The alley went silent before Damon reached the street.

He stopped beneath the failing light above Holloway’s rear entrance and listened. No train ground over the elevated tracks. No music escaped the apartments above the laundromat, and the bodega’s refrigeration unit had fallen quiet. The only sound came from a broken gutter, where water struck the lid of a trash can with slow metallic taps.

Behind him, the bar door swung shut and locked, sealing the voices and laughter inside. Rain glazed the pavement beneath the streetlamps, collecting in potholes and running along the curb in oily streams. Damon lowered his left hand toward the knife at his hip but stopped before touching it.

Three men were waiting for him.

The suppressants made scent unreliable. That was their purpose. For years, they had buried the sweetness of an omega beneath something chemically flat and unremarkable. Damon changed pharmacies and identities often enough to keep the prescriptions from forming a trail, but the medication could not hide what hung in the alley tonight. Too much cologne covered alpha sweat, stale cigarettes, and the metallic trace of a weapon recently handled.

One man waited near the dumpster while another occupied the recessed laundromat entrance. The third had chosen the narrow seam of darkness between two buildings, where the weak streetlight could not reach him. Damon continued toward the street at an unhurried pace, neither retreating nor moving close enough to let them surround him.

His boots found the driest sections of pavement without requiring his attention. The knife rested against his hip, its taped handle positioned exactly where his hand expected it. He had sharpened the blade that afternoon while reviewing photographs of a warehouse Solomon Voss supposedly did not own, pulling them one at a time from an encrypted archive that disappeared behind an ordinary desktop the moment Damon removed the key.

Six months of work had uncovered four suspected holding houses, two transportation companies, seventeen buyers, and three police officers whose finances improved whenever missing omegas vanished from their jurisdictions. The businesses changed names, properties passed between shell companies, and vehicles disappeared from one fleet only to resurface in another. Every trail eventually reached Solomon Voss.

Damon had not yet found enough evidence to destroy him, but he had made the organization bleed. Anonymous tips had intercepted two shipments, exposed a laundering account, and delivered a politically protected buyer into federal custody. Someone had finally connected those losses to him.

A cigarette smoldered beside the dumpster, balanced carefully on the curb instead of crushed beneath a shoe. The man waiting there had set it down because he expected to retrieve it.

Damon stopped beneath the flickering streetlight and looked into the darkness. “You can come out. You’re not as quiet as you think.”

For several seconds, nothing happened. Then the man near the dumpster stepped into the orange glow.

He was broad through the chest and shoulders, with a dark jacket stretched over a body built for intimidation. His expensive cologne reached Damon first, followed by the easy entitlement in his posture. He moved like a man who had never entered a room without expecting everyone else to make space for him.

The second alpha emerged from the laundromat entrance carrying a metal baton loosely at his side. He wore the same confidence, as if numbers and biology had decided the outcome before Damon reached the alley. Two alphas against one man who, according to whatever information Voss had gathered, should have been easy to control.

Damon kept part of his attention on the darkness beside the adjoining building. The third man had not moved, which made him the dangerous one.

“Damon Rowan?” the broad alpha asked.

Damon gave him nothing.

The man’s expression shifted into a smile that contained no warmth. “Solomon Voss wants to speak with you.”

“Then he should have called.”

“He did.”

A dark van waited beyond the mouth of the alley with its engine running and its headlights off. Damon could make out the shape of a driver behind the windshield, bringing the total to four. Voss had not sent anyone to talk.

“You’re coming with us,” the alpha said.

For an instant, the rain disappeared beneath the weight of memory. Wet brick became painted drywall, and the smell of the alley gave way to clove-and-camphor cologne and antiseptic. Damon heard the metallic click of a restraint closing around his wrist and a calm voice promising that what came next was for his own good.

His stomach contracted, but the present returned before the memory could take hold. Rain struck the pavement. The van idled at the curb, and the man in front of him waited with the patience of someone who had mistaken stillness for surrender.

Damon drew a slow breath through his nose. “I’m not going anywhere with you.”

The alpha sighed as though Damon had made a simple transaction inconvenient. “Voss said you might be difficult.”

“He doesn’t know anything about me.”

“He knows you’re an omega living alone.”

The words found their mark, though Damon refused to let the man see it. Fear moved through him, cold and immediate, sharpening the alley around him. It reminded him to check the van driver’s hands, watch the baton without staring at it, and keep enough distance from the broad alpha to prevent an easy grab.

