Chapter 67 His Confession
The compound had a different atmosphere at three in the morning.
The guards remained on duty, and the enforcers still patrolled the hallways with the same acute efficiency that characterized Vince's territory. However, the vibrant energy of the day had faded into a quieter and more genuine backdrop, revealing the stark reality of what the place was: a stronghold created by a man who believed survival demanded fortifications and who had continued to build them relentlessly.
I sat on the floor of my suite, leaning against the bed, still dressed in my gown. Changing into something else felt like a form of self-care that I lacked the energy for after the events of the night. The dark green fabric spread around me on the shiny floor, and the sigils on my arms still felt warm in the cool air of the room.
Three wolves had lost their lives at that speakeasy.
Two were Vince's enforcers—men I didn’t know by name but recognized from passing them in the compound during the past three weeks—individuals who had performed their roles with quiet competence, fully aware of the dangerous life they had chosen and its accompanying risks.
Their deaths were a consequence of my presence.
There was a light knock at my suite door, soft enough that a typical person might not have heard it, reflecting the courtesy of someone who understood that the late hour required a different tone than the daytime's directness.
"Come in," I said, remaining on the floor.
Vince entered and leaned against the door frame, still dressed for the evening but minus his jacket. His shirt's top buttons were undone, and the blood—though not his own—had dried in a dark line on his forearm, evidence of his haste to leave it uncleaned.
He scanned the room, taking in the scene: the floor, my gown, and my position against the bed, observing it all without any pretense.
"You're sitting on the floor," he remarked.
"Yes," I replied.
He walked across the room and lowered himself to the floor beside me, resting his back against the bed and stretching his legs in front of him. His movements reflected a calm decision to be there, showing no desire to make the moment into a discussion.
The silence that enveloped us was different from the usual silences in the compound, which were loaded with managed distance and the formality we both upheld. This silence felt rawer and significantly heavier, the two of us sitting on the floor at three in the morning, stripped of the usual barriers, too exhausted to rebuild any social decorum after the events of the evening.
"How many times has this happened?" I asked. "Attacks in places you thought were secure."
"Four times in the last eight months," he answered, "before you arrived."
"And since I came?"
"Tonight was the first direct attempt," he confirmed. "The ambush in the shipping district three weeks back was just a test of territory. Tonight was specifically aimed."
"They targeted the room I was in," I stated.
"Yes."
"Which means your deterrent strategy backfired," I noted, striving to keep my tone flat rather than accusatory, understanding that the implication was clear enough without raising the heat of the moment. "Making me visible only revealed my location instead of deterring them."
His jaw clenched. "The intelligence error occurred before the decision for visibility. Someone within the network leaked the route information before I authorized tonight's operation."
"Rafael is on it," I said.
"Rafael has been on it since the vehicle incident," Vince responded, his tone conveying that Rafael was already making significant progress, employing effective methods to extract information from reluctant sources—methods I preferred not to scrutinize too closely.
I turned to face him, the intimacy of the floor eliminating the formalities of previous discussions conducted at the war room's table, allowing a rare and honest exchange.
"The two enforcers," I asked. "What were their names?"
Something shifted in his expression, indicating the weight of the question. "Caruso and Metz," he said. "Caruso had been with me for six years. Metz joined the territory eight months ago from a collapsed border pack."
"Did they have families?"
"Caruso had a brother in the southern territories," Vince replied. "I will reach out to him before morning."
"You handle that personally," I said, the surprise evident in my voice. "You make those calls yourself."
"Every time," he confirmed, and his straightforwardness altered my perception of him—a powerful High Alpha who ran his territory with strict authority, yet took it upon himself to deliver the news of each death resulting from his decisions. This weight contrasted starkly with the unwavering authority that typically defined him.
"That must be awful," I murmured.
"It is necessary," he stated, then paused, the weight of his words settling in. "And yes, it is terrible."
The sounds of the compound at night surrounded us: the distant patter of guards, low radio chatter from the operations floor two levels down, and the creaking of the old building adjusting to the cooling temperature before dawn. Vince sat beside me on the floor, blood dried on his forearm and the names of those he had lost fresh on his lips, yet he made no attempt to create the distance that the night had stripped away.
"Vince," I said.
"Yes."
"Why did you look at me first when you returned through that corridor? Before acknowledging anything else in the room, you looked at me first."
My query lingered in the quiet of the suite, and Vince turned his head, meeting my eyes with his characteristic directness—the trait that defined him in every circumstance I had observed. He never shied away from the truth, even when avoidance would have been easier.
"You know why," he replied.
"I want to hear you say it."
His gaze held mine—heavy with significance, suggesting he was weighing a decision rather than merely calculating. The difference between those two actions was one I had learned to discern in the weeks I had spent with him.
"Because the operational scenario loses its meaning if you are not part of it," he declared, his words carefully chosen as if he had considered their impact before speaking them. "Every border I defend, every pact I uphold, every tactical decision I make—it all aims to prevent a specific result. You are that result. So yes, I looked at you first."
"That is the most politically charged expression of concern I’ve ever encountered," I retorted.
A genuine, fleeting smile crossed his face—a rarity absent from the war room. "I am a political man," he chuckled.
"You are," I acknowledged. "But there’s more beneath that."
He gazed at me for a long moment, the smile fading but the sincerity that had prompted it lingering on his face, devoid of any façade or distance, even at three in the morning, with the gown still on the floor and the names of his fallen enforcers echoing between us.
"Beneath that," he said softly, "I am just a man who looked at you first."
The admission filled the room with the weight of an unspoken truth that had been building since our encounter at the Black Howl Market—the stone floor, the chains, and the ice-blue eyes that had assessed me rather than desired, except that the assessment had evidently been conducting a deeper evaluation all along, one that transcended bloodlines and political stability.
I looked away, needing to gather my composure. Beside me, I sensed Vince exhale, the breath of someone who had just voiced a truth and now faced the consequences of that openness.
"About your enforcers' families," I redirected, seeking solid ground again, knowing the earlier topic was one we were both ill-equipped to navigate. "What happens after you contact Caruso's brother?"
"The territory provides," he stated, transitioning back to the operational mindset without hesitation, both recognizing its importance. "Housing, income, pack protection. Everyone who dies in my territory leaves something for those they leave behind."
"You established that framework," I noted.
"My father didn't have one," he replied. "I saw what that resulted in."
I regarded him once more, realizing this was a man who personally reaches out to families, ensures financial support for the deceased, and sits on floors at three in the morning with a woman he bought at an illegal auction. I began to grasp that the absolute authority Rafael labeled as a flaw in Vince was far more intricate than it initially appeared—he placed order above consent not out of indifference, but from a painful understanding of the costs of disorder.
"Go contact Caruso’s brother," I urged.
He stood up, his movements suggesting a return to his responsibilities, something he would have likely preferred to delay. At the suite door, he paused, hand resting on the frame, and turned back to me.
"Lock this," he instructed.
"The guards are right outside," I replied.
"Lock it anyway," he insisted, his tone carrying the weight of a man recently vulnerable who was now reconstructing the distance needed to manage the remainder of the night, doing so for his own sake rather than from political obligation.
Once he departed, I secured the door and settled back on the floor in the dark green gown. The sounds of the compound filled the stillness around me, and below in the building, Vince was picking up the phone to inform a man in the southern territories that his brother would not be returning home. I reflected, understanding that the world’s response to my presence had necessitated that call, yet the man making it had looked at me first.