Cassian Dray moved through the wreckage of the tower as if it were an old argument he'd finally won.
The emergency lights had died when the grid went down; only the occasional spit of a failing fixture lit his path. Smoke clung to the ceiling. A body lay half-slumped against the wall—Scatter wolf, not Syndicate, throat torn open in a way that said Thorne more than it said Atlas. Cassian stepped over him without breaking stride.
"Waste of a useful idiot," he murmured.
He reached the secured access stair and keyed in a code no one was supposed to have anymore. The lock thought about resisting, then remembered that money and old favors were often stronger than encryption. It clicked open.
Below the polished floors and mirrored conference rooms, the Syndicate Tower grew older. The concrete hall narrowed. The air cooled. The scent of bleach and age thickened. Down here was the part of the empire that never appeared in annual reports.
Cassian's footsteps echoed as he descended into the old detention wing—the one Atlas had "decommissioned" after the Code of Restraint made certain practices unfashionable.
The last cell on the left still hummed. A single strip of light buzzed overhead, bugs suiciding against it.
Behind the reinforced glass, a man sat on the bench, elbows on his knees, head bowed. His hair had grown in tangled, gray-shot waves. The hospital scrubs he wore were washed thin by time. Golden eyes glowed under heavy lids when the door sighed open.
"You're late," the prisoner rasped.
Cassian smiled. "You're alive. Let's not be ungrateful, Vale."
The man's lips peeled back in a humorless grin. "Not Darren," he said. "That was my boy. You know my name."
"Beta Vale," Cassian conceded, as if awarding a prize. "Beta of nothing at the moment. Exiled, buried, forgotten. Convenient."
Vale stood. The years in the cell had not diminished him; they had honed him. Even without shifting, he had the wrong kind of presence—too wild around the edges, too sure the world would eventually have to come back to his way of doing things.
"They kept me when they should've killed me," he said. "That's the insult that stung."
"Atlas has an unfortunate sentimental streak," Cassian replied. "He thought he could save you. Or make you an example later. Either way, he was wrong."
Vale stepped closer to the glass, eyes narrowing. "And why are you down here, Iron Fang?"
Cassian's gaze slid over the control panel. A few quick keystrokes and the cell's inner lock disengaged with a soft clunk. The door didn't open yet, but the first chain had broken.
"Because the Silver House is rotting from the inside," he said. "And rot makes room."
Vale's nostrils flared. "The Alpha still breathes, last I checked."
"For the moment." Cassian leaned a shoulder against the wall, the picture of relaxed treason. "But his blood is busy. It's in a human now. A tethered one. Half our young wolves can smell her from blocks away."
The prisoner's pupils blown wide. "They let him bond with prey?"
"They didn't let anything. The moon did what it does." Cassian's smile sharpened. "And now the great Atlas Cain flinches when she bleeds. He's compromised, divided. That is where you come in."
Vale's fingers flexed at his sides. "You want the Scatter Clan back in the city."
"I want balance restored," Cassian said smoothly. "An Alpha whose loyalty isn't tangled up in a heartbeat that doesn't belong to our kind."
"And what do I get?" the Beta asked. "Besides a chance to die closer to fresh air."
Cassian took his hand off the panel. The inner door eased open on a sigh. The scent that rolled out was old rage and older hope.
"You get territory," he said. "You get your clan unchained. You get the right to put your son's memory to use."
Vale stepped over the threshold, slow, savoring. "And the girl?"
"She's the match," Cassian said. "You can burn with it. Or burn her with it. I'm not here to direct your grief."
Vale's golden eyes gleamed. "You just aim it."
"Exactly." Cassian straightened. "Atlas has taken refuge in the Sanctuary. The ridge is supposed to be inviolate, neutral. Even you remember the old laws."
Vale spat onto the concrete. "Old laws died when he put on a tie."
"Then consider this the funeral," Cassian said. "You will rally what remains of Scatter, and you will hunt him. Hunt her. Push him hard enough and the Alpha line breaks trying to protect what it was stupid enough to love."
Vale's teeth flashed. "You talk like you won't be standing next to him when it happens."
"Oh, I will be," Cassian said. "Someone has to be there to pick up the pieces and remind the survivors how grateful they should be."
He tossed a keycard. Vale snatched it from the air without looking at it, eyes never leaving Cassian's face.
"The moon doesn't choose Alphas," Vale said. "It devours them. You'd do well to remember that, Dray."
Cassian's smile turned thin. "I'm counting on it."
When he left the detention block, he didn't look back. The cameras along the corridor were already looping empty footage. The alarms that would have warned Atlas's inner circle had been quietly redirected to report a power fluctuation in an unused wing.
By the time anyone thought to check the old cells, they would be very busy with other problems.
Cassian stepped into the elevator, smoothed his cuffs, and watched his reflection blur as the doors slid shut.
"Let the moon feed," he murmured. "I'll keep the bones."