Page 107 of Fate, Interrupted

“She’s mine,” I say.

My voice is quiet. I don’t need to manufacture rage or obsession. I don’t need to. My wolf is working overtime, and my voice is just the part of it they can understand. “You won’t make that mistake again.”

Neither of them speaks.

The tall one lowers the bag to his side. He’s very still—the intelligent stillness of someone calculating odds.

I let it run longer than is comfortable. I’m not uncomfortable—that’s the point, and they’re getting it. Then I take one step forward, not toward either of them, simply forward, and watch them both shrink in stature as they press back against the wall.

I say the second thing.

“You had one chance to walk away from her.” My voice is the same. Quiet. Certain. “If you value your heads, you won’t come back.”

The broad one’s eyes are wet, his face red from holding back the tears.

The tall one says nothing. He holds my gaze for approximately two seconds, which is longer than I expected, and then he looks at the lamppost beside me, which is the closest object he can look at without meeting my eyes. It’s the smartest move he’s made tonight. They understand the hierarchy and accept it.

That’s enough.

I step back and turn around. At the same pace I crossed the sidewalk, I walk back to the truck, not looking back.

After I get in, I sit for a moment. The wolf settles with the satisfaction of having gotten what it wanted. Clean. Final. They’ll carry this for a long time. Not a bruise, not a hospital visit, nothing that leaves a mark anyone can point to—just the knowledge of what they looked at tonight and the understanding that it knows where to find them.

That’s the part that will last.

I start the engine and pull away from the curb and think about what I just did.

They weren’t touched or threatened. I only had to say eight words, and one of them almost wept and the other one couldn’t look me in the eye, and neither of them will sleep well for a month.

I don’t feel bad about that.

There’s an absence of guilt, an absence of second-guessing. I do things in the operation that have rough edges, which I turn over and examine afterward. This doesn’t have rough edges. It has the clean certainty that what I did was right and necessary and proportionate.

They stood in an alley between Norah and her car and threatened her.

That’s all I need to know.

I think about how Norah handled it—the careful voice on the phone, the way she’d already decided it wasn’t a big deal before she finished living through it.

She doesn’t need to know about tonight.

This isn’t a secret I’m keeping out of shame. It’s a thing that happened that belongs to me and to my wolf and to two idiots outside a convenience store on Marlowe, and it’s finished now. Folding it into whatever Norah and I are building would only add weight where weight isn’t needed.

She handled her part. I handled mine.

I turn onto her street without deciding to.

The rowhouse is dark except for the living room window—the light she always leaves on. The street is quiet. A car passes. Somewhere a window is open, and music comes out of it, soft, warm jazz.

I slow the truck, but I don’t stop.

I don’t need to knock on the door to confirm that she’s fine. I confirmed it when I got in the truck tonight and made sure of it in my way.

As I drive past, I watch the house in the rearview mirror until the street curves and takes it out of sight. Then I face forward.

My wolf is quiet in a way it hasn’t been in weeks.

I said she’s mine on a sidewalk to make a point.