Page 172 of My Unhinged Alphas
“And because,” he adds after a second, “saying it out loud makes it real in ways that terrify me.” His voice is quieter now. Not weak. Just stripped down enough that I hear the truth in it before I can protect myself from it.
Nobody jokes after that.
Knox is standing by the bed with the med kit half-open, one hand braced against the cheap motel dresser like he forgot to move it again. Havoc has gone still in that way he does when he’s actually thinking, not performing. Vale is propped against the headboard, bruised and pale and held together by pain and willpower and Knox’s bandages.
And me, standing a little too close to all of it, feeling like the room keeps getting smaller every time one of them tells the truth.
For a second, no one says anything.
Then Knox says, “We need to decide whether this is part of the same thing.”
Vale’s one good eye lifts to him. “You think it might not be?”
“I think,” Knox says, “a man you thought died years ago doesn’t just appear outside Lena’s building by accident.”
Havoc folds his arms. “That doesn’t answer the actual question.”
“No,” Knox says. “It doesn’t.”
I look from one of them to the other, trying to keep up with the shape of it.
“The actual question,” Havoc says, “is whether Daddy Dearest is part of the bigger picture or whether this is some entirely separate nightmare that just decided to overlap for fun.”
I hate how normal he manages to make that sound.
Vale rubs a hand over his mouth and winces immediately when it catches the split in his lip. “I don’t know.”
I say, “But why now?”
All three of them look at me.
The question sounds too simple in the room, but I mean it. If he’s alive, if he didn’t die in that fire, if he’s been somewhere all these years, then why now? Why come out of the dark tonight,outside my building, when everything else is already breaking open?
Vale answers first. “I don’t know.” He sounds angry at himself for that.
Havoc tilts his head. “Could be he’s been around longer than you think.”
Vale looks at him. “I’d have known.”
“Would you?”
Vale hesitates.
I say, “Could he be the one behind the contract?”
“No,” Knox says immediately.
Vale says, at the same time, “I don’t think so.”
I look at them both.
Knox straightens slightly. “That level of surveillance takes planning. Money. Structure.”
Vale nods once. “My father wasn’t structured. He was cruel. There’s a difference.”
Knox says, “We need to know whether Voss knew.”
Vale looks at him. “About my father?”
