Chapter 20
Emrys
But the edges are wrong. I feel them in the pause before I turn toward the windows.
In the half-second it takes me to recognize a hood, a dark coat, a man standing too still near the curb before he moves on and becomes someone ordinary.
I feel them in the way Priya keeps finding reasons to pass me, brushing flour off the counter beside my elbow even though there's barely any there, refilling the sugar canister herself instead of letting me do it.
She isn't crowding me. She knows better. She's just keeping herself close enough to catch the sound if I crack.
I finish shaping the last tray of honey rolls and slide them onto the rack.
My hands are steady. That matters too. The dough did what it was supposed to do today, smooth and soft under my palms, no tearing, no sticking, no flour spilling over the counter and turning into something I have to survive.
I wipe down my station and breathe through the warm smell of yeast, honey, and cardamom until my chest starts to loosen.
Priya appears at my side with a mug. "Drink."
I look at it. "Is this an order or a suggestion wearing boots?"
"It's tea. Don't make it philosophical."
"I work with bread. Everything's philosophical if you wait long enough."
She gives me the mug and studies my face while pretending she's not studying my face. "You need a minute?"
I glance toward the back door before I can stop myself. The alley isn't where I want to be. It's also the closest place with air that doesn't smell like sugar and ovens and everyone's eyes on me.
"Maybe one minute," I say.
Priya's mouth tightens, but she nods. "Take Aaron."
Aaron is Sloane's watcher, though nobody calls him that out loud in front of customers.
He's been sitting at the small back table for two hours with a newspaper he hasn't turned a page of and a coffee he's barely touched.
Kade and Sloane had chosen someone else but switched them out for the quiet Beta, the kind of person most people forget the second they look away.
"I'm stepping out back," I tell him.
His eyes lift once. "I'll be close."
I want to say I don't need a guard to breathe behind a bakery. The words get as far as my tongue and die there because pride is exhausting and I've used up most of mine pretending the bell doesn't still scare me. I take the mug with me and push through the kitchen door into the alley.
The air outside is cold enough to clear my head.
The pavement's still damp from last night's rain, and the narrow strip between the buildings holds the smell of wet brick, trash bins, and old flour dust from the vent.
I stay near the back door at first, one hand on the handle, tea warming my other palm.
The alley's empty except for stacked crates, a broken milk crate near the wall, and a puddle that catches the gray light without making anything brighter.
My phone buzzes in my apron pocket.
Kade.
You still at the bakery?
I breathe out before I answer because he can somehow read panic through punctuation.
Yes. Priya is being unbearable in a loving way.
His reply comes fast.
Good. Be unbearable back.
I smile despite myself and type, I'm saving my strength, when the alley changes.
It's not a sound at first. It's the absence of one.
The city beyond the side street keeps moving, but the mouth of the alley seems to hold still around a shape that wasn't there a second ago.
Hood up. Hands in pockets. Dark jacket. Not hidden, not approaching, just standing at the far end where the weak light from the street reaches only partway under the brick overhang.
My thumb freezes above the screen.
The tea mug slips lower in my hand, and heat licks over my fingers.
I barely feel it. My whole body's gone cold in that old, immediate way, skin pulling tight, lungs forgetting the easy part.
The tote flashes through my head. Flour on wet pavement.
A hand over my mouth. My name in a stranger's voice.
He takes one step into the alley.
I step back until my shoulder hits the door.
The movement makes his head turn. Not much. Just enough. The hood shifts, and for one clean second the gray light catches his face.
I see him.
Not a shadow. Not a shape. His face.
My fear blossoms though as I take in all of his features, trying to memorize everything I can. I have enough time to know this matters before he steps back, turning out of the light and toward the side street.
My hand moves before the rest of me does.
I lift the phone and hit the camera button, thumb slipping once because my fingers are wet with tea.
The first picture catches brick. The second catches his shoulder.
The third catches him mid-turn, hood shadowing part of his face but not enough to erase it.
I keep tapping even as my breath turns ragged, even as the door behind me opens.
Aaron comes through the door, looking past me first, toward the mouth of the alley, then at the phone shaking in my hand.
"He was there," I say, and my voice sounds smaller than I want it to. "I saw his face."
Aaron holds out his hand without taking the phone from me. "Show me."
I turn the screen toward him. He swipes once, then goes still.
That's when I know, because Aaron's face changes around what the photo means.
"Inside," he says. "Now."
Priya's waiting in the kitchen when we come back through. She takes one look at me, then at Aaron, and whatever she was about to say turns into something quieter and sharper. "Go."
"I didn't finish the rolls," I say, because my brain has picked a very stupid thing to hold onto.
"I'll finish the rolls. If Clarence complains, I'll tell him you were kidnapped by professionalism."
"That doesn't make sense."
"It will after I threaten him." Her hand touches my sleeve once, brief and grounding. "Go, Em."
Aaron already has his phone to his ear while he guides me through the back hall. "I'm bringing him in. We have photographs. Yes. Clear enough."
I hold my phone in both hands during the ride to Rourke Securities.
The photos are still open. I keep looking at the clearest one until my stomach starts to turn, then I lock the screen, then unlock it again because looking away feels worse.
Aaron drives without asking questions. Every time we stop at a light, he checks the mirrors, and that should make me feel better.
Mostly it makes the world feel full of places someone can stand and wait.
Kade's at the elevator when the doors open, stepping forward with both arms already open. I go into him hard enough that the breath leaves my lungs. His cedar folds around me, and his hand settles at the back of my neck while the other presses steady between my shoulder blades.
