Sebastian stared down at Miss Lara’s body, a wolfsbane-coated dagger buried to the hilt in her heart, blood pooling darkly around her on the floor. She had killed herself right before his eyes, knowing he wouldn’t let her leave without giving him the answers he came for.

Sebastian crouched down and pressed two fingers to her neck. No pulse. He let out a slow sigh. "What a mess, Lara. You would rather die than talk, and knowing I can’t send the children back to Nightshade, you come here and do this." He murmured passively as he straightened up and connected to Matt through the mind link to send someone and clean it up.

Lara had given him a clue, even if she hadn’t known it. Sebastian knew exactly where he would find the full answers he was seeking, he just wasn’t certain anymore whether he still wanted to hear them.

---

Viola got busy the moment she returned to her penthouse. She first arranged for a bunch of flowers to be sent to Javier’s home as a condolence, without her name attached, it felt like the right thing to do, even if she wouldn’t be welcome there in person. Then she decided to push forward and not dwell on what had already happened.

As time passed, she kept her promise to herself and began preparing dinner, a proper meal planned for Sebastian when he came that night. She was in the middle of cooking it when Zoe sent someone to return her phone, and Viola found several missed calls waiting for her from both Sebastian and Nick. She tried her husband first, immediately, but his phone wasn’t reachable.

She wondered why he had called so shortly after she left his office. While she cooked, she kept trying his number periodically until she eventually gave up and called Nick back instead. He picked up almost immediately.

"Hey, Vee." He said, his voice carrying a weight of sadness that made Viola turn down the cooker and lean against the counter to give him her full attention.

"How are you coping? Are you all right?" She asked with concern, and he only hummed in response.

"I’m trying to be." Nick replied from where he stood in his apartment, looking out at the setting sun with a cigarette between his fingers, blowing thick rings of smoke into the air and watching it drift around his face.

"You can talk to me if you want to. I am always here to listen." She assured him, being the good friend she was, though her words landed somewhere deeper than she intended in the heart of the lonely man who had been quietly harboring feelings for her for months now.

Nick smiled bitterly. "You are the first person to say that to me. Maybe second, after Zoe."

Viola let out a small chuckle, trying to inject a little warmth into the conversation to lift his mood. "I’m glad someone else said it to you first then. I’m sorry about your brother, Nick." She said sincerely, with no way of knowing the other person on the line felt no such sorrow.

"You shouldn’t be. His time was up, and he wasted his life making others feel unworthy." Nick mused, and then added quietly, "His death isn’t worth being sorry over."

"Even so, I am sorry it happened because of me."

"It’s not because of you, Vee. He got what he deserved, I guess." He hummed, bringing the cigarette to his lips and taking a long drag, his eyes dropping to his palm where a thin silver smoke was curling and rising against his palm as he stared at it. "Can you do me a favor, Vee?"

"Anything, just ask and I will." Viola said quickly, genuinely wanting to do whatever she could to pull him out of the mood she could feel radiating from him through the phone. He had been there for her when she had needed someone the most, and she wanted to return that now as a friend.

"Can you have dinner with me tonight?" He asked, and then, before she could respond, he added quickly, "Please. I feel like the walls in my apartment are closing in on me and I am drowning inside myself. My mother disowned me today. She told me how little she wanted me, and it’s killing me. Don’t turn me away too, please. I just need some company and Zoe is meeting up with some important clients today, she’s too busy for me." He pleaded, and his voice was earnest enough that it left no room to doubt him.

Viola looked at the food she had been in the middle of cooking, then at the clock on the wall that read 6:30 p.m. and felt with absolute certainty that she couldn’t turn him away, even knowing she had been planning this dinner for her husband. She was torn between her husband and her friend. Sebastian also needed her, and she had been looking forward to this dinner with him, to him coming home and being welcomed by her home-cooked meal and a relaxing atmosphere.

But then Nick was depressed, and if she turned him away, he might end up hurting even more after being disowned.

She would be a terrible friend if she left someone this broken sitting alone with nothing but four walls for company. She would have invited him over to eat with them, but she had a feeling Sebastian wasn’t going to like that. So she made the decision to go. She would only keep him company for a little while and return as soon as possible.

She switched the cooker off completely and said, "All right. Where should we meet?"

Nick let out a quiet breath of relief. "Outside the high tower. I’ll ride us there."

"Okay. I’ll be out in a few minutes. See you then."

"See you." Nick replied, and stared at the screen for a moment after the call ended, a slow smile crossing his face, before the knock at his door pulled him out of it.

"Come in." He called.

The door opened and Elder Halvrek stepped inside, locking the door behind him.

"What are you doing here?" Nick demanded irritably.

The elder replied warily, "I couldn’t reach you, so I came in person. There is something important you need to know, Supreme Alpha."

Nick’s gray eyes went dark and completely emotionless as they settled on the elder, the man who had served him in secret for years, fully aware of what he stood to gain from that arrangement and exactly what would happen to him if he ever went against it.

"How many times have I told you not to come to my apartment?" Nick said through his teeth, raising his hand and using his ability to seize the elder by the throat, lifting him clean off his feet with invisible force. "What could possibly be so important that it couldn’t wait for me to summon you first?"

He was in a foul mood today and looking for something to take it out on, and this pathetic elder had chosen the worst possible moment to interrupt the one good thing he had managed to carve out of this terrible day, the prospect of finally spending time alone with the woman he loved.

He would get to be with her tonight, in a setting where his cousin wasn’t standing between them, and where he might finally begin to win her over in a way she wouldn’t be able to resist. It was long overdue. Everything that should have belonged to him, he was done waiting for it. Viola included.

Nick had spent his entire life living in the shadow of not just his brother, but his cousins too. Everyone had written him off, convinced he would never amount to what they expected of a Kade.

He should have been Supreme Alpha, but his father had wanted to spare him the burden of it, and Nick had let it go to give the man peace. And where had that gotten him? Nowhere. No-fucking-where!

Eric Kade had died and left his son to a resentful mother who refused to see him no matter what he did, a woman who could not forgive the fact that he had taken more nourishment in her womb than his dead twin.

Nick had wanted to be something great, a creator, a mind that built things, but the world refused to see him that way. Everyone looked straight through him like he was invisible, and he was tired. Tired of being overlooked, tired of being passed over, tired of being nothing.

"Perhaps I should take your head off before you learn not to disturb me." Nick said, clenching his grip and tightening the smoke around the elder’s neck, just as it had tightened around his brother’s in the pool room.

A euphoric feeling had surged through his veins. There had been satisfaction in watching his brother struggled, in pouring the pain of years of bullying into it, and in tasting the victory of finally killing him.

Nick had wanted to weep with joy while he killed Javier, and he had wept alone in this room the night Javier died. And now, as the elder choked and clawed at nothing, he felt that same smile begin to pull at the corners of his mouth.

Elder Halvrek struggled and managed to choke out the words that had brought him here before the grip could kill him. "I... I need to tell you... your cousin—"

Nick released him instantly at the mention of his cousin. The smile dropped from his face and his eyes narrowed into sharp coldness. "What about my cousin? What has the bastard done now?" He demanded.