No Safe House

Luca

The temporary claim had rules. Hana broke three before the elevator doors closed.

She refused Kenji's jacket, refused my arm, and tried to call her missing doctor for the fourth time while two hundred armed wolves watched us leave the ballroom. The call went nowhere. Hana stared at her phone as though she could intimidate it into producing Aiko Tanaka.

I liked her more every minute. This seemed unwise.

Kenji keyed the private elevator with his thumb. “The penthouse is secured.”

“By the same people who secured the ballroom?” Hana asked.

His jaw tightened. “By me.”

“That answer would be more comforting if someone hadn't replaced medication inside your hotel.”

The doors slid shut on both families. Marco remained outside to deal with Carlo and discourage Raffaele from following. Emi Sato entered with us, touched two fingers to the earpiece hidden beneath her dark hair, and ordered every floor above forty-eight cleared.

Hana swayed when the elevator began to rise.

Kenji and I caught her at the same time.

My hand closed around her waist. Even through silk, she was soft, hot, and too perfectly fitted beneath my palm. Kenji caught her wrist. Her scent thickened until my wolf slammed against my ribs and my body answered with a hard, aching rush. Heat rolled from her, but the look she gave us could have iced the Hudson.

“If either of you says calm down,” she warned, “I will test whether this elevator has emergency brakes.”

“I was going to suggest sitting down,” I said.

“You were going to suggest it with your hands.”

I left one where it was because she was still unsteady. My thumb flexed once at her waist. Her pulse jumped beneath her skin, nearly stripping the last civilized thought from my head.

“They are exceptionally persuasive hands,” I said.

“They are attached to a man whose soldier tried to abduct me.”

That removed the humor from the elevator.

Carlo had served my family for seven years. He had eaten at my table, guarded my father, and stood beside me at my sister's empty grave. I wanted five private minutes with him and a list of every person who had promised him Hana.

“He won't touch you again,” I said.

“That isn't the same as telling me whether he acted alone.”

“No,” I admitted. “It isn't.”

The elevator opened directly into a penthouse that occupied the hotel's top floor. Black stone, smoked glass, furniture arranged with the joyless precision of a man who considered cushions a moral failure. The skyline pressed against every window.

“You live here?” I asked Kenji.

“When necessary.”

“Where do you live when you want evidence of a human soul?”

“Far from you.”

Hana walked between us toward the dining table. “As romantic as this reunion is, I need a laptop, access to the port server, and something to stop my heat.”

Emi set a slim computer in front of her. “The network is isolated. No external access until we identify the breach.”

“Then it's a decorative rectangle.” Hana lowered herself into a chair with deliberate care. “The invoice may be our only lead to whoever altered the suppressants.”

Her fingers trembled when she reached for the machine. She tucked them into her lap before Kenji could see.

His eyes dropped to her hands.

Mine followed.

Hana set Aiko's broken vial beside the laptop. “What happens at the end of the seventy-two hours?”

Kenji remained standing across from her. “The Moon Council decides which recognized pack has the strongest lawful claim.”

“You mean which family gets me.”

“They will call it protective custody,” I said.

Her gaze moved between us. Fever brightened her eyes, but nothing softened the intelligence behind them. “And if we prove the medication was sabotaged?”

“Article Nine becomes renewable if the threat remains active and neither temporary protector caused it,” Kenji said. “Seven days at a time until the tribunal identifies a safe placement.”

“I already have a placement. It's called my apartment.”

“Not anymore,” I said.

The words left too quickly. Hana's expression sharpened, and I understood why Kenji treated conversation like unexploded ordnance.

“Because it's compromised,” I added. “Not because either of us has decided where you belong.”

“Good correction.” She touched the broken vial with one finger. “Then we don't need to solve my entire legal status tonight. We need to prove an external threat, preserve the chain of evidence, and find Aiko before someone else does.”

Three objectives, assembled while her first unsuppressed heat burned through her bloodstream. My father employed captains who became confused when dinner reservations changed.

“You heard her,” I told Kenji. “Get the decorative rectangle working.”

The claim ran beneath my skin like a fresh wire. It carried no words, only impressions sharp enough to become commands: too hot, too exposed, move closer. Kenji's scent had changed as well. Cedar and cold iron filled the room whenever Hana's pulse accelerated. His wolf was answering mine instead of challenging it. That unnatural cooperation should have humiliated me.

Instead, I'd found a weapon I hadn't known I was missing.

Emi crossed to the security panel. “Only four people can access this floor without Kenji's authorization. The oyabun, Ono, Hana, and me. I have suspended all credentials except ours.”

“Remove mine,” Hana said.

Emi looked over her shoulder.

“If my suppressant case was compromised, assume everything connected to me is compromised.” Hana opened the laptop. “Phone, apartment, office credentials, financial keys. Whoever did this knew my dosing schedule. They may know where I sleep.”

My wolf surged at the thought. A growl escaped before I could swallow it.

Hana looked at me. “Was that useful?”

“It made me feel better.”

“Then by all means, continue contributing.”

Kenji's mouth moved at one corner. The bastard had almost smiled.

The lights went out.

Darkness swallowed the penthouse. The city remained beyond the glass, bright enough to shape Hana at the table and Kenji already moving toward her. A second later, the security panel issued one soft confirmation tone.

“That wasn't the power,” Emi said.

Metal scraped inside the private elevator.

I smelled gun oil.

“Down.” I hit Hana hard enough to carry her and the chair to the floor as the elevator doors opened.

Suppressed gunfire tore through the dining table. Wood and glass burst over us. Kenji fired toward the muzzle flashes, each shot controlled despite the dark. Emi rolled behind the kitchen island and answered from the opposite angle.

Two attackers came through the elevator. A third remained inside, holding the doors. Their faces were covered, but their scents carried chemical blocker and the sterile sweetness of hospital soap.

One swung his weapon toward Hana.

My wolf took the decision from me.

I crossed the space half-shifted, claws splitting my fingers as I caught the rifle barrel and drove it upward. Bullets shattered a chandelier. I buried my other hand in the man's throat and threw him against the windows. The glass bowed without breaking.

He'd aimed at Hana. Restraint vanished. I struck him again until Kenji's shoulder hit mine, not to stop me but to reach the second man threatening our mate.

Kenji reached the second attacker at the same moment. He moved without wasted force: elbow, wrist, throat. The rifle struck the floor. I kicked it beneath the sofa while Hana crawled toward the security panel instead of toward cover.

“Hana!” both of us shouted.

“I heard you the first time.”

She tore the access module from the wall as the attacker inside the elevator fired again. Emi's return shot caught him high in the shoulder. He vanished behind the closing doors, leaving blood across the steel.

The man beneath Kenji bit down on something. Bitter almond flooded the room.

“Poison,” Kenji said.

The attacker's body convulsed once and went still.

The damaged lights whined above Hana's breathing while the elevator descended beyond our reach. I kept my body between her and the doors until emergency power washed the room in red.

She sat against the wall with the access module in her lap. Blood marked one cheek where flying glass had cut her. Kenji's gaze fixed on it, and he went perfectly still.

I wanted to lick the red line from her skin. I curled my claws into my palms. Across from me, Kenji's nostrils flared. His wolf wanted the same thing. Hana looked between us and flushed darker, as if the claim had carried too much.

“I'm fine,” she said. “And before either of you begins, the panel records the credential that opened the elevator.”

Emi knelt beside her and connected the module to the laptop. A single authorization line appeared on-screen.

Kenji read it first. His face emptied.

I looked over his shoulder.

The killers had entered his private home using an executive override issued from inside the oyabun's office.