Haven's POV
I sat there for a long moment, the phone still pressed to my ear, listening to the dial tone as if it could somehow conjure her back. The silence of my office was now a mocking void.
Fuck. I love her so much.
The thought was a prayer and a curse. It was the fuel for my obsession and the source of my damnation. That single, phone call, with its silly, heartfelt chaos, had reforged my resolve with white-hot intensity.
Emara Sinclair, Marcus Riggs and the five Idiots, the doctor, the entire world they were all just obstacles. Annoyances to be removed from the path that led me back to her. Back to the home I had built, to the wife I had molded, to the future we would now create.
I stood up, the movement sharp and decisive. The warehouse awaited. There was a man there who knew things that could hurt her. And I was going to make sure he never spoke a word of it to anyone. Ever.
For Althea. For our child. For our forever.
It was all for her.
The drive to the industrial sector was a descent into a different kind of silence. The tailored, perfumed quiet of my office was replaced by the hollow, echoing silence of concrete and steel. This was the underbelly, the machinery that kept the glittering facade of my world polished and intact. I owned this warehouse through seven shell companies, a ghost in the system. A perfect place for ghosts to be interrogated.
Chen met me at a side door, her face a mask of impassive efficiency. "He's ready. He's been prepped."
I didn't answer. Words were currency I didn't waste here. A nod was all he needed. The door opened into darkness, and I stepped inside.
The air was cold, smelling of damp concrete, rust, and a sharper, more organic scent fear. It was a smell I knew intimately. It was the scent of resistance before it broke.
In the center of the vast space, under a single hanging work light that cast a stark, unforgiving circle, sat Marcus Riggs. He was tied to a metal chair, his posture slumped. Bruises bloomed like ugly flowers on his face, one eye swollen shut, his lip split and crusted with dried blood. He'd been softened up. But the real work, the work that required my particular touch, was just beginning.
He wasn't looking at me as I walked into the light. He was staring, with a kind of horrified fixation, at the small table placed directly in front of him.
On it were photographs.
Not of crime scenes or financial records. Photographs of her.
The one from our wedding, her face tipped back in laughter, a smear of frosting on her cheek as I fed her cake. A candid shot I'd taken last month, her asleep in the library window seat, a book sliding from her fingers, sunlight turning her hair to molten gold. The picture from the carnival, her features alight with savage, sauce-smeared triumph. And others, older ones, ones he should never have laid eyes on. Althea on stage at Carnegie Hall, a queen in a black gown, commanding utter silence before the first note. Althea in the Vale family garden, looking out at the roses with a quiet, profound sadness from a time I couldn't reach, a time when she was already slipping away from me.
They had made him look at her. They had made him stare at the reason for his suffering, the celestial body whose gravity had pulled him into this crushing orbit.
I stopped just outside the circle of light, letting him feel my presence before he saw me. His good eye flickered, then widened in dawning terror as it found me in the shadows.
I didn't look at him. My gaze was on the photographs. On her face. Each image was a chapel in the cathedral of my obsession, and he had defiled them with his gaze. A cold, clean fury began to burn behind my ribs, hotter and more focused than any anger I'd ever felt in a boardroom.
"Marcus Riggs," I said. My voice didn't echo. It was absorbed by the darkness, a low, intimate thing that carried in the stillness. "You've been admiring my wife."
He flinched as if struck. "I… I didn't… the job was just a job…"
"A job," I repeated, taking a slow step into the light. I picked up the Carnegie Hall photograph, my gloved fingers careful on the edge. "To kidnap her. To extract her from my life. To take this…" I tapped the image. "And deliver it to people who would break her, or worse, discard her. You looked at this, and you saw a payday."
"It wasn't personal!" he choked out, the words garbled by his swollen lip.
"Everything concerning Althea Vale is personal to me." I set the photo down and picked up the carnival picture. Her joy was a physical force, even in print. "You see this? This is what you tried to take from the world. This laughter. This light. You and your team of idiots thought you could snuff it out for a paycheck from Eman Sinclair who whoever big organization you have." I leaned down, bringing the photograph close to his ruined face. "Look at it. Look at what you failed to destroy."
Tears, mingled with blood and snot, tracked down his cheeks. He tried to turn his head, but Chen, a silent specter behind him, placed a hand on his shoulder, holding him in place.
"I'm sorry," he sobbed, the words meaningless, animal.
"Sorry is an emotion for the weak. It changes nothing." I straightened up, placing the photo back with reverence. "What I require from you isn't sorrow, Marcus. It's information. You are a link in a chain. I need you to give me the next link. The one who hired you directly. Not Sinclair. The intermediary. The voice on the phone. The one who gave you the specifics of where she would be, when she would be alone, what car she drove."