Fear had never been the enemy. It taught him to check the deadbolt before sleeping, notice unfamiliar footsteps outside his apartment, and remember cars that passed his building too often. Panic stole choices. Fear showed him where they were.

The alpha stepped closer. “This can be easy.”

Damon had heard those words before, sometimes spoken with anger and sometimes with patience. The man who had once believed he owned Damon had whispered them while wiping blood from his face, as though tenderness could erase the restraints attached to the bed. The wording changed, but the promise beneath it never did. Obey, and I will call what happens next kindness.

“You people always say that,” Damon said.

The alpha’s smile faded. “You people?”

“Alphas who mistake force for strength.”

The man holding the baton chuckled. “He’s got a mouth on him.”

“No.” Damon kept his attention on the larger man. “I have experience.”

He shifted his weight and tested the pavement beneath his boots. Rain and oil had made the ground treacherous, but it would hold if he stayed balanced. His left shoulder still carried an ache from the previous night’s training, although his range of motion remained intact.

The broad alpha stood close enough for Damon to reach before the baton came into play. The second man had left himself room to swing, which also placed him too far away to intervene quickly. The driver remained inside the van.

The third man finally stepped out of the darkness.

He was leaner than the others and dressed in clothes that would not restrict his movement. His hands remained empty and visible, but his balance revealed more than a weapon would have. Unlike the other two, he watched Damon’s eyes instead of the knife concealed beneath his jacket.

The first two men were there to overpower him. This one was there in case they failed.

“You have until morning to reconsider,” the broad alpha said.

“Reconsider what?”

“An arrangement.”

Men like Voss always found prettier names for captivity. Protection. Care. Bonding. An arrangement. Every cage sounded more reasonable when described by the person holding the key.

“I don’t make arrangements with traffickers.”

The alpha’s expression hardened. “You may change your mind when you understand what Mr. Voss can take from you.”

Kael came to Damon’s mind before he could stop it.

The reaction lasted no more than a heartbeat, but the lean man noticed. His attention sharpened as he studied Damon with sudden interest.

“You do have someone,” he said.

Voss might not know about Kael yet. Tonight’s men had found Damon’s workplace and tracked him to the alley, but the garage was several neighborhoods away. Damon never visited on a predictable schedule, and Kael used no part of Damon’s name in his business records.

None of that would protect him forever.

The broad alpha rolled his shoulders and moved closer. “Last chance.”

Damon let his left hand fall away from the knife.

Relief flickered across the man’s face.

The alpha lunged.

Damon allowed him to seize the front of his jacket. For a fraction of a second, the man believed he had control. Then Damon drove the heel of his palm beneath his chin.

The alpha’s teeth snapped together as his head jerked back. His grip loosened, and Damon trapped his wrist before he could recover, twisting the arm outward and driving his elbow into the exposed joint. Something gave with a muffled pop. The man cried out and staggered sideways, but the baton was already cutting toward Damon’s head.

He ducked beneath the swing. Metal struck brick hard enough to throw sparks and send the impact shuddering through the attacker’s arms. Before the man could pull the weapon free, Damon stepped inside its reach and drove his shoulder into his chest.

They hit the pavement together, and a shard of glass hidden in the runoff tore through Damon’s jacket and opened his left shoulder.

Pain tore through the injury. The baton skidded across the wet concrete while the alpha beneath him grabbed for his throat. Damon caught the reaching arm and slashed across the forearm. The cut was shallow but decisive. Blood welled through the torn sleeve, and the man recoiled with a shout, giving Damon enough room to push himself upright.

Movement flickered at the edge of his vision.

The third man crossed the distance between them without wasting a step. His fist landed against Damon’s cheek before Damon could turn, snapping his head aside and filling his mouth with the taste of blood. A second punch followed, but Damon brought his forearm up in time to catch it. The attacker changed direction immediately and drove a knee toward his ribs.

Damon turned with the impact. The blow clipped his side instead of landing squarely, though it still emptied his lungs and forced him back a step.

The first two men had relied on size and intimidation. This one understood leverage.

He caught Damon’s knife wrist with both hands and locked the joint in place. Pulling away would give him the angle he needed to force Damon to the ground, so Damon stepped closer instead and drove his forehead into the bridge of the man’s nose.

Cartilage broke with a wet crack.

Blood poured over the attacker’s mouth, but he held on. Damon rotated his wrist within the weakened grip, brought the edge of the knife across the man’s palm, and felt the hands open. He shoved the man against the wall and placed the blade beneath his jaw.

The fight stopped.

