Chapter 227

Siron felt a suffocating weight he couldn’t bear. Someone had their arms locked tight around him from behind, face buried in the nape of his neck, breathing hot against his skin.

What am I, a body pillow?

He didn’t need to turn around to know who it was. Baekgyeong’s pheromones seeped out, wrapping around him like a mist. It was as if the air itself had changed, enclosing him, pressing down on him. Yet the concentration was so faint that instead of stirring any sexual heat, the pheromones felt almost unbearably soft, comforting. That was when Siron realized he could hear another breath, a second set of lungs beside his own.

He opened his eyes to find Isaac’s sleeping face right in front of him. Even in sleep, Isaac couldn’t let go of tension; a faint furrow dug between his brows. For some reason, Siron felt an impulse to smooth it away, to press his fingers between his eyebrows and pull the wrinkle flat.

The deep hollows beneath his thick brow ridges cast shadows along his cheekbones. His features were symmetrical, clean, almost sculpted, and yet the sharpness of his outline carried something coarse. Staring at him, Siron suddenly felt an awkward urge to piss. Careful not to wake the two men pressed around him, he tried to peel Baekgyeong’s hand off his chest. But no sooner had he done so than Baekgyeong yanked him back into a firm embrace.

“You’re awake.”

Isaac’s voice was still heavy with sleep. His eyes opened slowly, blinking, a startling shade of blue that caught the light like the surface of a clear ocean. Siron found himself staring for a moment before a damp, ticklish sensation at his neck made his shoulders twitch.

“Don’t.”

“It’s natural behavior. Dogs, when their master wakes up—haam—they greet them with kisses everywhere.”

Siron twisted his body, jamming his elbow sharply into Baekgyeong’s ribs. Baekgyeong’s cry of pain snapped the last dregs of sleep out of him. Siron shot up from the bed and dashed into the bathroom. He stood at the toilet, ready to flood it like a busted hydrant, only to confirm once again that even as an omega his stream was weak and unsatisfying. When he returned, the gloom clinging to him was already being swept away by the rhythm of a busy morning.

“This is a recorder?”

Baekgyeong answered Siron’s question.

“Yeah. Someone tried to bug the commissioner’s car.”

He handed Siron a cigarette-lighter plug, half the size of a thumb. At first glance it looked ordinary, but on closer inspection it was bulkier, off somehow. When he lifted the seam that jutted out, the lid popped open, revealing a recording button.

“You don’t know who planted it?”

“Nope. No idea. But it’s got records starting September 31st, so probably installed about five days ago.”

For a man as high up as the police commissioner, it wasn’t surprising that people wanted to keep tabs on his every move—reporters, suspects with grudges, bereaved families. Still, illegal surveillance? Whoever did it was either reckless enough to risk prison or desperate enough to gamble everything. And among the people Siron knew, there was exactly one person who fit “reckless” and “desperate.”

“It can’t be Anna... can it?”

Baekgyeong rolled his eyes lazily before answering.

“Unlikely. He’s the police commissioner. At that rank, there are more people who’d want to dig up dirt on him than stray cats in the alley.”

Even with Baekgyeong’s firm denial, Siron couldn’t shake the thought of Anna.

“Shouldn’t we at least contact her? She’s probably still looking for Lewis right now.”

“We don’t know where Lewis is either, so why bother?”

“Even so... we might be able to give her a lead on what happened—”

“Ha. Don’t start. Get your head straight, Yoon Siron!”

The sudden bite in Baekgyeong’s tone froze him. Isaac, scrolling lazily through internet news, even turned his head at the sharpness in Baekgyeong’s voice.

“The Imprint comes first. This is no time to go chasing after missing persons!”

“When did I ever treat it lightly?”

“Do you even understand how serious this is?”

His words and glare were so aggressive that Siron lost his own retort. The tone alone was enough to cow him, rob him of the strength to fire back, as if a snarling dog had chased him into a corner. He couldn’t even muster the guts to scold him, to push him away. Instead, Siron only glared at him in silent disapproval. He knew Baekgyeong’s and Isaac’s lives hung on the Imprint with him, but did he really have to bare his fangs like this?

“I know. Your life depends on the Imprint. That’s why I’ve been trying to cooperate.”

“Cooperate?”

“Yeah! Cooperate!”