He shook his head, a pathetic, frantic motion. "I don't know a name! It was encrypted! Burner phones! Cash drops!"
I sighed, a sound of profound boredom. "Marcus. You are a professional. Professionals have contingencies. They have insurance. A recording. A screenshot. A forgotten email in a drafts folder. Something. You knew the risks of working for a Sinclair. You would have kept something."
"I swear, I have nothing!"
I looked past him, into the deeper darkness beyond the circle of light. "Bring them in."
The shadows stirred. Chen gave a sharp signal. From the void, two of my security personnel emerged, each dragging a bound, hooded figure. They were thrown to their knees on the cold concrete with twin, meaty thuds just outside the circle of light, flanking Riggs's chair. A third figure was forced to stand, swaying, between them. The standing one's hood was ripped off first.
Leo Finch. The logistics man. His face was pale, slick with sweat, his eyes darting wildly from Riggs to me to the surrounding darkness, not yet comprehending the full scope of his nightmare. The hoods were torn from the other two. Silas Thorne, surveillance, his technician's hands trembling visibly. The third man who recently got caught, whose name I hadn't bothered to learn the driver or whatever, perhaps. They were all here. The team.
Riggs's breathing hitched, a wet, ragged sound. "No… Haven, please…"
"Please?" I echoed, moving to stand before Leo Finch. I studied his face, a bland, forgettable canvas now painted with terror. "You were the architect of the capture logistics. You selected the van, the route, the secondary extraction points. You planned the physical removal of my wife from her life. From my life."
I didn't raise my voice. The calm was more terrifying. I saw the realization dawn in his eyes the understanding that I knew not just what they did, but the granular detail of how they intended to do it. He had been studied.
From inside my coat, I drew a pistol a sleek, matte black thing with a suppressor already threaded to the barrel. The click of the safety disengaging was a tiny, definitive sound in the vast silence.
"Your plan had a flaw," I said, my gaze locked on his. "You."
I didn't aim for his head. Not yet. I lowered the muzzle and fired twice in quick succession.
Phut. Phut.
The shots were muffled, wet punches. Leo Finch screamed, a high, shredded sound that tore through the warehouse as he collapsed forward onto his face. The bullets had shattered both his kneecaps. He writhed on the concrete, his screams dissolving into agonized, guttural sobs, hands clutching at the ruins of his joints as dark blood began to pool rapidly beneath him, looking like spilled oil in the low light.
"Look at him, Marcus," I instructed, my voice still that terrible, composed murmur. "Watch the consequence of failure. Watch the cost of touching what is mine."
Riggs was weeping openly, his body straining against the ropes, his chemically-dilated eyes wide with an horror that transcended fear. It was the horror of watching a universe of pain open up, knowing your turn was coming.
I took two steps and stood over Finch. He was gulping air, his face a mask of snot and tears and unimaginable pain, his eyes pleading upward. I saw his lips form the word 'please'.
I shot him in the head.
Phut.
The sound was final. A third, quieter hole appeared in his forehead. His body jerked once and then settled into the grotesque, sudden stillness of the dead. The sobbing ceased. The only sounds were Riggs's ragged breathing and the low, helpless whimpers coming from the other two living idiots.
I turned slowly, the pistol hanging loosely at my side. My eyes found Silas Thorne next. He flinched as if struck already, a low moan escaping him.
"Silas," I said, as if greeting an acquaintance. "You were the eyes. The one who tracked her movements, who studied her patterns, who identified the vulnerabilities in my security. You fed the information that made the snatch possible. You turned my wife into a set of data points."
"Was just… just following orders…" he whispered, the words trembling out of him.
"There are no orders here. Only accountability." I raised the pistol again.
I shot him in the right shoulder.
Phut.
He cried out, stumbling back a step, his left hand flying to the wound as blood seeped through his fingers. It was a deliberate shot, non-fatal, exquisitely painful. He was panting, tears streaming down his face, waiting for the end he knew was coming.
"For every day you spent watching her," I said, taking a single step closer, "for every moment of her peace you violated with your lens, for every private smile you logged as a tactical opportunity."
I placed the muzzle of the pistol against the center of his chest, over his heart. He looked into my eyes, and in that final second, he saw the absolute void there. The complete absence of mercy, of humanity, of anything but a cold, possessive fire.
Phut.