Behind them, the broad alpha cradled his injured arm. The other man had reached the fallen baton but remained on one knee, pressing his bleeding forearm against his chest. Damon stood close enough to the trained attacker to feel each careful swallow against the knife.

Rain ran over the man’s face, thinning the blood from his broken nose.

“You’ve done this before,” he said.

Damon’s cheek throbbed where the punch had landed. “Yes.”

“Killed someone?”

The question pulled an old room out of the dark. Damon remembered a man choking on blood, the weight of a body trapping his hand against the floor, and keys striking hardwood beside bare feet. He remembered running through a silent house while alarms began to scream behind him.

He pressed the memory back where it belonged.

“I’m still alive,” he said. “Draw your own conclusions.”

The man’s gaze sharpened. Behind Damon, a shoe scraped against wet pavement.

Damon increased the pressure beneath the man’s jaw until the blade broke skin. “Move again, and he dies before you reach me.”

The broad alpha froze.

The man against the wall showed no fear. Damon would have preferred panic. Panic made people careless, while this man continued watching him with the detached concentration of someone gathering information.

“Voss will keep sending people,” he said.

“Then I’ll keep sending them back injured.”

“You’ve cost him a great deal of money.”

The admission confirmed more than Damon wanted it to. He had expected Voss to connect the interrupted shipments eventually, but he had hoped to remain invisible until he understood the full structure of the operation. Now Voss knew enough to place men outside Damon’s workplace and follow him into an alley.

“How much does he know?”

The man’s mouth shifted carefully around the blood running over it. “Enough.”

Damon angled the blade a fraction higher. “Try again.”

For the first time, discomfort disturbed the man’s composure. “He knows someone has been feeding information to law enforcement. The anonymous tips started after you began asking questions around the docks, and drivers have seen you near two of his properties.”

“And now he knows I’m an omega.”

The man did not answer, but something in his expression confirmed it.

“Voss finds that interesting,” he said.

Disgust tightened Damon’s stomach. “Men like Voss always find something interesting when they think they can own it.”

“He isn’t offering ownership.”

“Is that what he told you?”

The man held his gaze.

Damon had heard enough words designed to make captivity sound civilized. Protection was one. Bonding was another. Men who bought and sold people developed endless ways to discuss control without admitting what they wanted.

The broad alpha shifted his damaged arm and grimaced. “You have until morning.”

“To do what?”

“Reconsider the arrangement.”

“There is no arrangement.”

“There will be when you understand what refusal costs.”

Given enough time, he would find the garage. He would learn how often Damon stopped there, how long he stayed, and that Kael was one of the few people whose existence could still be used against him.

Damon felt his knife hand tighten.

The man noticed.

Damon struck him with the knife handle.

The man dropped to one knee, stunned. Damon kicked him backward, reclaimed enough distance to watch all three attackers, and kept the blade ready at his side.

“Leave.”

The broad alpha stared at him as though the word itself were an insult. “You think we can go back empty-handed?”

“I think you can go back breathing.”

The baton carrier looked at the blood running down his forearm, then toward the trained man struggling to regain his feet. Whatever loyalty Voss had purchased did not outweigh the scene around him. “You heard him,” he said. “This job isn’t worth dying for.”

Pride kept the broad alpha in place for another second, but pain and common sense finally won. He backed toward the street, careful not to turn his uninjured side away from Damon. “Voss won’t stop.”

“Good.”

The alpha frowned.

Damon wiped the knife against his sleeve without lowering it. “I’m not finished with him either.”

The baton carrier retreated first. The broad alpha followed, while the trained man remained near the wall long enough to study Damon with an attention that felt more dangerous than hatred.

“This isn’t a fight you can win alone,” he said.

Damon looked past him toward the waiting van. “Tell Voss to come himself next time.”

The man gave a slight shake of his head, as though Damon had confirmed something unfortunate, then joined the others.

The van remained at the curb until all three men climbed inside. Its headlights stayed off as it pulled away, and Damon watched the dark shape until it turned at the end of the block and disappeared.

He did not move when the engine faded.

The alley gradually recovered its ordinary sounds. Water continued tapping against the trash can. A train groaned somewhere beyond the rooftops, and music returned in a muffled pulse from an apartment above the laundromat.

Only then did the first tremor pass through the hand holding the knife.

It spread into Damon’s forearm and tightened the muscles around his injured shoulder. His lungs refused to draw a full breath. The alley seemed to narrow as the brick walls pulled closer, their wet surfaces giving way to painted drywall and the memory of a locked bedroom.

