sloane folds his hands on the table, face almost solemn. “So when does the courtship start, and does this include the hot detective?”
My brows furrow with confusion. “What the fuck?”
“He was in here yesterday, Kade.” Sloane’s mouth barely moves, but his eyes are amused. “You might be emotionally stunted, but your scent isn’t. Neither are the frustrated growls you start doing every time your phone lights up.”
Dana lifts her coffee. “For the record, I support the Omega and the hot detective. I have concerns about your communication skills, but I’m choosing optimism because the alternative is watching you stare through walls for the next month.”
A laugh gets out of me before I can stop it. It feels strange in my chest after days of nothing fitting right there. “There’s still work to do.”
“Does this mean we get to call it an early day?” Dana asks.
“No.” I set my phone facedown and push the tablet toward the center of the table. “He won’t be home until at least four, and I need something to get lost in until then.”
Sloane’s amusement softens just enough to be dangerous. “There he is.”
Before I can tell him to shut up, Marco appears in the doorway with a tablet in one hand and the expression of a man who knows he is interrupting but has decided survival depends on it.
“We got another request this morning,” he says. “Same family of shell companies. Different front name.”
Dana’s coffee stops halfway to her mouth. “Please tell me you declined before coming in here.”
“I declined the meeting request, yes. I also dug through what Dana gave me yesterday.” Marco steps in and sets another tablet on the table. “It came through as a private consultation. Same general ask hidden under risk review and client-flow evaluation.”
Sloane leans forward. “What were they offering?”
I look at Marco. “Last time they were offering nearly fifty thousand for the contract.”
“Two hundred and fifty.” Marco swipes to the next screen. “It’s been moved around through three accounts, but that’s the number attached to the new proposal.”
I stare at the figure on the screen, and for a second the need to call Emrys gets buried under something colder. “What the fuck are they trying to hide that they would pay a security company a quarter of a million dollars?”
“That’s not the only thing.” Marco taps the screen again.
“Not a smoking gun, but the routing chain overlaps with a large donation processed through the Vesper Hotel two weeks ago. Different account name, same intermediary, same transfer window. Could be a coincidence, but it’s a weird coincidence. ”
Dana sets her coffee down. “That’s not nothing.”
“No,” I say. “It’s not. Preserve everything. Original request, headers, payment language, routing trail, the Vesper overlap, all of it. I need to make sure we have everything laid out.”
Marco nods. “Already started the export.”
Sloane grumbles under his breath. “Fuck. Another late night.”
“No overtime tonight.” I look at him, then Dana, then Marco before glaring back at Sloane. “We all have places to be, and I do not want your Beta screaming at me through the phone again.”
Sloane grins. “She’s a dream, and you know it.”
“She is your dream.”
Dana snorts into her coffee. Marco makes the mistake of smiling before he looks back down at his tablet.
For another four hours, I keep my hands occupied, giving my mind a place to go that isn’t the shape of Emrys’s mouth around my name or the memory of him trying to defend me with blood on his lips.
By four-thirty, the Vesper thread is preserved, Dana has a clean export package ready for Baxter, Sloane has an internal timeline, and Marco has been told twice to go home before his Alpha starts calling the office. My phone stays facedown until I’m in the parking lot. Only then do I turn it over.
There’s no missed messages, some part of me wondering where Skylar is in all of this or if Emrys knows. The other part of me knows that Skylar already overstepped his duty as an officer and the confused look on his face as he left yesterday tells me everything I need to know.
Without meaning to, I stop by the store, grabbing some essentials out of habit. It’s become part of my routine, every few weeks, grabbing items I think Emrys would need and setting it outside his door in hopes it’ll bless him.
Some selfish part of me always wondered if it would become more as I took in everything I could about the doe-eyed Omega, including the ginger candies he once mentioned in the building chat when Mrs. Allen complained about motion sickness.
By the time I reach our floor, the bags are cutting into my fingers, and his door has light under it.
I tell myself I’ll set the groceries down, text him, and go to my own apartment.
Then his door opens before I decide whether that lie is worth keeping.
Emrys stands there in a gray hoodie, sleeves pulled over his hands, his curls pressed to one side like he was just sleeping. His gaze drops to the bags and comes back to me. “You brought groceries.”
“Yes.”
“Were you going to knock?”
“No.”
His mouth trembles like it wants to smile before he takes one bag from my hand and steps back. “Come in anyway.”
I follow him in, set the bags on the counter, and barely have time to straighten before he crosses the kitchen and wraps both arms around my middle.
