My Omega Returned to Burn It Down novel · Chapter 2 of 21

Chapter 2: What the Advocate Remembers

Rafe Denholm corners Alex in the tribunal lobby to defend his role in the exile, but Alex deflects the prepared speech by asking for a notary recommendation, then in the elevator receives a message from Petra warning that Sung-min's procedure window has narrowed to forty-two days and that she has found something in his file.

Rafe Denholm stepped directly into Alex's path before the elevator doors could open. The two junior clerks flanking him carried armloads of binders and the particular stiffness of people who had been told to stand somewhere and not speak.

Alex stopped walking. He did not step back. Rafe was close enough that Alex could see the small scar above his left eyebrow, the one he had gotten during a juvenile pack hunt when they were both still young enough to think the forest was a friend.

'Alex,' Rafe said. He said it warmly, the way a man says the name of someone he is about to disappoint. 'I heard you were back. I wanted to find you before anyone else did.'

That was a lie. Rafe had been standing near the security desk for the past ten minutes, pretending to review a document while watching the main doors. Alex had seen him through the glass before he even came inside.

'You found me,' Alex said.

The two clerks exchanged a look. One of them shifted the binders in his arms.

Rafe's smile held. It was a good smile. It had been a good smile three years ago, when he had stood in front of the tribunal and argued procedural violations on Alex's behalf for four days straight, his voice hoarse by the end, his collar unbuttoned, sweat darkening the back of his shirt. Alex remembered that. He remembered the exact way Rafe had looked at him when the verdict came down, like a man watching a house burn and already calculating what the insurance would cover.

'I want you to understand something,' Rafe said. 'The physical evidence was certified by two independent examiners, Alex. I did everything the process allowed. I am not the one who put it there.'

He delivered it like a closing argument. He had probably practiced it. Maybe in the car on the way over. Maybe in front of a mirror.

Alex let the words settle. The lobby was bright with midday sun through the high windows, and the marble floor threw the light back up at their faces. A few people passed behind them, pack members in suits and dresses, and every one of them slowed to look at the omega standing in the middle of the lobby with gold light still faintly visible at his pulse points.

'Thank you,' Alex said.

Rafe's smile flickered. Not much. Just enough.

'Thank you,' Alex repeated, and this time he let his voice carry a little, the way a man thanks a clerk who has been helpful. 'That must have been difficult to arrange. The certification. Two independent examiners is not easy to secure on short notice.'

Rafe's jaw tightened. 'It was not short notice. The process was followed exactly as written.'

'Of course,' Alex said. 'Then I won't keep you. But since you're here, and since you know the building, perhaps you can recommend a notary. A good one. Someone who can authenticate a document chain without asking too many questions.'

Rafe blinked. The clerks behind him went very still.

'A notary,' Rafe said.

'For a holding company,' Alex said. 'A routine matter. I'd handle it through my own people, but I'm still getting reacquainted with the city. You understand.'

Rafe's eyes narrowed. He was trying to find the trap in the question. But there was no trap. Alex needed a notary, and Rafe had just spent three years building a career on knowing every procedural detail in this building. It would have been wasteful not to ask.

'Marta Ellison,' Rafe said finally. 'Fourth floor. She's thorough and she doesn't gossip.'

'Marta Ellison,' Alex repeated. He made a note of it on his phone, slowly, while Rafe watched. 'Thank you, Rafe. That's genuinely helpful.'

Rafe stood there for a moment longer, as if waiting for something else. The argument. The accusation. The moment where Alex would finally crack open and give him something to defend against. But Alex only smiled, that same ambiguous smile from the steps outside, and stepped around him toward the elevator.

The doors opened. Alex walked in and turned to face the lobby. Rafe was still standing where Alex had left him, the two clerks flanking him like witnesses to a verdict that had already been delivered.

The doors closed.

And the lobby was gone, and Rafe was gone, and Alex was alone in the mirrored box of the elevator with the faint gold glow still burning at his wrists.

He let the smile drop.

Not all at once. It faded slowly, like a light dimming, and what was left underneath was something harder and more tired. He had known Rafe would come. He had known the speech before Rafe opened his mouth, because it was the same speech every one of them would give. I did everything the process allowed. I am not the one who put it there.

The two independent examiners. Both contracted through Gideon's office. Alex had not known that three years ago. He knew it now. It had taken eleven months of quiet work to trace the contracts, and the answer had been sitting in a file folder in his study at two in the morning, and he had sat there with a glass of water and let the rage move through him like weather.

Three years gone.

And Rafe had just stood there in the lobby and said the words out loud, as if Alex would not know what they meant. As if the certification was a shield instead of a confession.

Rafe had named a notary. Marta Ellison, fourth floor. That was useful. Alex needed the document chain authenticated for the next move on the holding company, and he had been planning to spend a day finding someone who would not ask questions. Now he had a name, and the name came from Rafe's own mouth, and Rafe would walk away from this conversation believing he had closed it.

He had not closed anything. He had handed Alex a key.

Alex's phone buzzed.

He looked down at the screen. The elevator hummed upward, and the gold thread at his wrist pulsed once, bright, as if the bond itself had felt the shift in him.

The message was from Petra.

'Sung-min's procedure window is now forty-two days. Come to The Liminal when you can. I found something in his file you need to see.'

Alex read it twice.

Forty-two days. The number sat in his chest like a stone. He had known the window was closing, but he had not known it had narrowed this far. The Oslo clinic would not hold the slot forever. And Petra did not send messages like this unless the thing she had found was something he needed to see with his own eyes.

The elevator chimed.

Alex looked up at the doors, and the gold light flared at his throat, and somewhere in the building below him the alpha was still standing in the lobby, still waiting for an answer that would not come.

The doors opened.

Alex stepped out into the corridor, and the thread pulled hard toward the floor, toward the lobby, toward Caspian, and he let it pull.

He did not move toward it.

He turned away from the elevator and walked down the corridor, the phone still in his hand, the message still open, the countdown already running in his head like a second heart.

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