Damon placed one hand against the wall and concentrated on its rough surface.

He found the dumpster first, then the cigarette still burning near the curb. The cracked laundromat window caught a warped reflection of the streetlight. A fresh scrape marked the pavement where the baton had fallen, and blood dissolved into the rain near his boots.

Five things he could see.

Wet hair clung to his forehead. The knife handle pressed into his palm. Pain pulsed beneath his left shoulder, and the soles of his boots remained firm against the ground.

Four things he could feel.

He listened to water dripping from the gutter, the distant freight train, and his own breathing as it gradually slowed. The old room loosened its hold. Brick replaced painted walls, the night air cooled the sweat along his neck, and the alley became nothing more than an alley again.

Damon straightened and looked toward the empty street. His cheek throbbed where the trained man had struck him, and when he touched the inside of his mouth, his fingers came away marked with blood.

He had survived the encounter, but Voss had learned nearly as much from it as Damon had. The men knew he was trained, had connected him to the disrupted shipments, and would report his reaction when they threatened someone close to him.

Damon slid the knife into its sheath and removed his phone. Kael’s name waited near the top of his contacts.

Calling him might lead Voss straight to the garage. Remaining silent could leave Kael unprepared for men who already knew exactly where to apply pressure.

Damon stared at the name for another moment before pressing it.

Kael answered on the second ring. “Damon?”

The concern in his voice was immediate. Kael had never learned how to pretend he did not care, one of several habits Damon had once found unsettling and now depended upon more than he wanted to admit.

“You awake?” Damon asked.

“It’s midnight and I own a garage. Of course I’m awake.” Tools clattered against concrete in the background, followed by the squeak of Kael’s rolling stool. “What happened?”

Damon stepped out of the alley and scanned the street. The bodega on the corner remained open, its neon sign painting streaks of red and blue across the wet pavement. A stray cat watched the rain from beneath the awning, but no one else lingered outside.

“Nothing.”

“Your voice sounds like somebody hit you.”

Damon touched his swollen cheek. “Somebody did.”

The sounds from the garage stopped. When Kael spoke again, the easy humor had left his voice. “Where are you?”

“I handled it.”

“That wasn’t my question.”

It never was. Kael asked direct questions and expected direct answers, a habit that would have ended most of Damon’s relationships before they began. Somehow, Kael had spent three years ignoring every opportunity Damon gave him to leave.

“I’m outside Holloway’s,” Damon said. “Listen to me. I need you to lock the garage tonight. Lock the office too, and don’t open either door unless you know exactly who is outside.”

“What is going on?”

“I can’t explain it over the phone.”

“Can’t or won’t?”

“Both.”

The disappointment in Kael’s silence hurt more than the punch. Damon closed his eyes and rested his uninjured shoulder against the wall. He could tell Kael the truth. He could admit that he was an omega, that an alpha had bought him when he was eighteen, and that escape had required a kitchen knife and more blood than Damon had known one body could hold. He could explain why he moved so often, why he never let anyone stand between him and a door, and why every kindness Kael offered had frightened him more than cruelty ever did.

Instead, he gave Kael the part of the truth that mattered tonight.

“There’s a trafficking operation in the city.”

The silence changed.

“People?” Kael asked.

“Omegas.”

Damon heard his breathing deepen. “Are you involved?”

“Not the way you mean.”

“What way should I mean?”

“I’ve been gathering information. Routes, holding locations, businesses used to move money. Anything that might help someone tear it apart.”

“For the police?”

“Some of them.”

“Some?”

“The ones Solomon Voss hasn’t bought.”

Kael muttered something in Spanish. Damon did not understand the words, but the anger needed no translation. “Solomon Voss sent the men who hit you?”

“Yes.”

“Come to the garage.”

“I can’t.”

“Why?”

“Because they may be watching me.”

“Then let them watch.”

“You don’t understand.”

“No, I don’t.” Kael’s voice rose, then steadied with visible effort. “My best friend just called after fighting off traffickers and still thinks the biggest danger here is answering my questions.”

“You are safer knowing less.”

“That is bullshit, and you know it. If someone is hunting you, I need enough information to recognize the threat when it comes through my door.”

That was precisely what Damon feared. Voss’s men had already begun looking for whatever mattered to him. Ignorance might not protect Kael, but knowledge would make it harder to deny that he had become part of the fight.

“Alphas came for me,” Damon said.

“I figured.”

“No.” The admission caught in Damon’s throat, where years of caution tried to hold it. “You didn’t.”

