31: Opal in the bloodlight

*Cathwulf* The tranq rifle kicks harder than I expect.My shot blows out the rear tire of the nearest truck instead of anything elegant. Rubber bursts with a sound like a gunshot in a cathedral. The whole refrigerated unit fishtails across wet concrete, clips a stack of plastic pallets, and slams sideways into a loading post."That counts," I shout.Therian is already moving.He sprints beside me through the floodlit yard, boots hammering the pavement, all broad fury and ruthless focus. The other two trucks keep going, white boxes on wheels carrying breathing bodies toward the south gate. Sirens scream over us. Red alarms flash against the annex walls and turn the night into a cheap apocalypse.A guard bursts out from behind a forklift with a shock baton raised.I fire on instinct. The dart catches him in the shoulder. He gets one offended look on his face, then folds like expensive laundry."Useful," I mutter, and keep running.The wrecked truck rocks on its ruined axle. Something

32: The coat room burns

*Cathwulf*The annex looks uglier on the way back in.Maybe that is because I know what is inside now. Maybe it is because I am wearing Therian's jacket over bare skin and smelling wolves, blood, diesel, and freezer burn all at once. Maybe it is because once a place has shown you the cages, the polished parts stop pretending.The freed wolves come with us.Not all of them. Mara can barely stand, and Bram forces two fighters to get the worst injured out to the trucks with enough authority to make them obey without wasting breath. But the brindled male from the overturned convoy shifts half back to human, huge and scarred and shivering, and says, "Vault's below the cryo floor. He keeps the premium stock there."Premium stock.I put my hand on the concrete wall for one second because otherwise I might scream and never stop.Therian hears the hitch in my breathing. "Cathwulf.""I'm fine," I say automatically.He gives me one look. "No, you're not."The honesty of that almost steadies me.

33: Epilogue

*Cathwulf*Smoke follows us into the dawn.By the time we clear the annex, the sky is turning that thin gray-blue that makes every bad night look briefly survivable. Sprinklers still spit from broken windows. Fire crews, human and wolf both, swarm the loading yard under Bram's barking direction. Mara sits on the back of an ambulance in a blanket and curses anybody who tries to call her brave. Rook has found a cigarette from nowhere and is smoking with the vicious concentration of a man who has earned every drag.Bodies are covered. Names are being written down.That matters.No euphemisms. No guest, no inventory, no regrettable loss. Just names, as many as we can recover from files, cages, manifests, memory. Nessa has a laptop balanced on the hood of a truck, wet curls escaping everywhere, typing like vengeance has wrists.I stand beside her in Therian's jacket and read over her shoulder as she builds the list.Mika.Jonel.Pale twins, Adra and Elsi.Three rogues still unknown.A wol

All Chapters of Torn between the Alpha and the CEO: Chapter 31 - Chapter 33

31: Opal in the bloodlight

32: The coat room burns

33: Epilogue