The silence stretches like taffy in hell. They’re both staring at me like I’m a Netflix documentary, and I’m standing here trying not to have a complete mental breakdown.

“It’s been a long time…”

Understatement of the fucking century. But what else do you say to the two men who railed you into another dimension eight years ago and are now your bosses?

Hey, remember when you both—

Nope. Absolutely not going there.

But I can’t afford to fall apart. Not in front of them, not after everything.

I straighten my spine, step away from them, pull out my legal pad, and click my pen with deliberate precision. “I understand you have a case you need handled. Parameters?”

They both blink at my aggressive pivot to professionalism. Like they expected me to—what—collapse? Beg for forgiveness? Run screaming into traffic?

Been there. Done that. Got the single-mom trauma to prove it.

Kieran recovers first, his ice-king mask sliding back into place. “The Silverton acquisition.” He takes a folder from his desk thick enough to be used as a weapon. “Sixty-million-dollar tech merger. Shareholders crying breach of fiduciary duty.”

His eyes are doing that thing where he catalogs every change like I’m a spot-the-difference puzzle. “You’ll be lead counsel. Reporting directly to us.”

Lead counsel on sixty million? Either they’re testing me or setting me up for the most spectacular professional face-plant in Seattle legal history.

This is purely human corporate law—the kind that pays obscenely well because rich humans love suing each other. No pack politics. No supernatural complications. Just money and egos.

I can work with that.

“High stakes.” Lysander drifts closer, pretending to review documents while essentially bathing me in pheromones. “Think you can handle it?”

I handled pushing three of your potential children out of my body in one go. So yeah, I think I can manage paperwork.

“I’ve handled bigger.”
Another lie.

My biggest case barely scraped two million, but they don’t need to know that. I grab the folder and get out before my knees decide they’re done with this whole standing thing.

The first workday drags like torture and turns into an exercise in psychological warfare disguised as professional development.

I can feel them tracking every difference—the way I don’t drop my gaze when Lysander appears to “check in,” how my shoulders don’t curl inward just because Kieran enters the room.

The designer suit Rosalie helped me score secondhand.
The competence I wear instead of fear.
The spine I grew somewhere between midnight feedings and law-school finals.

They remember the girl I was—broken, compliant, terrified of her own shadow.

That girl is gone.

Around three, I catch something flicker across Kieran’s face when I cross my legs beneath the glass conference table. The kind of intensity usually reserved for bomb disposal.

Heat flashes through his expression—pure hunger—and my traitorous body responds like it’s been programmed.

I hate myself for the spike in my pulse.

Down, girl. We do not get horny for men who made our life hell. That is not a kink.

The meeting drags another hour. I text Rosalie under the table—Coming home late—while both brothers keep finding excuses to move closer.

Kieran stands behind my chair to point out jurisdictional issues, his body heat melting my professional façade. Cedar floods my senses like a drug I’ve been avoiding for eight years.

Close enough that I feel every breath.
Close enough that if I leaned back even a fraction—

Stop it.

Lysander’s tactics are different but just as devastating.

“Accidentally” grazing my fingers during document exchanges. Each touch sends electricity up my arm like I’m a malfunctioning power grid. To anyone else, it’s normal business interaction.

To me, it’s predators testing how close they can get before I snap.

By the time I escape at seven, I’m shaking so hard my keys sound like maracas. The drive home is forty minutes of controlled breathing and reminding myself that employment equals survival.

My apartment comes into view—warm lights against Seattle drizzle. Safety. Sanctuary. The place where I’m Mom instead of prey.

“MAMA!”

The door barely opens before three small bodies launch themselves at my legs.

Orion launches straight into a volcano presentation, complete with gestures and deadly seriousness. “Did you know Mount Vesuvius erupted at approximately 1,520 degrees Celsius? That’s hot enough to instantly vaporize human tissue!”

“That’s… very informative, baby.”

Luna waves her spelling test like a victory flag. “I got the bonus words too! Even necessary—everyone else missed it!”

Phoenix says nothing. She just clings to my leg, her grip pure Alpha strength wrapped in seven-year-old desperation.

Rosalie rescues me from the pile and herds them toward their rooms.

“Homework done, dinner eaten, only one minor incident,” she reports like a disaster relief coordinator. “Phoenix tried to make the remote levitate when Orion hogged the TV.”

Shit. “Success?”

“Almost. Ice cream saved us.”

After bedtime stories—Orion negotiating for one more chapter, Luna asking if I’m sad, Phoenix refusing to let go—

I collapse onto the couch. Rosalie already has wine poured.

Bless her.

“So,” she says carefully, “want to tell me why you look like you saw a ghost?”

I take a long drink. Then another.

“The co-CEOs,” I say. “Kieran and Lysander Fenris.”

Her face goes pale.

“They’re them,” I whisper. “The ones from that night.”

I don’t need to explain further. Rosalie knows everything.

“The baby daddies,” she breathes. “Holy shit, Thalia. What are you going to do?”

“Keep my head down. Do the work. Bill the hours. Pray they never find out about the triplets.” I refill my glass. “It’s just a job. Just surviving. Like always.”

“Thalia…”

“They can’t know,” I say, hands shaking. “If they find out—”

“They’ll take them,” Rosalie finishes softly.

I look down the hallway where my children sleep. “Alphas don’t leave their bloodline unclaimed.”

Silence settles between us.

“Did they recognize you?” she finally asks.

“Immediately.” I laugh, broken. “Kieran shattered a coffee mug with his bare hand. Lysander went feral.” I set the glass down before I join it. “They circled me all day like I was prey.”

Her expression cycles through horror, anger, and disbelief.

“The worst part?” I admit bitterly. “Some fucked-up part of me is… glad they found me.”

Rosalie pours more wine. “You can’t keep working there. It’s too dangerous.”

“I don’t have a choice.” The words taste like ash. “If I quit, I’m blacklisted. We’d have to move again. I’m out of fresh starts.”

But Kieran’s burning stare flashes in my mind.
Lysander’s possessive touch.
The way my body still remembers them.

Two Alpha heirs with daily access to me.
Three children who share their blood.
A past that’s finally caught up.

And a present I can’t afford to lose.