Kael waited without pushing him.

Damon looked toward the dark mouth of the alley. He had spent years burying the truth beneath suppressants, false records, and practiced indifference. Once spoken, it could not be taken back. Kael would know what the wrong person could do with his biology, why Damon mistrusted kindness, and why a threat that should have frightened him had instead left three men bleeding in the rain.

“I’m an omega.”

Kael said nothing.

Damon listened for surprise, revulsion, or the subtle change in tone that came when someone began rearranging everything they knew about him. Any reaction would have been easier to understand than silence.

Finally, Kael said, “Okay.”

Damon frowned. “Okay?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s all you have to say?”

“I have questions. A lot of them. But you sound like you’re standing outside bleeding, so I’m prioritizing.”

Something inside Damon loosened so abruptly it almost hurt. He turned his face into the rain before the relief could become visible to an empty street. “You don’t care?”

“Of course I care. It obviously matters to you, and it explains a few things I didn’t understand. It doesn’t change who you are.”

“You don’t know what it means.”

“Then explain it when you’re ready.”

No demand followed. Kael did not ask whether the suppressants were safe, how long Damon had hidden it, or why he had never trusted him with the truth. He simply left the decision where it belonged.

“Come to the garage,” Kael said again.

“I need to check my apartment first.”

“That sounds like a terrible idea.”

“It probably is.”

“Damon.”

“I’ll call you in ten minutes.”

“You have five.”

“Ten.”

“Seven.”

Warmth slipped through Damon’s fear before he could prevent it. Kael had accepted the most dangerous truth Damon possessed and moved directly into bargaining over how long he was allowed to disappear.

“Seven,” Damon agreed.

“If you don’t call, I’m coming over.”

“You don’t know where I live.”

Kael sounded genuinely offended. “We’ve been friends for three years. Of course I know where you live.”

The line disconnected.

Damon stared at the screen for a moment, caught somewhere between irritation and the unsettling comfort of being known. Then he crossed the street and entered his building through the worn front door.

The lobby smelled of damp carpet, old cooking oil, and cigarette smoke that had seeped into the walls years earlier. He paused inside and listened before allowing the door to close behind him. Plumbing hummed somewhere above, and a television murmured through an apartment on the first floor. Nothing moved near the stairwell.

He climbed to the third floor without using the elevator. The corridor was empty, its stained carpet stretching beneath a line of mismatched doors and weak ceiling lights. Damon approached his apartment slowly, already reaching for his keys.

The key entered the deadbolt, but the lock turned without resistance.

His hand stopped.

Damon always locked the door. The habit had become instinct long before he moved into this building, and no injury, distraction, or exhaustion would have made him forget.

His hand found the knife beneath his jacket before he consciously reached for it. He opened the door a few inches and listened. No floorboard creaked beneath shifting weight. The refrigerator hummed in the kitchen, and rain tapped against the bedroom window.

At first glance, the apartment looked untouched. The battered couch still faced the television he rarely used, and the scarred coffee table held the book he had left facedown that morning. Orange light filtered through the blinds, painting narrow bars across the hardwood floor.

Damon stepped inside and closed the door without locking it. If someone remained in the apartment, he wanted an unobstructed exit.

He cleared the kitchen, checked the space behind the shower curtain, and searched the bedroom last. Each room stood empty, but relief never came. The apartment felt wrong in a way he could not yet name.

Someone had been there.

His attention went first to the narrow desk beside the living-room window. The monitor was dark, the keyboard aligned beneath it, and the cheap tower looked exactly as it had when he left. Almost. A clean crescent interrupted the dust around one rear screw. Someone had opened the case and put it back together.

They had found the decoy drive. Bills, training schedules, a month of browser history manufactured to look careless. Nothing connected to Voss.

The real archive had never been inside the machine. Its local key sat behind a blank wall plate in the bedroom, useless without the phrase Damon had never written down. A second encrypted copy existed beyond the apartment, distributed across servers registered to identities that had never belonged to him. If he stopped checking in, selected files would begin moving to people Voss had not bought.

Nothing obvious had changed. The mug in the sink still held a faint ring of dried coffee. His shoes remained aligned beside the bedroom closet, and the receipt marking his place in the book had not shifted. Whoever entered had understood that moving too much would turn surveillance into a burglary.

Only one thing in the apartment had been placed where Damon could not fail to notice it.

A photograph lay in the center of his bed.

