Chapter 293: Chapter 293: Plans.

He didn’t wait for courage to make the decision. Courage was too slow and too unreliable. He moved because there was no other option left that didn’t taste like failure.

Ethan swung back onto the ladder, metal biting into his palms as he slid down faster than was entirely sensible. The cold knifed into his clothes the closer he got to the ground. By the time his boots hit dirt, he was already shaking, not from temperature alone but from the knowledge of what was happening to the structure above his head.

He kept low, slipping between shadows and blind angles, his brain working the way it always did: structure first, risk next, then everything else. The men planting charges weren’t paying attention to anything except their grid and their timeline. That helped. The fact that they were that calm made everything worse.

He reached a side entrance where the doorframe sagged slightly but still held. The padlock that should have been there wasn’t. Someone had already cut it, and recently, the sliced edges were too clean, the metal too bright under the corrosion.

He hesitated for one heartbeat.

Then he slipped inside.

Cold swallowed him differently here. The outside wind disappeared, replaced by still, stale air that smelled of dust, chemicals, and human presence that shouldn’t have been there. Somewhere deeper in the building, a generator hummed. Faint lights buzzed overhead in random patches, washing corridors in thin strips of yellow that revealed more than they comforted.

He moved slowly and listened for voices, footsteps, anything really.

Nothing.

Just distant movement above him and the quiet, methodical heart of a place that had been kept alive for reasons that were never going to be good.

One corridor bent into another. A stairwell yawned down to a lower level where the light thickened instead of fading. He stepped into it, one hand instinctively brushing the wall for balance, feeling the vibration of machinery through aging concrete.

Reality hit him out of nowhere.

Ethan was already expecting bad things. Few people kept under watch, Leon sedated, but not this.

Rooms.

Doors partially cracked, light leaking from within.

Omegas and alphas, slumped in chairs or laid on narrow cots, restraints wrapped around wrists and ankles. Monitors attached to necks and arms. Tubing snaking from IVs.

His lungs refused to work for a heartbeat. His brain stalled. Then panic shoveled adrenaline into his bloodstream so fast his vision sharpened painfully.

“No… no, no…” he whispered, forcing himself forward.

He checked the nearest omega, breathing slowly, eyes closed but not dead. He touched the skin of their wrist. Warm. Pulse there. He swallowed shakily and looked at the next door.

More. Dozens. Rows of people stored like inventory.

Most of them were sedated out of their minds.

Waiting for a building to come down on top of them.

“Detective Albrecht,” Ethan whispered, not angry but stunned in a way anger didn’t know how to reach. “Where the hell are you?”

The question went nowhere.

There was no team coming.

There wasn’t even the illusion of help.

He stared at the phone in his hand. For a moment, reason tried to offer polite, logical suggestions like call emergency services again, wait, and file escalation protocols, all of them useless in the face of countdown explosives and unconscious human beings.

He needed someone who could move the world in minutes, not hours.

Ethan needed someone terrifying. His hand moved before his doubt could intervene.

He scrolled to a name. Trevor Fitzgeralt.

He hesitated for two seconds, long enough to understand the weight of what he was doing.

Then he pressed call, lifted the phone to his ear, and listened to the first ring cut through the quiet like salvation or disaster.

“Come on,” Ethan breathed, heart hammering. “Pick up.”

—

Late afternoon in Saha had a particular quality to it,

The sun hung low enough to warm stone and metal without blinding, winds carrying faint hints of salt and desert heat even within the carefully tended walls of the palace. The inner courtyard was quiet by design, a curated oasis of shadowed walkways, manicured hedges, and tall trees whispering in the breeze.

It was different from the summer when Chris arrived. Dax and the others informed him that, despite the warmth he is experiencing now, the capital will be colder than Palatine in late December.

Chris stood beneath one of the trees, hands loosely clasped behind his back, posture relaxed because he had learned that in Saha, confidence was a weapon. He didn’t bother pretending he was alone. It was impossible to be alone here. Not truly.

Rowan stood to his right, far enough away to be subtle, close enough to be lethal in a breath. He looked like background furniture. Like someone decorative whose only job was to exist politely and be forgettable.

Which meant he was the most dangerous person visible.

That was the entire point.

Chris inhaled slowly, forcing his heartbeat into steadiness. He didn’t feel unsafe. He wasn’t foolish enough to assume he was safe. But there was a difference between fear and awareness. Dax would never have agreed to this if the perimeter wasn’t already sealed three layers deep.

That didn’t stop his chest from tightening when he thought about how much Dax had hated letting him out of his line of sight today.

He set the thought aside.

He heard her before he saw her.

Excited heels clicking too fast on polished stone. The bright, fluttering cadence of someone thrilled by her own drama. And then Heather swept into the courtyard like a royal parade crammed into one fifteen-year-old body.

She was dressed to be unforgettable.

Whatever stylist had gotten their hands on her had clearly been informed that this was not simply a palace tour. Deep jewel tones, glittering metallic accents, immaculate hair, and perfume expensive enough to declare lineage. Every inch of her said, ’Look at me. Understand I matter.’

She smiled victoriously when she saw him.

“Christopher,” she greeted, as though they were conspirators meeting in secrecy instead of two political entities supervised by an entire sovereign nation.

He smiled back, warm and devastatingly kind, because that was simply who he was…and because he refused to punish a child for being used as a political weapon.

“You made it,” he said softly. “Good afternoon, Princess.”

“Please,” she huffed, slipping instantly into familiar dramatics as she crossed the courtyard. “If you keep calling me Princess, I’ll age prematurely. Heather is fine. I’d prefer Heather.”

He inclined his head. “Then Heather it is.”

She slipped her arm through his without hesitation, like she had every right to. Like the world owed her.

“Finally,” she breathed, satisfaction curling at the edges of her voice. “A tour without His Majesty looming like a terrifying mythological event.”

She didn’t look back.

She didn’t acknowledge Rowan.

Chris let himself be guided because resisting would only turn this into a confrontation, and this moment wasn’t meant to be one. This was meant to be gentler, softer… a chance at normalcy.

Or so Heather believed.

They walked.

The inner garden unfolded around them in curated tranquility, paths curving between hedges, trees bending overhead like watchful guardians. The palace felt farther away with every step, as if the world narrowed into just the two of them and the quiet rustle of green.

Heather talked. She complained about schedules. About how impossible it was to be treated like a child one moment and a geopolitical entity the next.

She called Dax emotionally prehistoric.

Chris did not engage. He just listened.

Which, for Heather, was worse than arguing. It meant he was giving her space to exist without fighting the narrative into shape. It meant he believed her feelings existed, and for someone who’d lived under a constant spotlight, that was disarming.

They turned deeper into the hedge maze, where the paths narrowed and light thinned into hushed shadow. The air cooled. The wind quieted. Sound softened into intimacy.

Rowan stopped following.

Exactly as planned.

Chris felt a strong pull from the princess, far stronger than a fifteen-year-old should be.

“Here!” Heather yelled as strong as she could. “We are here!”

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