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His phone buzzes.

Every muscle in his body is tensed, and his scent holds the edge of high alert. Theo picks up the phone, looks at the screen, and sets it in the middle of the table.

“From Hammer,” he says.

Pepper reads it aloud. “‘I need an hour at the charity ground. No cops. You owe me. Told Doc about your boy. Time is running out for you. Give me what I need and I can get you to Doc.’”

The kitchen goes too cold.

Pepper looks at Theo. “The Saints have a doctor?”

“They always called their medical contact Doc.” His voice is rough but steady. “I never had a name. Doc treated people who got tore up on jobs and did bond medic stuff if needed.”

Pepper’s gaze flicks to the laptop, then to the phone, then to me. I can almost see her trying to line things up in her head.

“Could be a bluff,” I say.

“It’s Hammer,” Theo says. “Half of what he says is bait. The other half is worse because it’s true.”

Pepper reaches for her phone. “We call Wes.”

Theo’s eyes meet hers. The old instinct is there. The alpha who wants to close the house, close the gate, close every dangerous mouth before it can get near us. Then he nods.

“Call Wes,” he says. “I’ll send him the camera clip and the text.”

Pepper’s scent softens with pride so vivid it almost hurts.

I bump Theo’s shoulder with mine but keep the joke off my lips.

He looks at me. “Drink your coffee.”

“I didn’t even say it.”

“You thought it. Same thing.”

Wes answers on the second ring. Pepper puts him on speaker. She gives the facts clean and quick while Theo sends the clip. I listen to the rain and watch the man I love let us in.

It’s a little sexy. Okay, a lot sexy. Too bad my body is always busy being haunted.

Wes’s voice comes through the phone, clipped and alert. “Don’t let Hammer on the property. Don’t engage. We’ll run the bike image and increase patrol near the cemetery and Ms. Silver’s street.”

“You think they could target Ms. Silver because she has the Vines box?” Pepper asks then huffs. “We can’t let them get it. We need it.”

“You’ll get it,” Wes says. “Just not by walking into storm debris and Saints’ bait before we know who watched the gate last night.”

Theo’s fingers flex once on the table, but he says, “Understood.”

After the call, Pepper opens my laptop. “Sawyer consult is at eleven.”

My stomach dips. “That’s soon.”

Theo looks at the Hammer text again. No doubt he’s obsessing over the warning. Me too. My dream says release. Hammer says I’m out of time. Sawyer says stabilization. And I’m left sitting at a kitchen table trying to decide which word is least likely to steal me from myself.

At eleven, Dr. Lucy Sawyer appears on the laptop screen with soft gray hair pulled into a neat knot, dark-framed glasses, and the kind of calm face that makes panic feel unnecessary.

“Ezra Heron?” she asks.

“That’s me.”