The vein in Baekgyeong’s forehead bulged. The Imprint was mutual, in essence, but Siron wanted to remind him—and Isaac too—that he held the leverage here.

Baekgyeong opened his mouth, his temper flaring, but clamped it shut again. Words rose hot to his tongue, only to be swallowed back with visible effort.

“The first executions have already been carried out.”

At Isaac’s sudden announcement, Siron and Baekgyeong both flinched and turned toward him. Isaac scrolled the mouse wheel and swiveled the laptop screen around for them to see.

The article filled the page: one serial killer who had murdered five children at the seaside, and a Salvadoran gang boss charged with arson and murder. Both executed that very morning at the Somora Correctional Center execution chamber—one at 10 a.m., the other at 11.

Morgan Davis’s last words before death shocked officials, reporters, and the families present: “Thanks to the kids I killed, I got to live a fun life.” El Calva, on the other hand, left behind the statement, “My innocent death will be recorded in history,” choosing death without repentance.

Siron felt a shiver of disgust mingled with something he couldn’t name. While he was adrift in sleep, safe in dreams, killers and criminals had been erased with a flick of the switch. He told himself they were only paying for their crimes, but the idea that a life could be decided and snuffed out so easily chilled him to the bone.

“Now that the executions have begun, I doubt the governor will halt them during his remaining three months in office.”

Criminals guilty of the most atrocious sins had been punished with death. Now even death row inmates who hadn’t filed appeals could no longer assume safety.

Baekgyeong asked Isaac, his expression dark.

“Anything useful from the device we planted?”

“The recording quality is poor, but not completely worthless.”

Isaac ran a pre-set program and turned up the speaker volume. The sound came muffled, as though a palm were pressed over the mic. They hadn’t been able to plant the bug inside, guarded as the second-floor hall was, so they’d been forced to climb the outer wall and attach a contact mic against the window.

Shhhhh—rain hissed, tapering down, and then a murmur surfaced.

“Calling...?”

“...Betas cannot understand...”

“...a new era...”

“...”

“...killing...”

“Ted is delighted...”

Then the rain surged again, washing their voices away, making the recording thrum muddily as though underwater. Isaac replayed the file once more.

Listening intently, Siron frowned, something unpleasant stirring at the back of his mind.

“Ted? That name sounds familiar.”

His fingers drummed slowly against the table. Then realization struck.

“...The beard? No way—the alpha from the island?”

“Yeah. He was one of the alphas who came into the garage at dawn.”

Baekgyeong’s words made Siron’s heart plummet. He remembered the nightmarish moment on the island when Beardface nearly violated him. Fear rose pale in his face.

“W-why the hell is he there?”

“He was drenched in blood. Looked like he’d just killed someone.”

Killed someone? Siron instinctively held his breath, his shoulders curling in. Isaac, catching the blanch in Siron’s face, turned casually back to the laptop screen.

“He remembers your face. If we cross him again, we’ll have no choice but to deal with him.”

Was that meant to be comfort, promising to erase his fear? Siron glanced at him, but Isaac’s face was indifferent as he stopped the white-noise file.

“Summed up, the bug picked up this: ‘An alpha committed murder willingly, in order to answer a calling and welcome a new era.’”

“Murder, for a calling? An alpha?”

An alpha, creatures driven only by instinct, suddenly living for some mission beyond themselves? And for what—a new era, something beyond the grasp of betas? Siron folded his arms, thinking it sounded like something lifted straight off a cult pamphlet.

“‘You don’t understand that alphas are one great organism.’”

Isaac’s words came flat.

“What... what was that?”

Baekgyeong blinked at him, thrown by the abruptness.

“That’s what a pursuer told me, just before he killed himself in Belzoras.”

“Alphas are one organism?”

“Yes. A vast organism bound by a calling.”

“Sounds like they’ve gone cult-crazy. What if Hybris is just a front for some religious sect?”

Baekgyeong snorted, and Isaac let out a faint laugh with him—but his smile faded quickly. Tilting his head slightly, his face went expressionless as he replayed Baekgyeong’s words in his mind.

Could there really be a cult brainwashing alphas? Something that had sunk its roots deep inside Hybris, reshaping their ideology?

It was absurd. Hybris was nothing more than a trafficking ring, exploiting alpha lust for profit. And yet... Isaac couldn’t shake the feeling. Something tugged at him, whispering that he was missing a piece.