Roman’s POV

The cell block was three levels underground. Cold down here the way stone gets cold — not the cold of a draft, just the cold of something that never gets enough sun to warm up properly. The lights were fluorescent and harsh. My footsteps were the only sound.

Alexei’s cell was at the end.

The guard outside snapped to attention when he saw me. I gave him a nod, took the keys, and let myself in.

The first thing I saw was the silver chains.

They’d wrapped them around his wrists, his ankles, threaded them through a bolt in the floor. Heavy-gauge stuff, the kind we used for wolves who could shift under stress. He probably couldn’t even feel his hands anymore. His clothes were still the same ones from the day of the riot — dirty, torn, bloodstained at the shoulder where Irina’s bullet had gone through. One side of his face was bruised so dark it was nearly purple, swelling pulling at the corner of his eye.

He looked like something that had been chewed up and spat out.

His eyes were something else entirely. Bright, restless, jumping around the room like he was tracking things that weren’t there. There was a quality to them — sharp and fractured at the same time, like glass that had cracked but hadn’t quite shattered. The kind of eyes that made you take a second look at the distance between yourself and the door.

I pulled the chair out from the wall and sat down.

Crossed my legs. Folded my hands on my knee. Looked at him.

He looked back. A slow smile started spreading across his bruised face.

"The beta," he said.

"Good morning," I said.

He laughed. Short, hoarse, a little unhinged at the edges.

I let the silence sit.

"I’ll keep this brief," I said. "You’re not getting out. That’s not a negotiation point, that’s just a fact, so I’d rather not waste either of our time pretending otherwise." I kept my voice even. "What you’ve done — attempted murder of an alpha king, organizing a mutiny within the pack’s own ranks — those carry a death sentence. There’s no version of this where you walk. You know that."

He was watching me the way a dog watches something it’s deciding whether to lunge at.

"What I can offer you," I said, "is Sofia."

Something shifted in his face. Just barely. Just enough.

"We have her," I said. "She was picked up two nights ago. She’s in a holding room on the second level right now, and she’s looking at the same charges as you are." I tilted my head slightly. "She doesn’t have to. The poison was your operation. The mutiny was yours. If you cooperate — if you give me names, give me the full chain, tell me everything you know about who else was involved — I’ll make sure her charges get reduced. She did it for you. That’s on record. It works in her favor." I spread my hands. "You get to choose what happens to your mate. That’s more than most people get."

Alexei was quiet for a moment.

Then he started to smile.

It wasn’t a good smile. It was the smile of someone who had already decided they had nothing to lose, and found that discovery — the finding of the bottom — weirdly freeing.

"You think I’m scared of you?" he asked. "You’re not even the one who matters. Where’s Nicholas? Oh. Right." He leaned back as far as the chains would allow.

"I’m not playing anything," I said. "I’m giving you an offer."

"Your offer is garbage."

"Then counteroffer."

"I don’t have a counter." He shifted, chains rattling. "I don’t want anything from you. Sofia made her choice. I’m not bargaining her away."

I looked at him.

He looked back.

"Then we’re done," I said.

I stood up.

"Sofia will be charged alongside you. Execution, probably — or exile if we’re feeling lenient, which right now we’re not. You’ll both get a formal hearing before the sentence is carried out. After that—" I pulled the chair back to the wall. "—it’s out of my hands."

I picked up my jacket from the back of the chair.

"Good luck," I said, and I meant it the way no one ever means it.

---

I was three steps from the door.

"Wait."

I stopped.

Didn’t turn around. Let the word hang there for a second and settle.

"Wait," he said again. And his voice had changed. The bright, fractured quality had gone somewhere else. What was underneath it was harder to read.

I turned around slowly.

He was still sitting where I’d left him, chains pooled on the floor around his ankles, hands twisted at an awkward angle because of the restraints. His bruised face was unsmiling now. The manic energy was still there — it was always there, I could feel it vibrating off him — but it had been rearranged into something purposeful.

Like he’d decided to spend it on something specific.

"There’s someone else," he said.

I waited.

"Not in my group. Not part of the mutiny." He paused. "Someone who was already inside. Already close." His eyes met mine. "Someone who went to your alpha before any of this started and gave him something she shouldn’t have."

My jaw tightened. "What are you talking about."

He let the silence go for exactly two seconds too long.

"She gave him the poison," he said. "Directly. Close enough to touch." He let that sink in. "You think we could have pulled this off on our own? From the outside? We needed help. We had help." His chin lifted. "She did it first. We just continued what she started."

The cold in the room felt different now.

"Who," I said.

My voice came out flat. Controlled. The way I’d trained it to come out when what I wanted to do was something else.

He looked at me.

And then he smiled. Wide. Slow. Satisfied, like a man pulling the pin on something he’d been holding for a long time and finally letting go.

"Your Luna," he said. "Irina." 𝒻𝑟ℯℯ𝑤𝑒𝑏𝑛𝘰𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝒸𝑜𝘮

The word landed like a fist.

I didn’t move. Couldn’t, for a second. The room was exactly the same as it had been five seconds ago — same cold, same light, same chain sounds, same bruised face across from me — but something in the arrangement had shifted violently and I was still catching up.

"You need to watch what you say," I said. The words came out careful. Precise. Like I was measuring them. "Making accusations about the alpha’s mate without evidence—"

His eyes were bright again. That fractured, wrong brightness.

"I bet she’s already run away by now?"