The second meeting ended, and the room emptied, and Harolin sat at the table and looked at his watch.

His father’s message sat on the screen.

He read it once.

Immediately, he put his fist through the table surface angrily. It wasn’t hard enough to break anything, but it was enough to make the officers filing out of the room stop and look back. Without anyone telling them anything, they made a collective decision to keep moving. One by one, they left. The sound of the door clicked, and the room went back to being quiet.

Harolin sat with the message and what it meant. He wasn’t angry because of the message.

He was not surprised by it at all. His father had been building toward this for more than two years. The Crowe family name, the political connections, and the marriage that would consolidate both. Scarlett Carman was not a person to his father. She was a transaction. She had probably been selected from a list.

None of that was new.

What was pissing him off was his phone.

The fact that his phone was where Ruaan was. That meant Ruaan had seen the message and read it. He couldn’t help but wonder how Ruaan would react after seeing that message.

He closed his hand around the watch face, trying not to break the screen with his strength.

’If Ruaan had seen that notification...’

He heard movement behind him. He turned.

Oren was still in the room, stacking the water glasses from the table and carrying them to the side counter. He was the one on duty, so he had to finish his task for the day.

He glanced at Harolin once, after watching his reaction since earlier.

"Is there a problem?" Oren said.

"Why do you keep involving yourself in my life?" Harolin said. "Are you a stalker?"

"Am I a stalker?" Oren walked to the trash, dropped something, and turned back. "I’m asking because I can see there is a problem. Not because I want your personal information."

"We’re not close enough for that kind of concern." Harolin looked at him. "Unless you’re interested in me."

"There is no possible version of any universe in which I would ever be interested in you," Oren said pleasantly. He sat down across from him calmly, as if he had decided this conversation was happening. "Is it something about Ruaan?"

Harolin looked at the wall. He really didn’t want to say a word to Oren. He wasn’t close to him, and most especially, if they should be anything, it should be rivals or... enemies since Oren was also interested in Ruaan.

"No," he said.

Oren stood up after hearing that answer. He already said he wasn’t interested in Harolin’s personal information. As long as it’s nothing related to Ruaan, he did care.

Harolin exhaled and broke the news. "I’m getting engaged."

Oren stopped. He was already at the door with his hand on the handle, and he stopped completely after hearing Harolin say that. Then he turned around slowly. Something moved across his face that he made no real effort to hide.

"Engaged?" Oren asked.

"Yes."

"So you’ll be leaving Blackmere." A pause. "Leaving Ruaan."

The way he said the last part. The specific quality of interest in his voice. Harolin was not a man who missed things like that. He looked at Oren, who wasn’t even trying to hide the smile on his face.

He thought about the two years he had spent building his plan of coming to Blackmere just to make Ruaan’s life miserable. He had arrived with a clear goal and a clear timeline, and he had known what he was supposed to feel and supposed to do.

He thought about his father. Who had never once acknowledged what happened to their mother. When he had been informed of her death, he had sent a formal condolence through a secretary. He was the son of his mistress, which meant Harolin had never been legitimate in the family structure to begin with.

His father did not love him. His father wanted to use him the same way he used everything.

He was not going to let that happen.

"I’m not leaving Ruaan," Harolin said.

Oren blinked. "But the engagement—"

"Doesn’t change what I decide to do." Harolin stood. "My father can make arrangements. That doesn’t mean I attend them."

Oren looked at him. The happiness he was feeling some seconds ago suddenly vanished. "And Ruaan? What does Ruaan think about you having a fiancée arranged by your family?"

"That’s between Ruaan and me."

"What if you’re forced into this engagement? Does that mean you’ll cheat on your fiancée? Or are you going to cheat on Ruaan?"

"As I said, that’s between Ruaan and me. I need to speak to him," Harolin said. He adjusted his cap. "Which I intend to do. Now."

"You’re going to explain to him that you’re being arranged into an engagement while simultaneously telling him it doesn’t affect you two." Oren tilted his head. "And you think that conversation is going to go smoothly."

"No," Harolin said. "I think it’s going to be difficult. But it’s the truth, and he deserves to hear it from me."

He walked to the door, already preparing to go and see Ruaan.

"Harolin," Oren called his name, and he stopped.

"I’m just going to advise you as a colleague," Oren said, "whatever you decide. Make sure you’re deciding it for the right reason and not just because you feel guilty."

Harolin looked at him for a moment.

Then he walked out.

.

.

The corridor after lunch was almost empty.

He checked the VIP cafeteria first, and it was empty. He stood in the hall and waited to see if Ruaan would come out from anywhere. Nothing. He looked at the time. If Ruaan wasn’t anywhere here, having lunch with the others. That means he had been in his room all this time. With his phone.

He needed to get there immediately.

He turned around sharply, and someone stepped into his path.

Harolin stopped.

The man in front of him was the one from processing. The third inmate. The one with long hair partially covering his face, wearing a grey uniform. He was standing in the empty corridor like someone who had been waiting here specifically.

"Move," Harolin said.

The man did not move.

And suddenly he lunged.

.

The man was fast. He was faster than any grey uniform and obviously different from whatever quiet arrival he had. He came in low and grabbed for Harolin’s collar. Harolin stepped sideways and let the momentum carry the man past him, and used it to spin him around and get an arm across his throat from behind.

The man drove his elbow back into Harolin’s ribs hard.

"Hng!" Harolin groaned as he absorbed it and tightened the hold.

The man dropped his weight suddenly and twisted, and got partially free. He swung a fist that Harolin caught by the wrist and redirected, using the arm to fold him forward and drive his knee into the man’s lower back.

He went down on one knee.

Harolin had him on the floor in four seconds with his face down, and his arm wrenched back. He reached for his cuffs and snapped one on.

"This fucker..." He mumbled under his breath. He should deal with this himself, but he has busy things to do. But he had no idea why the person he suspected of being the hunter was attacking him.

’I’m not sure he wanted to kill me, so what was he after?’ he thought as he shook his head and grabbed his speaker with the other hand.

"This is Crowe. I need backup at the East Corridor Junction, prisoner—"

Before he could finish, something small and sharp hit his neck. A point of pressure that he registered a half-second after it happened.

He reached up automatically, and his hand found a small object embedded just below his ear.

A syringe. He pulled it and stared at it. A fucking syringe? He turned around to see who it was and there... Seo was standing behind him.

He looked smaller than he remembered, especially with that grey uniform and broken glasses on him. He folded his arms with a grin spreading on his face.

Harolin looked at him.

His vision was already getting blurry at the edges. He blinked, and it did not fix.

"You," Harolin said.

His legs were also trembling, making him unable to stand on them as they continued to weaken.

"What did you..."

He went to one knee.

The man on the floor in front of him lifted his upper body and stared at Seo. Then he quietly and clearly said, "Boss."

He was not mute at all.

Harolin looked at the man. At Seo. The pieces of information, arranging themselves in his vision, were narrowing now at the edges.

Seo was not a prisoner with complicated feelings. Seo was the one they had been looking for.

"Seo is the leader of the Hunters," Harolin mumbled to himself. "He’s been right under our nose..."

His remaining body hit the floor.

His last clear thought before the dark arrived was Ruaan in his room with the phone and the notification still sitting on the screen.

"Fuck," Harolin said.