My Omega Returned to Burn It Down novel · Chapter 3 of 21

Chapter 3: Yellow Coat, No Mercy

At The Liminal, Petra shows Alex Sung-min's accelerated decline and the ten-day deadline for the Oslo deposit, then overrules Caspian when he tracks the bond thread there and demands answers; after Caspian leaves, Alex watches him through the window and hears the bond pull hard, and outside Caspian quietly orders an investigation into who owns the tribunal building.

Petra slid Sung-min's updated file across the desk before Alex had taken off his coat.

He had not even sat down. The door of The Liminal had barely closed behind him, the brass bell still settling, and there was the file, already turned to face him, already open to the page she wanted him to see.

'Read the third line,' Petra said.

She was wearing sunflower yellow. A long yellow coat over a yellow blouse, yellow trousers, yellow shoes with a low heel. The whole room seemed to lean away from her, as if the color itself was a kind of warning.

Alex took the file. He did not sit. He read the third line, and the third line was a number, and the number was not the one he had been holding in his head.

'It accelerated,' Petra said. 'The decline. The Oslo clinic reviewed the latest scans. They need the deposit wired within ten days or the slot goes to the next patient on the list.'

Alex set the file down on the desk. He did it carefully, the way he did everything now, and he kept his face still.

Ten days.

Not forty-two. Ten.

'How much is the deposit,' he said.

Petra told him.

It was more than he could liquidate without moving money through channels that would light up on Gideon's desk within the hour. He had known the procedure would be expensive. He had not known the clinic would demand this much this fast.

'There is another patient,' Petra said. 'A Norwegian industrialist's son. They are holding the slot for Sung-min as a courtesy to me, but courtesy has a shelf life.'

Alex looked at the file again. The numbers were black on white, and they did not care about courtesy.

'You said you found something in his file,' he said. 'Something I need to see.'

Petra did not answer immediately. She picked up her clipboard and flipped a page, and for a moment the only sound in the room was the scratch of her pen.

'That can wait,' she said. 'The deposit cannot.'

Alex opened his mouth.

The door opened.

The bell rang, sharp and bright, and the gold thread at Alex's wrist snapped toward the doorway so hard that his whole arm jerked before he locked it still.

Caspian Wren stood in the entrance of the clinic.

He was wearing a dark suit, white shirt, the silver pocket watch chain glinting against his chest. His face was composed, but his eyes found Alex immediately, and something in them flared before he banked it.

'The bond,' Caspian said. 'It led me here.'

Petra did not look up from her clipboard.

'I'm in the middle of a consultation, Alpha Wren,' she said. 'You can wait outside or you can leave.'

Caspian's jaw tightened. He stepped fully into the room, and the thread at Alex's throat blazed gold, and Alex stood absolutely still and let it burn.

'Alex,' Caspian said. 'What are you doing in Ironveil. I ordered you to leave.'

Petra turned a page.

'Patient consultations are confidential,' she said. 'This is a licensed, pack-neutral wellness clinic. That means neutral, Alpha. Not neutral unless the alpha walks in.'

Caspian looked at her. It was the look that made enforcers step back and council members find reasons to be elsewhere.

Petra met it over the top of her clipboard.

'I have patients who need this room,' she said. 'Do you have a medical complaint, or are you here to loom?'

Alex watched Caspian's hands. They were still at his sides. The right one twitched once, toward the pocket watch, and stopped.

So he tracked the thread here.

That meant Caspian was running his own surveillance. Not pack surveillance, not through Rafe. His own. The bond thread was visible to everyone, but triangulating it to an address required equipment, or a tracker, or hours of patient observation.

Alex filed that away and said nothing.

'I will wait,' Caspian said, and his voice had dropped to that low, steady register that commanded attention. 'Outside.'

'Good,' Petra said.

Caspian turned. He looked at Alex once more, and the thread pulled, and Alex let it pull. He did not move. He did not lower his eyes.

Caspian walked out.

The door closed behind him. The bell rang once, and the room went quiet again.

Petra set down her clipboard.

'You want to tell me why the pack alpha just followed a glowing thread to my clinic,' she said.

'No,' Alex said.

'Good. I don't want to know.' She picked up Sung-min's file and held it out. 'Take this. Read it tonight. The deposit is the urgent thing. Ten days, Alex. I can stall the clinic for maybe three more, but not past that.'

Alex took the file. It was heavier than it should have been.

He walked to the window.

Caspian was on the pavement outside. He stood at the curb, hands in his pockets, and he did not get into the black car idling at the kerb. He just stood there, looking back at the clinic, and for a moment his face was not composed at all.

He looked lost.

The gold thread at Alex's wrist pulled hard, toward the window, toward the street, toward Caspian, and Alex felt the burn all the way up his arm and into his chest. He did not flinch.

He watched Caspian take out his phone.

He watched him make a call.

And the thread blazed, and the pull was so strong that for one second Alex felt his own weight shift, felt the bond trying to drag him through the glass and down to the pavement and into the orbit of the man who had thrown him away.

He planted his feet.

On the street, Caspian's voice was too low to hear, but Alex could see his lips move, could see the quiet, deliberate shape of the words.

'Find out who owns the tribunal building. I want the full chain of title.'

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