Page 77 of Knot in the Wedding Cards

I make the call.

They arrive fast enough to give themselves away. Cade claims he happened to be on Bellflower Lane. August says nothing at all, which is how I know Cade is lying. Beckett comes through the door, sees Sawyer standing at my shoulder, and goes rigid across the whole width of his back.

I’m coming to realize that Cade really dislikes Sawyer’s existence, Beckett is clearly tolerating it, and August? I actually can’t tell if he’s enjoying the potential of competition.

Then they catch my scent — the sharp hurt of it under the citrus — and the jealousy is as easy to read as all of their scents: Beckett’s Cedar and cold rain rise off him before he pins them down. August's pear and sage go crisp as cut stems. Cade's caramel sours toward smoke.

Not one of them touches me.

"Do you want us here?" Beckett asks.

I hand him the notice.

"Today, yes."

I watch that land in all three of them at once, and I do not have the room in me right now to feel what it does.

They read it shoulder to shoulder, interrupting each other the way they used to over blueprints.

Beckett goes straight at the deadline — travel time, notarization, when the clerk's window opens. August reads the allegations. I watch him find the details my mother knew. I watch him go quiet in the specific way that frightens me more than noise. Cade reads the legal phrasing twice.

"I've seen this shape before," Cade says. "This is Whitlock House language. It's the clause structure they use to leash contracted Omegas and celebrity staff." He sets the page down, careful. "Alistair's not trying to shut you down, Amber. A closed company he can't touch. He's building a fire you can only walk out of through a door he's holding open."

"Priya found one door." I put the support-unit form on the table.

Beckett reads the requirement. His frown deepens by a degree. August takes it from him and checks the wording himself, because that is what August does now instead of trusting the room. Cade reads it over August's shoulder.

"Four," Cade says for clarification.

"Not including me," I answer.

The silence that settles is a very particular one. It's the sound of three men who have spent five years believing they are the central catastrophe of my life, discovering that a government form has looked at them and found them numerically insufficient.

Cade opens his mouth.

"You know, I've been insulted by a lot of institutions, but?—"

Nobody laughs.

Then, nearly in unison, all three of them turn and look at Sawyer.

He's leaning against the edge of my desk, arms loosely folded, far too composed for a man who has just become the fourth point of a very complicated shape. And I remember what he said yesterday, easy as weather — that his pack was in Honeybell Harbor, that they could help if I got buried.

"You have a pack," I say.

Something moves across his face. Not pain, exactly. Something older, and much better rehearsed.

"I have one on paper."

I wait.

He gives one shoulder a small shrug, as if the answer weighs nothing, while the bourbon in his scent goes quietly darker and says otherwise.

"I haven't been with them in five years."

The room goes still.

Wait…what?