His face presses into my chest. The first breath he takes against me shakes hard enough that I feel it in my ribs, and I get my arms around him slowly, one hand settling at the back of his head.
“Hi,” he whispers.
“Hi, Rys.”
He holds on until the last six days start to loosen in my body. When he finally pulls back, his face is red, and he wipes it with his sleeve before turning to the groceries. “I’m making dinner. You have to stay. I... you’re staying.”
I chuckle at the determination in his voice.
I can tell he needs this, and I need to be able to take something from him without turning it into another kind of protection.
So I sit at his small table while he cooks, and when he sets food in front of me, I eat.
The meal is quiet, only forks scraping across porcelain and the soft movement of his chair when his knee brushes mine under the table and stays there.
The silence breaks when I gather my dishes to take to the sink. I twist to grab another when Emrys’ scent sharpens, the Omega already crying as he hits both hands against my chest.
“You were so stupid,” he says, voice breaking. “They put you in cuffs, and you just stood there. I kept telling them, and nobody listened.”
I catch his wrists before he can hurt himself and hold his hands against my chest. “If I fought, I would have given them the story they already wanted.”
His face crumples. “You were gone.”
“I’m here now.”
His eyes lift to mine, the redness in his eyes gutting me.
Every reason for staying away, for keeping my distance vanishes as Emrys raises on his tiptoes and takes the one thing I’ve dreamt of giving him for months.
His lips brush against mine before he starts to lower himself before I wrap a firm arm around his back and pull him back to me.
He gasps against my lips as I dominate the embrace, tasting every sweet bit of him, my tongue slowly slipping into his mouth. He answers me with a small moan as I lean him back against the counter, my free hand bracing against the surface.
He tastes every bit as sweet as I thought he would, maybe more.
My purr starts on its own rumbling through the both of us. Emrys shivers, and his scent warms bright enough that he pulls back, flushed and embarrassed. “Sorry.”
“Don’t apologize.” My voice comes out rough as I lower my head and run my nose along his cheek instead of kissing him again, scenting him lightly, letting the purr stay low in my chest. “You’re precious.”
His eyes close. “Don’t do that again.”
I know what he means. “I can’t promise that.”
“Kade.”
“I can promise I’ll try to be smarter.”
He looks like he wants to argue, but the tears have worn him thin. He steps back and wipes his face. “I’m going to change.”
I let him go and reach for my jacket because my apartment is on the other side of the wall, and if he wants me here, he has to ask.
Then his scent sours from the bedroom. Worried, I rush after him to see that his nest seems to have exploded, if it can even be called that anymore.
Blankets stacked wrong, cushions on the floor, hoodies abandoned where they fell.
The closet door is open, a blanket inside with a cushion pushed against the wall.
“Rys,” I say, keeping my voice low. “Have you been sleeping in there?”
His face twists as he grabs a blanket to press against his chest. “Nothing felt right. Everything was too loud after they took you away. Your door was dark, and the hallway smelled like you, but you weren’t there. I didn’t want to be alone out here.”
I go to him and take the blanket from his hands. “And now?”
“It... it feels better now that you’re here. I know that’s weird and we don’t really know each other. But I wanted to and you buy me things so it felt like it and then I...”
Emrys trails off as he grabs another blanket from the floor and moves it toward the wall. I watch as he starts moving other fabrics and pillows, rebuilding the structure until it’s a world of its own. It’s still haphazard and lopsided but his scent has softened into something almost syrupy.
He turns to face me, his eyes lighting up a little when he reaches for the blanket in my hands. His fingers graze mine, Emrys pausing a moment. His mouth opens and closes several times before his face starts to redden.
“Rys, breathe. What do you need? More blankets? Pillows? Water?”
He mumbles something and then clears his throat. “Can you stay?” he asks. “I know you’d be right on the other side of the wall, but can you stay here with me?” Tears glaze over his eyes. “I’m asking too much, aren’t I? You already protected me and...”
“Shhh,” I pull Emrys into my chest, realizing how much I’ve missed out on trying to let Emrys take the lead. That and the fact that holding him against me like this, I’m never going to be able to let him go. “I would love nothing more than to stay with you, Rys.”
Emrys pulls back a little and points to my shoes before climbing into the sea of pillows and blankets. I comply before sliding in as well, the Omega immediately curling up against my chest. Every single thing I’ve been worrying about over the last week starts to fade, my purr already restarting.
Emrys exhales, his voice barely above a whisper. “This shape is better.”