"I saw him," I say into his shirt. "I got his face."
Kade goes still around me, but his voice stays low. "Good. You did good, sweetheart."
The words almost break me because they're not said like I survived. They're said like I acted. I hold onto that while he walks me into the operations room with his arm around me.
Everyone’s there, folded around the room, the conversations dying as they take in the shock and panic on my face. Skylar reaches me first after Kade. His hand touches my wrist, light enough to ask. I turn my hand and let him take it.
"You saw him?" he asks.
"I caught his face." I lift my phone before I can lose the nerve. "Aaron got some too, but mine has the best angle."
Dana's chair rolls back. "Send it to me."
My fingers shake when I unlock the phone, so Skylar steadies my hand without taking over. I send the clearest photo to Dana, then hand the phone to Sloane when he steps closer. He looks at the image, and whatever softness he had for me vanishes into focus.
The photo appears on the main screen a few seconds later and there he is, half-turned at the mouth of the alley, hood throwing a shadow over one side of his face.
It's not perfect. It's not a clean front-facing photo with a name stamped underneath.
But the jaw is clear, the mouth, one eye, enough of the nose and cheek to make him real in a way the shadows never did.
Caldwell steps closer to the screen. At first, he only looks. Then his expression shifts, not recognition all at once, but the first pull of it. His brow draws in. He leans toward the monitor, eyes narrowing. "Zoom in on the left side," he says.
Dana does it.
Caldwell's mouth tightens. "Wait."
Skylar looks at him. "What?"
"I've seen him." Caldwell doesn't take his eyes off the screen. "Not often. At the station. Back offices, once by the rear entrance when I was there for a task-force meeting. I didn't clock him because he looked like he belonged."
Skylar's hand tightens around mine as Caldwell pulls out his phone, already searching for something.
"He wasn't listed with the task-force contacts. He’s not staff assigned to us, at least not under the name I remember seeing.
" He mutters something under his breath and keeps scrolling, then stops. "There."
He turns the phone toward Skylar first. Skylar looks down, and the blood seems to leave his face.
"What’s his name?" Kade asks.
Caldwell's voice is careful now. "Declan Smisson."
Sloane's already moving. "Spell it."
Caldwell does, and Sloane types it into the system first, then a broader search, then one of the social sites that makes people think family information is harmless because it sits under birthday photos and vacation posts.
A profile comes up and Dana pulls it to the side screen, as Sloane clicks through the connections.
"I bet we’re thinking similar things," Dana says.
"Maybe," Skylar says, voice low. "But we won’t know until we actually find the connection."
Sloane opens a family section, then freezes for half a beat before enlarging it onto the main screen.
The names sit there in neat black text.
Mara Morrison.
Declan Smisson.
Mother. Son.
No one speaks right away.
The chief's son. The man who's been moving through the station like he belonged there because, in some awful way, he did. Skylar makes a sound under his breath. "No fucking way."
He lets go of my hand only to step closer to the screen. His gaze moves between Declan's photo, the alley still, and the family tree. Then his whole body changes. "The scent," he says.
Caldwell turns toward him. "What scent?"
Skylar's voice tightens. "Morrison's office. The stairwell. That wrong chemical-blocked smell I kept catching where no one should've been wearing anything strong enough to flatten their scent. Kade even caught it at the station and in the alleyway. It wasn't Morrison. It had to have been him."
He looks back at the screen, and I see the moment finish landing. "The alley, the office, the station. Same man."
Which means the one person who’s been shoving fear into my head and ruining everything for Kade and Skylar is all the same person. "Your chief knows?" I ask, though I'm not sure which answer would be worse.
Skylar looks at the family tree on the screen, his expression hard and hurt in a way I don't know how to touch. "She knows something."
Kade's hand spreads wider against my back, a low growl rumbling through his chest as the room seems to move again, Dana and Sloane working through Declan Smission’s history while Caldwell pulls out his phone.
I don’t even really know what’s going on.
I just know it’s bad. Then Skylar comes back to me.
He takes my hand again, fingers threading through mine on top of the polished table.
His palm is warm. His scent is sharp with anger, but beneath it, amber stays steady enough for me to hold onto.
"You brought us the thing we needed, Rys. Thank you. I can’t imagine how terrified you were. "
I fold myself into Kade’s chest, leaning my shoulder against Skylar. “I was so scared it was going to happen again but it didn’t. And I’m here. And you’re going to get him, right?”
Kade hums, “Yeah, sweetheart, we are.” His hand moves to rest against the back of my neck, holding me between them.
Caldwell looks up from his call. "We need to assume Morrison's office is compromised. Files, access, communication, all of it. Whether she's protecting him or he's using her, the station isn't clean."
Skylar's mouth tightens. "He had top-level proximity."
"Exactly," Caldwell says.
Dana's fingers are still flying over the keyboard. "Then we don't send anything through the station. Not even routine."
Sloane glances at Kade. "Baxter?"
"Baxter," Kade says. "And Caldwell's federal channel only if he controls the handoff."
Caldwell nods once. "I do. They don’t get anything unless it goes through me.
Now, we just have to figure out where this fucker is and what his reason for letting Hex out is.
" I brace myself, slightly confused as I twist to look at the Alpha. A tight smile spreads across his face. “If Declan is the Cardinal Network, and the one funding Hex, that means he let that fucker out. Either to restart the killings or Hex has become a liability. Either way, someone’s going to get hurt if we don’t work fast.”
I sag against my men. “I can’t wait for this to end,” I mutter.