Chapter 48 – An Order to Obey (Damian’s POV)
I hadn’t meant to eavesdrop. Not much. But I’d followed Ivy’s scent to Elias’s study and caught that last shard of conversation—the word oath, the name Iris—and the floor of my certainty had shifted.
“I need a minute with Ivy,” I told Elias, not taking my eyes off her. “Alone.”
Elias read the air the way only he could; he rose, dipped a nod that felt like behave, and slipped out, leaving the ledger and a weight in the room.
Ivy folded the thin page and slid it into the pocket of her blazer, chin up, eyes iced over. That defensiveness cut me, because I’d earned it.
“Don’t look at me like I’m a loaded gun,” I said, quietly.
“You are a loaded gun.” She folded her arms. “What do you want, Damian?”
I wanted to tell her I’d run the woods this morning until the ghosts shut up; that I’d stood in the clearing where her friend had died and felt something like shame eat through me. What I said was, “Two things.”
I held up a finger. “One: training. Sierra’s taking point. You’ll listen.” I could see the retort forming and cut it off with a raised hand. “Not because I say so. Because I don’t want your body writing checks your control can’t cash.”
“That’s adorable,” she said. “You caring about my self-control.”
“I care about you not cracking in the wrong room,” I said, sharper than planned. “If you’re going to run, at least learn to sprint.”
Something flickered in her eyes—guilt, or fury, or a private plan. I didn’t press. The second finger lifted. “Two: Ethan Sanfield.”
She blinked. “The cop.”
“The one who shot me point-blank with silver,” I said. “Who shouldn’t have known silver mattered. Which means someone’s talking to someone, and that chain has to break.”
I paced, a caged rhythm. “Jameson—our old liaison—used to be a firewall. He’s gone quiet. I’m going to find him, and I’m going to understand what’s really going on.”
“And you’re telling me why?” she asked. Silence rang hard. She breathed once, twice, like a diver surfacing; then her chin levelled. “What do you need me to do?”
The question took a beat to land. “I—” I hadn’t expected compliance. Not from her. “Help Sierra. Help yourself. Keep your eyes open.”
“And if I see a badge where it doesn’t belong?” she asked.
“Call it in,” I said. “To me.”
She laughed, low and bitter. “To the man I’m planning to betray.”
There it was. Clean, on the table. It should have made me colder; instead the honesty almost relieved me. I stepped closer, slowly, until we were two breaths apart.
“Then betray me when you’re strong enough to walk away standing,” I said. “Not when you’re easy to cut down.”
Ivy didn’t back up. Those eyes—the colour of storm water right before lightning—searched my face for an angle. “You don’t get to be magnanimous, Damian.”
“I’m not. I’m selfish,” I said softly. “I want you alive.”
The words hung between us, indecent in their nakedness. I reached up, intending to touch her cheek and thought better of it. My hand found the doorframe instead.
“Training starts at sun-up,” I said, the Alpha clicking back into place. “Sierra will run you until you hate him. That’s the point.”
“You always delegate the hard part?” she asked, chin lifting, but some of the acid had leaked from her tone.
“I’ll be on the grounds,” I said. “Watching.”
Her nostrils flared. She knew what that meant—my eyes on her form, my approval withheld until earned, the terrible intimacy of being seen by the person you’re planning to ruin.
We stood there, caught in a thread I couldn’t name. Then she left—cleanly, like a blade pulled from a wound.
Sierra slid in a beat later, all wolf and grin, then clocked my face and filed the smirk away. “Alpha.”
“Report,” I said.
“Jameson’s phone is dark,” he said, back straight. “Not dead. Parked. Feels like he shelved his life and walked off stage.”
“Which means someone told him to,” I muttered. “Keep digging. Talk to the bar owner on Dauphine, the one who used to fix Jameson’s busted knuckles. He’ll know where the bones are buried.”
“Copy.” He hesitated. “And the girl?”
“Run her,” I said. “But watch for the slip. She’s got a second gear she doesn’t know about.”
Sierra’s eyes brightened. He loved a puzzle. “Any lines you don’t want crossed?”
“The ones that break her,” I said without thinking. Sierra’s brows rose. I rolled a shoulder. “Push. Don’t shatter.”
“Understood.” He shifted his weight, then added slyly, “You going to tell me why you smell like her shampoo?”
“Get out,” I said, but my mouth betrayed me with the ghost of a smile.
He went, laughter echoing down the hall. I moved to the window and watched fog burn off the training yard.
A soft rasp behind me—Elias again. “You told her about Ethan?” he asked.
“I did,” I said. “I’m done treating her like a civilian.”
“Good,” he said. Then, after a beat: “Bad.”
I arched a brow.
“You can’t save her and own her in the same breath,” he said. “Choose.”
“I already did,” I said, and let him make of that what he would.
He studied me a long moment, then nodded once, like a man lighting a candle and setting it on a windowsill. “Then be ready to pay.”
“For what?”
“For whatever she chooses when you finally let her.”
He left me with that. I stood there holding it, feeling the day sharpen around its edge.
My phone buzzed. A text from an unknown number: You keep your pets on too short a leash, Alpha. A photo followed—grainy, night-vision green: the back gate of our estate, timestamped two hours ago. A figure in a hood stood just beyond the fence.
My stomach dropped. The caption: She’s prettier up close.
I didn’t have to ask who she was.
Matteo fucking Deveraux was watching!