Temporary Terms

Hana

Luca went quiet when he was truly dangerous. The charming Mafia prince disappeared, leaving a man who could order a murder without raising his voice. Some reckless part of me found the change compelling. The omega part wanted to discover whether that dangerous mouth would soften against mine.

I blamed the heat. It was becoming responsible for an impressive number of poor decisions.

The discovery should have pleased me. Until that moment, he'd used charm as misdirection, defense, and occasionally blunt-force trauma. The man beside me now had none left. His eyes stayed on Raffaele's name while his wolf pressed so close to his skin that amber swallowed the brown around his pupils.

Kenji reached for the phone in his pocket.

“No,” Luca said.

Kenji's hand stopped. “Your uncle paid the men who attacked us.”

“An account under his control paid them. If you call your father before we know who used it, Raffaele learns exactly how much we have.”

“My father may already know.”

“Then calling him would be even less useful.”

It was the first sensible thing either alpha had said about his own family. I closed the laptop before their agreement could frighten them into fighting.

“We have a dead attacker, a wounded one, an escapee, and a financial route tying the breach to both organizations,” I said. “No one calls a father, uncle, council member, or loyal family servant until we decide what information each person receives.”

Kenji regarded me from above. “We?”

“If you meant to investigate without me, you should have let the gunmen destroy the access module.”

Luca's mouth shifted, but the smile didn't arrive. “Management has spoken.”

The heat chose that moment to remind me it had its own vote.

Pain tightened low across my abdomen. I braced one palm on the floor as sweat gathered beneath my collar. The penthouse scents sharpened: blood near the table, scorched wiring behind the wall, cedar from Kenji, winter air and coffee from Luca. Both men turned toward me.

“Don't,” I said.

Neither moved.

That restraint cost them. Kenji's hand closed until the tendons stood beneath his skin. Luca stared at the floor between my knees with the concentration of a penitent facing temptation in a private chapel.

I had spent nine years controlling every dose, every appointment, and every accidental brush with an alpha whose attention lasted too long. The false vials had stripped that control from me. I wouldn't surrender what remained because my wolf wanted the two worst possible men closer.

Unfortunately, she wasn't wrong about what helped.

“Sit,” I told them.

Luca lowered himself first. Kenji followed with less grace and more suspicion. Their knees bracketed mine without touching. Luca's thigh was a breath from my left knee, Kenji's from my right. The narrow space between us filled with heat and three roughened breaths.

The pull under my skin eased, but desire took its place. My body didn't care that they were rivals, criminals, or catastrophically bad choices. It wanted their weight, their scent, their hands. I tightened my fingers around the laptop and concentrated on rules before I begged for something that couldn't be taken back.

“We need rules,” I said.

“Agreed,” Kenji said.

“You haven't heard them.”

“You were going to make them whether I agreed or not.”

“He learns quickly,” Luca said.

Kenji ignored him. I began with the terms that mattered. No bites. No permanent marks. No promises made for me to either family or the Moon Council. They would share every piece of evidence and every conversation about my designation. If proximity became medically necessary, I chose when and how. If I said stop, they stopped.

“And neither of you kills a suspect before I examine his finances,” I added.

Luca rested his forearms on his knees. “That one may require advance notice.”

“Practice patience.”

“I was raised Catholic. I have practiced guilt, pageantry, and selective obedience. Patience wasn't emphasized.”

Kenji's voice stayed level. “Your rules are accepted.”

Luca glanced at him. “You could pretend to consider them. She might respect the performance.”

“I don't,” I said.

“Then mine is also yes.”

The next cramp came harder. My fingers slipped on the laptop case, and both alphas reached before catching themselves. Their scents crowded the air. My wolf drove against my ribs, frantic for contact that nine years of chemicals had taught her not to expect.

I held out my hands. It was a small permission. Both men treated it like a vow.

Kenji took my right with care that made something inside me ache worse than the heat. Luca closed his fingers around my left, his thumb warm against my pulse. Power moved through the three of us, not the violent snap from the ballroom but a deep current finding its course.

The pain receded. Pleasure followed in a slow, dangerous ripple. Kenji's callused thumb rested beneath mine. Luca's circled my pulse. Their scents braided around me until my wolf stretched inside my skin, satisfied for the first time in years.

I breathed until the room stopped narrowing. Neither man spoke. Kenji studied our joined hands as though they presented a contract written in a language he should have known. Luca watched my face.

“Better?” he asked.

“Annoyingly.”

His thumb moved once across my wrist. The stroke was barely there, but my nipples tightened and a soft sound caught behind my teeth. Kenji heard it. His eyes darkened. Luca heard it too, and the look he gave me promised he would remember exactly what that touch had done.

I didn't tell him to stop.

Emi returned from the hallway after transferring the wounded attacker. She took in the three of us on the floor, the wrecked dining room, and the corpse waiting beside an evidence marker.

“I was gone twelve minutes,” she said.

“We formed a committee,” Luca told her.

“That explains the suffering.”

She reported that the injured man carried the same cold-storage key as the dead attacker. Marco had secured both. The blood trail from the elevator ended on the forty-sixth floor beside a service exit, where someone had left fresh clothes and a motorcycle helmet.

An escape planned from inside the hotel. Another expense. Another set of numbers.

“Give me access to the charity's full ledger,” I said to Luca.

His hand remained around mine, but his attention withdrew. “Santa Lucia has thousands of transactions.”

“Then we'll have thousands of places to look.”

“My uncle will see the intrusion.”

“You were prepared to start a syndicate war over my scent. Risking an audit seems modest.”

Kenji turned to him. “What aren't you telling us?”

Luca's grip tightened before he released me and stood. The sudden loss of contact pulled heat back through my body. He crossed to the windows, putting distance between himself and Raffaele's name.

“Santa Lucia did more than clinics,” he said. “It moved people who couldn't use ordinary pack channels.”

“Unregistered omegas,” I said.

“Some. Runaways. Witnesses. Children born outside recognized packs.” His reflection floated over Manhattan, dark suit against a city that had no idea what its charities carried beneath the river. “Fourteen years ago, my sister found one of those routes.”

Kenji rose beside me. “Sofia.”

Luca faced us again. The charm was gone, and the grief beneath it had teeth.

“Sofia vanished through Santa Lucia three days before my family declared her dead.”