The shot was a dull thud. Silas Thorne's body folded backwards, collapsing onto the concrete beside the still-warm corpse of Leo Finch. A final sigh escaped his lungs.
The warehouse was a temple of death now. The coppery scent of blood mixed with the smell of voided bowels, overwhelming the scent of concrete and rust. The third man was hyperventilating, dry-heaving onto the floor between his dead comrades.
I walked back to Marcus Riggs, stepping over the expanding pool of Finch's blood without a glance. I stopped in front of him, close enough that he could smell the faint, acrid scent of gunpowder on me. His whole body was trembling so violently the metal chair legs chattered against the floor.
"You see, Marcus," I said, my voice a soft, intimate caress in the carnage. "I don't need the serum yet. I have other methods. I have all night. And I have three more examples to make before we even get to you." I gestured with the pistol towards the surviving man. "Shall we continue? Or would you prefer to give me what I want, and spare your remaining crew the spectacle?"
It was a lie, of course. They were all dying tonight. Every single one of them. But hope, even false hope, was a potent lubricant for the tongue.
"NO!" Riggs screamed, the sound torn from his soul. "Stop! Please, stop! I'll tell you! I'll tell you everything!"
I tilted my head, the picture of mild curiosity. "The intermediary. The contact."
He was babbling, the words tumbling out in a frantic, desperate river. "The phone number! It's a Swiss forwarding service! The voice, it was a woman! Cultured, calm, spoke like a goddamn librarian! She called Althea 'the asset'! Said she was a 'liability in need of reconciliation'! She knew things her schedule, her security rotation, her… her favorite brand of tea! She said it would make the sedation easier if we used it!"
The white-hot rage ignited again, a silent supernova behind my eyes. Her favorite tea. A detail from our kitchen. From our quiet mornings. This wasn't corporate espionage. This was a violation of our sanctum.
"A code name," I pressed, my voice hardening. "Something. Anything."
He was sobbing, snot and tears dripping onto his chest. "She said… she said if anything went wrong, to tell… to tell 'the shepherd' that 'the blackbird flew.' That's all! I swear on my life! That's everything!"
The shepherd. The blackbird flew.
A thread. A name. It was enough. It was a target.
"Thank you, Marcus," I said, my voice returning to that terrifying softness. "You've been moderately helpful."
A wild, insane hope flared in his destroyed face. "The others… you'll let the others go? You got what you wanted!"
I looked past him to Chen, who stood as still as a statue in the shadows. I gave a slight nod towards the third, sobbing man.
Chen moved. A blade flashed in the low light, quick and professional. The man's gurgling cries were cut short, replaced by a wet, sighing sound as he slumped to the floor.
Riggs made a noise like a wounded animal.
I leaned down, bringing my lips close to his ear, my voice a whisper of absolute finality. "Let you go? You looked at photographs of her joy and plotted to extinguish it. You don't get to go anywhere, Marcus. You get to be a message. A receipt. Delivered to whoever sent you."
I straightened up. The pistol felt heavy, a tool that had served its immediate purpose. I ejected the magazine, cleared the chamber, and handed the clean weapon to Chen. I looked at the scene the three bodies cooling on the concrete, the broken man in the chair, the photographs of my radiant, innocent wife staring serenely at the slaughter done in her name.
The cognitive dissonance should have shattered me. It didn't. It felt perfectly aligned. This was the necessary shadow cast by the light she brought into my world. You cannot have one without the other.
"Compensate the families connected to Silas and Leo Finch," I said to Chen, my tone now that of a CEO giving a quarterly directive. "Substantially. Anonymous trust. Ensure they want for nothing material, for the rest of their lives."
Chen nodded, her tablet already in hand. "Acknowledged. And the other three?" She meant the remaining two idiots from the team, whose bodies were likely in another part of the warehouse, and Riggs himself.
I glanced at Riggs, who was staring into the middle distance, his mind perhaps finally breaking under the weight. "We can wait for their turn," I said, the words cold and deliberate. "Until everything is known. Process them. Send the message to the appropriate channels. The shepherd should know the blackbird has claws."
"Understood."
I didn't look back. I turned and walked into the darkness, leaving the circle of light, the photographs, the corpses, and the ruined man behind. The sounds of efficient, grim cleanup began as I reached the door the rustle of heavy plastic, the soft, dragging sounds.
The drive home from the warehouse was a journey from one world to another. The lingering psychic stench of fear and blood and voided bowels was slowly scoured from my senses by the crisp, conditioned air of the car, replaced by the phantom scent of Vanilla Strawberry that always seemed to live in the upholstery now.
