Page 29 of Curvy Sold Mate

She gathered the documents, stacked them neatly, and carried them to Viktor’s desk.

He was reading patrol reports when she arrived—the posture unchanged from every other time she’d walked into this room: spine straight, pen in hand, the lamp casting its circle of yellow light across papers arranged in configurations that followed a logic only he could decode.

“I found something,” she said, setting the stack beside his elbow. “Maren filed a requisition in the wrong archive section. The paper stock doesn’t match the standard forms, the filing location is deliberate, and there are three related anomalies in the surrounding records.” She pulled out the chair across from him and sat. “I think she’s been running a parallel paper trail—one set of records for the official file, another set buried where nobody looks.”

Viktor picked up the requisition form. Held it the way she’d held it, between thumb and forefinger, angling it toward the lamp. His eyes moved across the handwriting, the stamp, the paper’s edge, and she watched the information enter whatever system ran behind those grey eyes and slot into place beside everything he already knew.

“The paper weight,” he said.

“You noticed.”

“I notice paper.” The corner of his mouth shifted—barely, a millimeter’s worth of movement that she caught because she’d been cataloging his expressions for weeks and the catalog was becoming embarrassingly detailed. “This is good work, Olivia.”

“I know.”

She left the documents with him and walked back through the corridor with the bond humming at her sternum and Damian’s arrival sitting in the back of her mind like a letter she hadn’t opened yet and the investigation sitting in the front of it like a door she was about to walk through, and the two things occupied different rooms inside her, and she was grateful for the wall between them.

Chapter 18 - Viktor

Damian arrived at sunset, the way he always arrived—at the edge of a day, when the light was failing, and the compound was settling into evening routines. Viktor watched from the main entrance as his brother climbed out of the borrowed truck, stretching his arms overhead with the casual grace of a man who had never worried about occupying space.

“Viktor.” Damian’s voice carried across the courtyard, warm and easy. “Still standing guard, I see.”

Viktor descended the steps. The distance between them closed in increments—ten feet, five, two—and he watched his brother’s face arrange itself into the smile that had charmed half the pack before Viktor had learned to recognize it as a shield.

“Damian.” He extended his hand, the gesture formal, deliberate. “Welcome back.”

Damian’s grip was firm, his palm calloused in different places than Viktor’s—the hands of a man who drove long distances and handled his own luggage and did not, apparently, spend his days buried in patrol reports. He was taller than Viktor remembered, or perhaps it was the way he carried himself—shoulders relaxed, weight shifted to one hip, the posture of someone who had learned to look comfortable anywhere.

“Four years,” Damian said, releasing Viktor’s hand and stepping back to survey the compound. “Place hasn’t changed much.”

“It’s changed enough.”

A beat of silence, and then Damian laughed—the sound bright and uncomplicated in the evening air. “Always straight to the point. You haven’t changed either.”

Viktor didn’t answer. He turned toward the entrance, and Damian fell into step beside him, the rhythm of their walking mismatched—Viktor’s strides measured and even, Damian’s looser, almost bouncing.

“So,” Damian said, “how’s the pack? Kahn still running things with that iron fist?”

“Kahn runs things the way they need to be run.”

“Right, right. And you’re still his right hand. The loyal Beta.” There was no edge to the words, but Viktor felt them land anyway, the familiar weight of a conversation they’d had a dozen times before Damian left. “Must be exhausting, carrying all that responsibility.”

“I manage.”

They reached the main corridor. The evening meal had ended an hour ago, and the compound was quiet, the stone walls holding the day’s warmth as the temperature outside dropped. Viktor led the way to the guest quarters, his boots striking the floor with a precision Damian’s softer-soled shoes didn’t match.

“Eastern wing,” Viktor said, gesturing toward the far end of the corridor. “Elena prepared the rooms this morning.”

“Elena’s still here? God, that woman must be pushing eighty by now.”

“Seventy-three.”

Damian shook his head, smiling. “You would know that.”

They reached the door. Viktor opened it, stood aside, and watched his brother step into the space that had been empty for four years.

“Home sweet home,” Damian said, dropping his bag on the bed. He turned, and his eyes found Viktor’s with the directness that had always been his most disarming quality. “So. Where’s Olivia?”