From the rooftop across the street, he watched the café like it had all the answers—doors breathing people in and out, windows reflecting fragments of movement, light spilling onto wet pavement in dull gold streaks.Brooklyn moved the way it always did at this hour—restless, half-awake, pretending the night wasn’t dangerous if you didn’t look at it too closely.
He looked anyway.
His brother Dorian crouched beside him, scope trained on the street, posture loose in a way that only came from years inside E.S.E.where discipline was burned into muscle memory and instinct was honed sharp enough to trust.Wolves didn’t fidget.They waited.
Rafe shifted his weight and felt the dull pull along his ribs, a reminder that he wasn’t healed, not all the way.The stitches were gone, but the damage lingered, deep and persistent, the kind that took time his wolf resented.Healing was slow.Waiting was slower.
Neither suited him.
“She’s been inside eleven minutes,” Dorian murmured.“Corner table.Back to the wall.”
Rafe didn’t need the update.
He could feel her.
It had started before she came into view, a low, irritating tug beneath his ribs that had nothing to do with injury.She was too thin, her long blonde hair was braided, and fell to the middle of her back, and he knew that her eyes were blue.The photos he had seen of her were of her laughing and having a good time, but that carefree Riley was far from the broken and scared woman he watched over now.At first he’d dismissed it—fatigue, adrenaline bleed, his wolf restless after days of circling the same block and pretending that wasn’t hunting.
Then the scent resolved.
Her.
Not strong.Not obvious.Just ...there.Woven into the night like it belonged.
It had pissed him off.
Instinct had no business inserting itself into an op like this.They were here to confirm innocence, not complicate the mission with biological nonsense.E.S.E.didn’t survive by indulging impulse.
And yet...
“She doesn’t move like an asset,” Rafe said quietly.“Too careful.Too tired.”
Dorian glanced at him.“You’re profiling from a roof top now?”
Rafe snorted.“You don’t see it?”
“I see a woman who knows how to choose exits,” Dorian said.“And someone who’s been hunted long enough to expect to have to use them.”
That aligned uncomfortably well with the data.
Riley Quinn wasn’t central to Chimera.That much Elara had confirmed—or rather, she’d confirmed what wasn’t there.No embedded clearance markers.No funding trail.No hybrid signatures tied directly to her ID.
Peripheral exposure.
Collateral proximity.
The kind of person Chimera erased when it got inconvenient.
Or claimed, when something went wrong.
“Hybrid hubs are still popping up,” Dorian added.“Two burned last night.One slipped before the Leopards could pin it.”
Rafe’s jaw tightened.“Decentralized and mobile.Someone learned from the Bears’ takedown.”
“Someone is definitely steering that ship somewhere with purpose,” Dorian agreed.
Rafe kept his eyes on the café windows.Riley sat perfectly still, hands wrapped around her mug like it was anchoring her to the chair.Her shoulders were tense, her gaze angled down, scanning reflections instead of faces.
Smart.