Page 19 of Beautifully Scarred Omega

“I agree.” Max sets his glass on the sill untouched. “The question is who. And why.”

“Could it be a rival company?” Ethan turns the glass in his hands. “Industrial espionage isn’t exactly rare in biotech.”

“They didn’t steal anything,” Max says quietly. “They went straight to climate-controlled storage and disabled the cooling. This wasn’t espionage.” He pauses. “This was someone trying to destroy Equinox.”

I’d thought of it too. I just hadn’t wanted to believe it.

Years of work. Years of failed compounds, recalibrations, prototypes that almost worked and then didn’t. Equinox is the closest we’ve ever come to giving omegas full control over their designation. It would erase their scent and eradicate heats. There would be no biological markers left that could identify someone as an omega at all.

The prototypes are stored in climate-controlled conditions because the compound is temperature-sensitive. Fourteen minutes without proper cooling could destabilize the entire batch.

“You think someone targeted Equinox specifically?”

“Think about what it represents.” Ethan sets down his glass, his gray eyes serious. “We’re not just talking about a medical breakthrough. We’re talking about fundamentally altering the power dynamic between designations. An omega on Equinox would be undetectable. They couldn’t be tracked by scent. They couldn’t be claimed without consent. They couldn’t be found if they didn’t want to be found.”

“Freedom,” I say slowly.

“Exactly.” Ethan nods. “And there are a lot of people, a lot of alphas, who have built their entire lives on the assumption that omegas don’t have that kind of freedom. Trafficking networks. Breeding programs. Traditional packs who believe omegas should be controlled for their own protection.” His voice takes on an edge I rarely hear from him. “Equinox threatens all of it. Of course someone would want to destroy it.”

I let that sink in. “So you’re saying we painted a target on our own backs.”

“I’m saying we always knew this work would make enemies.” Ethan meets my eyes steadily. “We just didn’t expect them to move this fast.”

Max turns from the window, his expression carved from stone. “The question remains: who’s feeding them information? That intruder didn’t stumble onto our security weaknesses by accident. Someone told them exactly where to go and what to do.”

“It could be anyone,” I say, frustrated. “We have, what, eighty employees? Any one of them could have access to building layouts, security schedules⁠—”

“Not anyone.” Ethan shakes his head. “Access to the basement wing is restricted. And not everyone knows about Equinox. Whoever did this knew what was down there and how to get to it. We can narrow it down.”

“What if we just fire everyone?” I suggest. I know it’s a stupid idea the moment the words leave my mouth.

Max almost smiles, a grim twitch at the corner of his mouth. “We can’t afford that, Finn. And it wouldn’t solve the problem. Whoever’s behind this won’t stop just because we remove their contact here. They’ll find another way in.” He pauses. “Besides, we don’t know if our source even realizes what they’ve done. Someone with access could have been compromised without knowing it—a copied keycard, a cloned phone.”

“So we need to investigate.” I drain the rest of my bourbon. “Find out who’s been talking, and to whom.”

“We need help,” Ethan says quietly. “This is beyond what Nathan’s team can handle.”

“It might even be someone on Nathan’s team,” Max says. “We can’t rule it out. We need someone from the outside, people who know how to find leaks and plug them without tipping off whoever’s watching.” He pauses and looks up at us. “Sentinel.”

Sentinel Security. We’ve been supplying them with military-grade suppressants for years now, part of an arrangement that’s benefited both parties. Pack Hayes runs a tight ship, and they’ve become something like allies over time. As close to friends as men like us make.

“You think they’ll take the job?” I ask.

“I think Griffin will be very interested in why someone is trying to sabotage the company that produces the suppressants his people depend on.” Max moves to his desk and picks up his phone. “I’ll call him in the morning. For now, we secure the building, assess the damage to Equinox, and keep this quiet.”

“Quiet?” I raise an eyebrow.

“If there’s a mole, we don’t want them to know we’re looking.” Max’s gaze turns distant and focused, the look he gets when he’s three moves ahead in a chess game only he can see. “Let them think they succeeded. Let them get comfortable. That’s when they’ll make mistakes.”

Ethan and I exchange a glance. We’ve seen Max like this before, controlled, methodical, patient in a way that borders on predatory. Whoever did this has no idea what they’ve woken up.

“Get some sleep,” Max says, already turning back to his desk.

But later that night, sleep doesn’t come. I lie in the dark long after the house goes quiet, and somewhere between the adrenaline and the exhaustion, she finds me again. Sylvie. Her lips soft beneath mine, parting for me. Her scent. The way she looked at me right before she kissed me.

I know we need to find whoever tried to destroy everything we’ve built, but for some fucked up reason, all I can think about is finding her.

CHAPTER 7