Then, I remembered. Althea's request. "I want you to cook for me tonight, please?"
A U-turn. The mundane errand felt like a sacred ritual, a necessary purification. I didn't go to just any grocery store; I went to the exclusive, hushed-market where the produce was polished like jewels and the butchers handled Wagyu with the reverence of priests. I selected the steak, the ingredients for a rich, creamy pasta, the finest greens. My movements were precise, efficient.
And then I saw it. In a display of absurdly expensive children's toys, nestled among velvet ropes, was another dinosaur plushie. This one was a deep, royal blue, wearing a tiny black beanie and a miniature grey sweater. It was ridiculous. It was perfect. A companion for Rex. Without a second thought, I added it to the cart. Then, a bag of gourmet, salmon-flavored treats for Sushi. My good boy. My furry, four-legged surveillance system and the most loyal guardian Althea had, next to me. And finally, another strawberry shortcake. A celebration.
The domesticity of the purchases was a surreal counterpoint to the last hour of my life. I just executed two men, condemned a third, and now I'm buying a dinosaur in a beanie. The cognitive dissonance should have been jarring, but it wasn't. It was all part of the same tapestry. The blood and the cake were both threads woven to protect the central, beautiful image: Althea, safe and happy.
I paid without looking at the total a number that would have made Marcus Riggs and his dead idiots weep for different reasons and drove home.
Pushing the front door open, my arms laden with grocery bags and the giant blue dinosaur, I was immediately assaulted by a wave of warmth and sound. The movie was still on, some colorful musical, and Althea was now attempting to teach Sushi a dance routine, both of them wobbling unsteadily in the middle of the living room.
She saw me and her face lit up, a sunrise after an eternal night. "Haven! You're back!"
Sushi abandoned his dance lesson and barreled towards me, tail a golden blur. Althea's eyes then landed on the blue dinosaur peeking over the grocery bags. Her jaw dropped. "NO. WAY. You did NOT!"
I couldn't help the genuine smile that broke through. "His name is… Bexley." The name came to me instantly. "He looked cold."
She rushed over, taking the plushie from me with a reverence usually reserved for religious artifacts. "Bexley! Oh, he's so sophisticated! Look at his little sweater! He and Rex are going to be besties!" She hugged the dinosaur, then, in a move that stole the air from my lungs, she stood on her toes and pressed a soft, swift kiss to my lips. "Welcome home. And thank you. You're the best wife ever."
The kiss was a brand, searing away the last of the warehouse's chill. Home. This was my home. Not the penthouse, not the corporate tower, but this exact spot, with this woman and her growing army of plush dinosaurs.
I held up the bag of treats. "And for the Prince of the house."
Sushi, recognizing the crinkle of the bag, lost his mind completely, spinning in frantic circles. Althea laughed, the sound like bells, and took the treats to dole out to her ecstatic subject.
I moved to the kitchen, unloading the groceries with a sense of purpose that felt more meaningful than any corporate merger. This was my true work. Nurturing. Providing. I was tying on a simple black apron when Althea bounded in, Bexley still tucked under her arm.
"Okay! I'm helping this time!" she announced, her expression one of fierce determination. "No arguments! I've been watching cooking shows. I know things now."
I raised an eyebrow. "Is that so? And what, pray tell, do you know?"
She marched to the sink and washed her hands with theatrical vigor. "I know that you have to… mise en place! That means 'everything in its place'! See? I'm basically a sous-chef."
The phantom of the old Althea flickered by the pantry, rolling her eyes. "She's going to burn the water. You know she will. You should send her away. This is a waste of expensive ingredients."
I ignored the ghost. "Alright, Sous-Chef Vale. Your first task is to chiffonade the basil." I handed her a bunch of fresh basil and a knife.
She took them with the gravity of a surgeon accepting a scalpel. Five minutes later, I glanced over. She had painstakingly cut exactly three leaves into vaguely ribbon-like shapes, her tongue stuck out in concentration. The rest of the bunch was a… creative interpretation of chiffonade. It looked like she'd attacked it with garden shears.
"How's it coming?" I asked, my voice neutral.
"It's a process!" she insisted, scowling at the basil. "It's giving… deconstructed pesto. Very avant-garde."
I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from laughing. "Indeed. A culinary statement."
Next, I asked her to mince a garlic clove. The resulting pile was less a mince and more a rough crush, with several large, suspiciously shaped chunks. "It has character!" she defended, pointing at it with her knife.
"It has the character of a garlic clove that lost a fight with a hammer," I deadpanned.
