Sage's Point of View
He comes back the next night.
I know he will before he even walks through the door. I can feel it in my bones like a storm coming. My wolf has been restless all day, pacing inside me, waiting for something I don't want to name.
When the scarred man enters at 9 PM, it's like the whole bar contracts around him. People unconsciously move away. The noise dips just enough that everyone notices something important is happening, even if they don't know what.
He sits at the bar this time. Not the corner booth. Right in front of me.
"Sophie," he says, and his voice is careful like he's testing out a name that doesn't fit. "Or should I say Sage?"
My hands freeze on the glass I'm holding. The other customers can't hear him over the music and chatter, but I can. My wolf can. Everything inside me goes very still.
"I don't know what you mean," I say, even though we both know I'm lying.
"Yes you do." He leans forward slightly. "You know exactly what I mean. You just don't want to admit it because admitting it means facing who you really are. And you've spent six months pretending that girl doesn't exist."
I should call security. I should tell him to leave. I should do something other than stand here frozen while this stranger describes my entire life back to me.
"What do you want?" I ask instead.
He slides a black card across the counter. It's expensive looking. Matte black with gold lettering. Just an address and a phone number. Nothing else.
"My name isn't important," he says. "What matters is that I know exactly who you are. I know you're an Omega. I know you were rejected by your pack. I know you've been hiding in this basement bar for six months pretending to be someone you're not."
I pick up the card. My fingers are shaking so badly I almost drop it.
"How did you find me?" I whisper.
"Because I was looking. Because someone told me to look." He pauses. "And because a girl like you doesn't just disappear. She leaves a trail. And I'm very good at following trails."
A girl like me. Smart. Strategic. Someone who notices things other people miss. Someone who understands systems because she had to survive without physical strength.
I want to throw the card back at him. I want to tell him to leave and never come back. I want to go back to being dead inside because at least being dead was safe.
Instead I ask, "What is this?"
"An opportunity," he says. "I'm looking for someone brilliant. Someone who understands how things work. Someone who won't ask a lot of questions about how I do business. Someone who could help me with systems and strategy."
He's talking about the criminal underworld. He's talking about crossing a line that I can't uncross. He's talking about becoming someone my parents wouldn't recognize. Someone the pack definitely wouldn't recognize.
But he's also talking about someone seeing me. Actually seeing me.
"You're offering me a job," I say slowly.
"I'm offering you a choice," he corrects. "Right now you're poor. You're working doubles at a dive bar and going home to an apartment that smells like mold. You're slowly dying inside and calling it survival. You have no pack. No protection. No future beyond maybe five more years before your body gives out from exhaustion."
He's not wrong. That part of what he said is the truth and it hurts more because I know he's right.
"Or you could call that number. You could work for me. You could use that beautiful brain of yours to do something that matters. You could make money. Real money. Enough to never work another double shift again. Enough to actually live instead of just survive."
"And what would I have to do?" I ask.
"For now, just call the number. Just make the choice to stop hiding. Everything else comes later."
He stands up and leaves a hundred-dollar bill on the counter. No tip. Just a hundred dollars sitting there like my time is worth that much. Like my potential is worth that much.
"Don't take too long deciding," he says as he walks away. "The world doesn't wait for broken girls to put themselves back together. Sometimes someone has to hand you the pieces."
He leaves.
I'm standing behind the bar holding a black card and a hundred-dollar bill and feeling more alive than I've felt in six months.
Riley appears next to me. She's seen the whole thing and her face is pale.
"Soph, what was that?" she asks.
"I don't know," I say, but it's another lie.
I know exactly what it was. It was an offer from someone who sees value in me. Someone who thinks my brain is worth something. Someone who doesn't think I'm broken just because one Alpha rejected me.
For the first time since Cohen threw me to the ground in front of five hundred wolves, someone is looking at me and seeing strength instead of weakness.
The card is warm in my palm. The phone number burns there like it's alive.
I should throw it away. I should burn it. I should delete the address from my memory and pretend this conversation never happened.
Instead I slip the card into my pocket.
When my shift ends at 2 AM, I'm alone in the bar with my thoughts and the black card. I keep pulling it out and looking at it. The address is somewhere in the industrial district. A place I've never been. A place where deals probably happen in the dark with people who don't ask names.
I should be terrified. I should be running again.
Instead I'm thinking about what it would feel like to stop running. What it would feel like to use my mind for something that matters. What it would feel like to be seen as valuable instead of broken.
My phone is in my hand before I fully decide what I'm doing.
I dial the number.
A man answers on the first ring. Not the scarred man. Someone else. Someone whose voice sounds like power.
"Hello Sage," he says, and somehow he already knows it's me. "I've been waiting for you to call."
My mouth is dry. "Who is this?"
"Someone who thinks you're worth saving," he says. "My name is Kael, and I have a job for you. One that will change your life."
The line goes quiet. He's waiting for my answer. Waiting to see if I'll step into this new world or if I'll hang up and go back to dying slowly in a basement apartment.
"What kind of job?" I ask.
"The kind that matters," he says. "The kind that uses that brilliant mind of yours. The kind that pays better than you can imagine. The kind that turns broken girls into queens."
Queens. He said queens.
"Why would you want to help me?" I ask.
There's a pause. A long one. Long enough that I wonder if he's still on the line.
"Because broken things are usually the strongest once they're put back together," he finally says. "But only if someone gives them a reason to become strong."
I close my eyes and I make a choice that will define the rest of my life.
"I'm listening," I tell him.