The job had been Dominic’s request.

A regional alpha coalition had grown loud in its opposition to Lysandre expansion. They needed those out. Sheng accepted the contract for the profit and the future leverage it promised.

The warehouse still reeked of gunpowder and opened bodies when Talgat finished. His men moved methodically, wrapping what remained of leadership into anonymous bundles. The story would be rewritten by morning.

He sat on the low leather couch in the adjoining office once the work was done, dark stains drying across arms. A thin cut split his knuckles.

He lit a cigarette. The flame illuminated the mismatched blue and brown of his eyes before dying back into shadow.

You entered without asking permission.

Your shoes made no sound against the concrete. You stepped over a streak of blood without looking down, as if navigating carnage were no more remarkable than stepping around rainwater.

He watched you approach.

You did not comment on the bodies being dragged past the doorway or wrinkle your nose at the smell. Instead, you took a seat next to him. Your thumb brushed the cut on his knuckles. You examined it with clinical focus, then reached for the cloth laid beside him and began wiping the drying blood from his skin. Efficient.

He studied your face as you worked.

“You didn’t even flinch,” he said after a moment. Smoke curled from his lips, drifting between you. “When I opened him up.”

Your hand paused only long enough to wring the cloth. Then you resumed. You’ve seen worse.

His free hand settled on your hip, fingers spreading slowly as if testing the reality of you. Not ownership. Not quite. Something more curious.

“You don’t react like they do,” he continued, nodding toward the corridor where his men worked. “Most omegas can’t stand to look.”

You were different though. That much he knew.

The Lysandres did not raise ornaments. It forged instruments.

He leaned back, drawing you slightly closer until your knees brushed his thighs. His hand remained at your hip. He watched for the smallest sign of discomfort. There was none.

“You came here to use us,” he said finally. “To use me.”

You met his gaze evenly. “We came to form an alliance. You agreed.”

He exhaled through his nose, almost amused. “That’s not the same thing.”

Silence settled between you, thick but not hostile.

“You’ve changed the way Sheng moves,” he said after a while. “The targets. The timing. The aftermath. It’s cleaner.”

“And more profitable,” you added.

His mouth curved faintly. “You talk like you’re already part of this clan.”

“Am I not?”

The question lingered.

He thought of the past months — the way you sat at his right during strategy sessions, murmuring corrections only he could hear. The way he found himself waiting for your opinion before finalizing decisions. The way you redirected his rage with a single raised brow.

Mad Dog did not answer to anyone.

Except, increasingly, you.

His thumb pressed into your hip, grounding both of you. “If Lysandre wins,” he said quietly, “where does that leave me?”

He studied you carefully, searching for answer. You offered none. Only calculation — and something else, faint but present.

It would be simpler if you were only ambition wrapped in silk. Simpler if he could classify you as asset or threat.

Instead, you were becoming something inconvenient.

His hand moved from your hip to your lower back, drawing you closer until your foreheads nearly touched. The cigarette burned out between his fingers, forgotten.

“You were sent here to infiltrate,” he murmured. “To steer us. To do something you don’t tell. And I let you.”

Why?

He didn’t answer the unspoken question.

For the first time since you entered, something shifted in your expression — awareness. The realization that the ground between you is no longer entirely stable.

Outside, his men finished loading the last container. The warehouse fell quiet.

Inside, the balance of power tilted almost imperceptibly.

A wolf in sheep’s clothing. A sheep who learned to wear wolf’s skin.

Who is who?