She gasped, feigning offense. "You take that back! My garlic is beautiful and brave!"
The banter was light, effortless. It was a world away from the strained silences of our past, from the cold contempt. This was what I had fought for. This silly, chaotic, beautiful normalcy.
When it came time to sear the Wagyu, I gently took the tongs from her. "I'll handle this part. The oil can spit."
She pouted but didn't argue, instead choosing to wrap her arms around my waist from behind, resting her chin on my shoulder as I worked. Her warmth seeped through my clothes, a grounding, electric presence. "You're really good at this," she murmured, her breath tickling my neck. "It's kinda hot. My wife, the master chef."
The old Althea's phantom was by the stove, her arms crossed. "Pathetic. You're preening because she's giving you compliments like a trained seal. You've built your entire happiness on the foundation of a brain injury."
She's happy, I thought back, the rebuttal a shield around my heart. I'm happy. That's all that matters.
Finally, dinner was ready. We sat at the table, the Wagyu perfectly rare, the pasta creamy and al dente, the salad… well, the salad was mostly my doing. Althea looked at the spread with unabashed pride, as if she'd single-handedly prepared the entire feast.
"We did it!" she announced, raising her glass of sparkling water. "To us! And to our amazing teamwork!"
"To us," I echoed, clinking my glass against hers. My heart felt too large for my chest.
As we ate, the conversation drifted, easy and warm. She told me about the movie, about Sushi's failed dance moves, about a new melody that had popped into her head. And then, her eyes grew soft, a faint blush coloring her cheeks.
"So," she began, swirling her pasta. "I was thinking. About what the doctor said. You know. The pregnancy stuff."
I took a slow sip of water, giving nothing away. "What about it?"
"Well, she said it was safe. That with the right environment, I'd be fine." She looked up at me, her gaze earnest. "And I was thinking… our environment is pretty great. It's all… you. And Sushi. And Rex and Bexley and the Round Table of Plushies hehehe. It's stable. It's supportive. It's… perfect."
The old Althea materialized in the empty chair beside her, a sneer on her face. "Tell her the truth, Haven. Tell her the 'stable environment' is a prison you built. Tell her you're her warden, not her wife."
I kept my eyes locked on the real Althea. "It is perfect," I said, my voice thick.
"So…" she continued, her blush deepening. "I was thinking we could… you know. Try. Like, really try. Not just… the business-like stuff. But, like, fun trying. Enjoyable trying." She wiggled her eyebrows, a goofy, adorable gesture.
I choked on a laugh. "Are you suggesting we treat procreation as a recreational activity?"
"Why not?" she retorted, planting her elbows on the table. "It should be fun! It shouldn't be this big, stressful, 'we must produce an heir' thing. It should be about us. Connecting. And if a baby happens, then it's the best souvenir ever."
Her phrasing was so uniquely her—a mix of profound insight and hilarious Gen-Z slang. A baby, a souvenir of our love.
"I think that's a wonderful way to look at it," I said, my chest aching with a love so fierce it was almost violent.
"Good!" she said, looking immensely pleased with herself. "So, no pressure. We'll just… see what happens. We can practice a lot." She gave me a slow, deliberate wink that was so exaggerated it was comical.
The old Althea's ghost let out a sound of pure disgust. "Practice? She's reducing the creation of a human life to 'practice.' This is what you've molded her into. A giggling, simplistic child."
She's hopeful, I shot back silently, my gaze never leaving my wife's smiling face. She's looking forward to our future. Something you never did.
"We can practice as much as you'd like," I said aloud, my voice a low promise.
She beamed, then dug back into her food with renewed gusto. "This is so good. You're, like, a culinary goddess. My personal goddess. I'm gonna write a song about your pasta. It'll be a smash hit. 'Ode to a Carbonara.'"
I listened to her ramble, her words washing over me, a balm and a baptism. The food, the laughter, the plans for our future it was a perfect, self-contained universe. The warehouse, the screaming, the wet thud of bullets, the weeping, the bodies they were a bad dream from another lifetime, a necessary nightmare endured to keep this dream alive.
This was my reality. The songbird was in her nest, singing a lullaby for a future she couldn't wait to meet. And I, her devoted, monstrous architect, would ensure that nothing and no one would ever interrupt her song again. The hunting and the nurturing were two sides of the same coin. And I would spend the rest of my life flipping it, ensuring the side that faced her was always gleaming with love, while the side that faced the world was stained with the blood of her enemies.
The Shepherd, I thought, the name a dark splinter in my mind as I watched Althea laugh. Whoever you are. However you are connected. You are next.