Shadows of the Past
The travel from Downtown café, Silver Creek to Harrington & Associates, third-floor office, night consumed the next hour. Headlights cut cold through the gathering dusk.
The vibration cut through the fog, sharp and insistent. He pulled the device from his pocket. The screen glowed with a message from Owen, his security chief—a man who never texted unless the world was on fire. **Pemberton drones just breached the north perimeter. They’re hunting something.**
Killian Thorne read the text a second time, the blue light washing over his features. His thumb hovered over the keypad, but he didn’t respond. The north perimeter was a quarter-mile buffer of forest and scrubland between his property and the county road. Useless for defense. Useful for surveillance. Beckett Pemberton knew that. Beckett Pemberton knew everything.
He pocketed the phone and took the stairs two at a time, boots silent on the worn carpet of Harrington & Associates’ third-floor hallway. Ten minutes earlier, he’d watched Seraphina slip inside her office after hours, her silhouette cutting through the rain-slicked glass of the building’s entrance. She hadn’t seen him. She never saw him coming.
The door was unlocked. He pushed it open without knocking.
Seraphina stood behind her desk, a manila folder clutched against her chest like a shield. Her eyes went wide, then narrow. The recognition was instantaneous—and unwelcome.
“Get out.”
“We need to talk.”
“I said get out.” Her voice cracked on the edge of command, but the tremor underneath betrayed her. She set the folder down, her fingers spreading flat over it as if anchoring herself to something solid. “This is my place of business. You don’t get to walk in here like you own the world.”
Killian closed the door behind him. The lock clicked. She flinched.
“Drones just breached my north perimeter. Pemberton drones.”
Something shifted in her expression. A door closing, not opening. “That has nothing to do with me.”
“Everything has to do with you.” He stepped forward, one hand raised, palm open. “I didn’t come here to fight. I came here because you’re in danger. Finn is in danger.”
Her breath caught at the name. She looked away, toward the window where the city lights bled through the rain. “You don’t get to say his name.”
“I’m his father.”
“You *were* nothing.” She turned back, and there it was—the fire he remembered. The same fire that had drawn him to her seven years ago, the same fire that had burned him when she vanished without a word. “You don’t know what I did to keep him safe. What I sacrificed. You don’t know *anything*.”
Killian reached into his jacket and pulled out the folded photograph he’d carried for six years. He placed it on the edge of her desk, sliding it toward her. “I know you named him Finn. I know he has my eyes. I know you’ve been paying your mother’s medical bills out of a separate account for the last eighteen months because the Harrington trust was frozen.”
She went still. The only sound was the rain and the distant hum of the building’s ventilation.
“How did you—”
“Beckett sent me the records three years ago. Thought it would break me.” Killian’s voice dropped. “It didn’t. But it told me everything I needed to know about why you ran.”
Silence stretched between them, taut as a tripwire.
Seraphina’s hand moved from the folder to the edge of the desk, gripping it until her knuckles went white. “You think you understand. You don’t.”
“Then explain it to me.”
She laughed. It was a hollow, broken sound. “I was twenty-two, Killian. Twenty-two years old, pregnant, and engaged to a man whose family would have destroyed me if they found out the child wasn’t Grant’s. Do you remember what it was like? The press, the photographers, the way the Pembertons owned every tabloid in the city?”
“I remember.”
“No. You remember the wolf. You remember the moon and the woods and whatever *fantasy* you built in your head about what we were.” She shook her head, and when she spoke again, her voice was quieter. “Beckett Pemberton came to me three days after you left. He had photographs. He had a dossier on your pack, your bloodline. He told me that if I ever contacted you, if I ever told you about the pregnancy, he would expose you to every hunter organization on the continent. He would make sure you never had a night of peace again.”
Killian’s hands curled into fists at his sides. “He threatened you.”
“He threatened *you*. And he threatened my family.” She met his eyes, and for the first time, he saw the exhaustion beneath the armor. “My father’s company was drowning. The Harringtons had been a name for three generations, but we had nothing left but debt and reputation. Beckett offered to save us. All I had to do was disappear.”
“Seraphina—”
“I made a choice.” She cut him off, her voice sharp as glass. “I chose my child. I chose my family. And I chose to keep you alive, even if you hated me for it.”
Killian moved closer, stopping at the edge of her desk. He didn’t touch her. He didn’t reach out. He just stood there, close enough that she could see the gold flecks in his eyes, the ones Finn had inherited.
“I never hated you.”
“You should have.”
“Maybe.” He pulled the picture back, folding it carefully and returning it to his pocket. “But I spent six years searching. I spent six years making sure that when I found you, I would have the resources to protect you. The pack is strong. My territory is secured. The Pembertons don’t own this city anymore—I do.”
She stared at him, searching for the lie. He gave her nothing but the truth.
