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I begin typing, describing the layout of the business district, the target building, and the van’s arrival. My words come easily at first, falling into the familiar rhythm of intelligence reporting. Objective, detached, focused on observable facts.

Then I reach the moment when Orien steps into the light.

My fingers slow, each keystroke more deliberate as I describe his approach and the ensuing confrontation. The words feel wrong as they appear, flat and inadequate to capture what I witnessed.

Not the violence. I’ve seen worse, done worse in service to the family. But the control behind it. The way Orien shifted from attacker to protector in the space of a heartbeat. The gentleness with which he handled the smallest girl.

The way he promised to find her sister.

My throat closes as I remember the girl’s tear-streaked face as she clung to Orien’s sleeve with absolute trust.

Trust he earned with blood.

I push back from the desk, abruptly unable to continue. The apartment closes in around me, the walls crowding closer as I pace the narrow strip of floor between the bed and kitchen. My reflection in the dark window shows a stranger, hair coming loose from the elastic band, eyes too bright, skin pale with exhaustion.

This isn’t me. This hesitation, this doubt. I’m Levon Vartanian. Alexei’s right hand. His most trusted operative.

I don’t question. I execute.

But the words won’t come. Not the ones I need to write. Not the report that will set in motion whatever my brother has planned for the Blue Note.

I return to the desk, dropping into the chair with sudden decision. My fingers fly over the keys, describing Orien’s violent response to the trafficker’s threat, the accuracy of his strikes, the blood on the pavement. Clinical. Dispassionate.

But when I reach the moment when Orien turns to the girls, I pause.

Subject then approached the victims, offering reassurance and⁠—

I stop, fingers frozen above the keys. What comes next? He promised safety? Protection? He and his crew had blankets and water waiting? Transport arranged to take the girls somewhere safe?

That this wasn’t the first time they’d done an operation like this?

The cursor blinks, patient and accusing.

I hit backspace, deleting the incomplete sentence. Then I delete the line above it. And the one above it, too.

I open a new document.

No identifiable subjects. No actionable intelligence. I write Orien out of it, reduce the whole night to a waste of my time.

My hand is steady when I attach it. Steadier than it has any right to be.

I hit send.

8

After the operation, it’s torture to skip returning to the Blue Note, but this is still a game I’m playing with Orien, and I refuse to show up on Thursday.

So, I spend the day holed up in my apartment, fighting the guilt over the lie of a report I sent to my family and the anger at knowing that Orien had touched me as a distraction, even though I would have done the same in his place.

The hypocrisy doesn’t escape me, but I know I’m playing Orien. The Alpha has no such excuse for treating me the way he did.

One Alpha shouldn’t be enough to throw me off balance like this, which means I need to level the playing field.

I tell myself the plan is still tactical. Orien is the closest to Rowan. The more access I gain to him, the more the rest of the crew lowers their guard.

The logic would hold better if my body didn’t burn with such eagerness.

By Friday morning, I’m pacing my apartment with my sleeves shoved to my elbows and my nerves pulled too tight beneath my skin. My attention keeps snagging on stupid things.