He approached without touching it. The image showed Kael standing outside the garage that afternoon, bent over the engine of a blue pickup truck. His sleeves were rolled to his elbows, and grease streaked one forearm. He had turned slightly toward the camera, wearing the unguarded expression of someone who believed no one was watching.

The angle told Damon the photographer had been across the street. The elevation placed the camera inside a vehicle rather than at eye level, and the clarity suggested a lens powerful enough to capture Kael’s face without approaching the garage.

Voss had not discovered Kael during the confrontation. He had known about him before his men entered the alley.

A white card rested beneath the photograph. Eleven words had been printed across it in plain black type.

Six a.m. Instructions will follow. Come alone. Don’t make me introduce myself to your friend.

Damon read the message twice.

Fear struck hard enough to steal his breath, but years of discipline contained it before it could become panic. He examined the photograph again, searching the frame for anything that might reveal when it had been taken or how long Kael had been watched. The truck belonged to a regular customer who usually brought it in on Thursdays, and the gray shirt beneath Kael’s coveralls was the same one he had worn when Damon stopped by that afternoon.

The photograph was less than twelve hours old.

Solomon Voss believed it gave him leverage. Instead, it gave Damon certainty.

Voss knew about Kael and the apartment. He employed people capable of entering without forcing a lock, searching without leaving obvious evidence, and placing a threat in the most private room Damon possessed. The intrusion had required planning, surveillance, and access to information Damon had spent years concealing.

It was an impressive mistake.

Voss had revealed how much he knew because he expected the knowledge to frighten Damon into obedience. He believed he was dealing with an isolated omega who would surrender the moment another person’s safety became the price of resistance.

He knew where Damon lived, but he did not know what Damon had survived in order to reach this room. He had no idea how many years Damon had spent preparing for the day someone tried to put him in a cage again or how often he had imagined what he would do if another person were used against him.

Damon picked up the photograph and card. His hands were steady when he reached for his phone.

Kael answered on the first ring. “Seven minutes. I was about to start driving.”

“I need you to listen carefully.”

The teasing disappeared from Kael’s voice. “What happened?”

Damon examined the photograph one final time before sliding it into his jacket. “Pack a bag.”

“I already did.”

“Then leave the garage. Don’t take your usual route, and don’t go home.”

A pause followed. “Where am I going?”

“Out of the city.”

“And what are you going to do?”

Damon folded the card and placed it beside the photograph. Voss had given him until morning, which meant he expected Damon to spend the night afraid, imagining what might happen to Kael if he refused. He believed the deadline belonged to him.

“I’m going to be ready when he tells me where,” Damon said.

“That sounds dangerously close to giving him what he asked for.”

“I’m not going to surrender.”

“You didn’t answer the question.”

Damon looked toward the dark computer screen. Voss’s people had been careful, but they had opened the tower and found exactly what Damon had left for them to find. Whoever reported back would tell Voss there was no archive in the apartment. By morning, Damon intended to correct that mistake. Not by showing Voss where the evidence was, but by showing him how many places it would go if Damon or Kael disappeared.

“They know about you,” Damon said. “I need to make sure they can’t use you to control what happens next.”

“You don’t control me either.”

The quiet correction stopped him.

Damon closed his eyes. In his urgency to protect Kael, he had reduced him to another problem that needed to be moved beyond Voss’s reach. The instinct came from fear rather than entitlement, but the result was still a decision Damon had made for someone else.

“You’re right,” he said.

Kael went silent.

“I think you should leave because Voss has already watched the garage and may have people near your home. If you stay, I can’t promise I’ll reach you before they do.” Damon looked at Kael’s face in the photograph. “But the decision is yours.”

When Kael answered, some of the tension had left his voice. “Where are you?”

“My apartment.”

“Then I’m coming to you.”

“Kael.”

“You said it was my decision.”

Damon resisted the urge to argue. “Take the service exit behind the garage. Check for anyone following you before you turn onto Halpern, and call me if you see the same vehicle twice.”

“Now you sound like yourself again.”

“I’m serious.”

“So am I. Stay inside until I get there.”

The call ended before Damon could object.

He stood in the quiet bedroom with the phone still against his ear. For years he had treated isolation as armor, believing that no one could be used against him if he never allowed anyone close enough to matter. Kael had crossed those defenses without demanding entry, and now Voss intended to punish Damon for letting him inside.

That fear could not be undone, but it no longer resembled surrender.

Damon looked at the photograph in his hand and allowed the anger beneath his discipline to settle into purpose.

Solomon Voss had made the fight personal.

By morning, Damon intended to make him regret it.