“Beckett is targeting Finn,” he said. “The drones on my property weren’t surveillance. They were a message. He wants me to know he’s coming for my son. And he wants me to know that he knows.”
“The custody agreement—”
“Is worth nothing.” Killian’s voice hardened. “Beckett Pemberton doesn’t care about courts or custody agreements. He cares about leverage. And Finn is the only thing that can break me.”
Seraphina’s hands began to shake. She pressed them flat against the desk, but the tremor bled through. “I’ve kept him hidden. Different schools, different names. I’ve done everything—”
“He found you anyway.”
“How?”
“Because I did.” Killian let the admission hang in the air. “If I could find you, he could find you. I had the resources of my pack and a decade of hunting. Beckett has corporate intelligence, satellite access, and a vendetta. He’s been planning this since the day I took the north territory from his shipping operations.”
She looked away, toward the rain-streaked glass. “What do you want from me?”
“Let me protect him.”
“No.”
“Seraphina—”
“No.” She turned back, and this time her eyes were dry. “You want to protect him? Then stay away. You’re the reason Beckett is targeting him in the first place. If you weren’t in the picture—”
“I am the reason Beckett wants him, but I’m also the only thing that can stop him.” Killian reached into his jacket again, this time pulling out a folded document, creased and worn from being carried through a dozen meetings. He set it on the desk. “This is an intelligence ledger I compiled over the last two years. It details every financial transaction, every shell company, every illegal movement Beckett Pemberton has orchestrated through his family’s holdings. There’s enough here to put him away for a decade.”
She didn’t reach for it. “Why haven’t you acted on it?”
“Because it’s half a picture. I’m missing the paper trail on one key piece—the debt your father owed him. The one Beckett used to blackmail you.” He tapped the ledger. “If I can close that loop, I can take everything from him. Including his leverage over you.”
The silence stretched. Seraphina’s gaze dropped to the ledger, her lips pressed into a thin line.
“The debt was discharged five months ago.”
Killian went still. “What?”
“I paid it.” She lifted her chin. “I’ve been working for three years to build enough liquid capital to buy my father’s notes. Five months ago, I finished. Beckett doesn’t own me anymore.”
“Then why are you still running?”
“Because he doesn’t know I paid it.” Her voice dropped. “And I need to keep it that way until I can move Finn somewhere safe. If Beckett realizes he’s lost his hold on me, he’ll accelerate whatever plan he has. He’ll take Finn just to hurt you.”
Killian studied her, the weight of her words settling into his bones. “You’ve been operating in the dark this whole time. Alone.”
“I had no other choice.”
“You do now.” He pushed the ledger closer. “Take it. Add your documentation to mine. Help me finish this.”
She looked at the ledger. Then at him. The clock on the wall ticked past the seconds, each one a small eternity.
“If I do this,” she said slowly, “you stay away from Finn. You don’t visit. You don’t contact him. You don’t exist until Beckett is in custody.”
Killian’s jaw worked silently. He counted the exits in the room—one door, one window, too high to jump. “And after?”
“After, we figure out what kind of father you want to be.”
He nodded. It was more than he deserved. “Done.”
She reached for the ledger, her fingers brushing his as she pulled it toward her. The contact burned. Neither of them flinched.
“One more thing,” he said. “Owen has a safe house in the northern district. Reinforced walls, EMP shielding, a month of supplies. I want you and Finn there tonight.”
“Killian—”
“Pemberton drones don’t just breach territory for fun. He sent them to find something. And if that something is your location, he already knows where to look.”
Seraphina’s hand stilled on the ledger. She looked at him, and for a moment, the walls she’d built cracked. He saw the fear underneath. The love. The exhaustion of seven years running.
“I’ll get my bag,” she said.
She turned to gather her things, and Killian allowed himself a single breath of relief. The ledger was in her hands. The plan was in motion. He had her trust—fragile as it was.
Then his phone vibrated again.
He pulled it from his pocket. Owen’s name flashed on the screen, followed by a single line of text.
*They know about the boy.*
The floor dropped out from under him.
“Seraphina.” His voice was steel. “Where’s Finn?”
She froze, a laptop case half in her grip. “He’s at the after-hours daycare. The building’s secure. Helena picked her up from school—”
“Call Helena. Now.”
She didn’t ask why. She pulled out her phone, fingers flying across the screen. The line rang. Once. Twice. Three times.
A click.
“Helena?” Seraphina’s voice cracked.
The line went dead.
“Seraphina—”
The door slammed open.
Killian spun, his body moving on instinct, blocking Seraphina with his frame before his mind caught up. But it wasn’t a threat. It was a woman, soaked to the bone, her dress torn at the shoulder, her face ghost-white with terror.
Helena.
She had something in her arms. Someone.
A small boy, trembling, his eyes wide and gold-flecked. Finn.
“They tried to take him from the daycare.” Helena’s voice was shredded, barely a whisper. “A drone shattered the window. We have to run.”