Chapter 200: No mark

"Do you realize that if they find him in my estate looking like this...?" I covered my face with both hands and rubbed my exhausted eyes, feeling the dull, throbbing pain of sleep deprivation pulsing beneath my skin. "They’ll put us all behind bars."

"Who says they’re going to find him?" Sayan arched a dark eyebrow, eyeing me as if I’d just uttered something utterly ridiculous.

I locked eyes with my husband’s second-in-command, hoping he’d disperse my crushing doubts. But his unreadable mask made it abundantly clear: he genuinely couldn’t grasp the reason for my panic.

"I’m actually still right here, in case you forgot," a broken voice rasped from the dark corner of the cellar, making me startle.

"Regardless, no one is finding him here. I’ll have this trash disposed of long before anyone starts asking questions," Sayan grunted, nonchalantly digging into his trouser pockets to pull out a crumpled pack of cigarettes.

"Take your smoking outside. I’m not sitting here breathing second-hand smoke," I snapped, crossing my arms over my chest and drilling him with a searing glare as irritation boiled over inside me.

"Fuck, I keep forgetting you’ve got a little passenger in there," he muttered, shoving the cigarettes back into his pocket before sliding a frigid glance toward the prisoner slumped on the concrete floor.

My gaze followed his to the battered Director of the Detention Facility. Gil Dunn sat in our subterranean cellar, leaning heavily against the damp, cold wall.

Until tonight, I hadn’t even known this hidden chamber beneath the wine cellar existed. But when thirst had driven me down to the kitchen in the dead of night, I’d frozen mid-step.

The first sight that greeted me was Sayan and three of our pack guards. They were pinning down a thrashing man whose mouth was bound tight with heavy duct tape—and they clearly hadn’t anticipated my sudden appearance in the doorway at such an hour. For a long, suffocating second, we all stared at one another.

Initially, a wave of sheer terror had washed over me at the sight of such violence unfolding inside my own home. But as I drew closer and recognized that blood-slicked face, the fear dissolved.

Every degrading, venomous taunt this bastard had gleefully spat in my face during my sparse visitations with Magnus resurfaced in a flash.

The memory burned through my mind, replacing panic with an insatiable craving for retribution.

Ultimately, Sayan had no choice but to let me in on the estate’s secret. Guiding me through the pantry where Magnus and I had been kissing so passionately not long ago, he unlocked the door to the wine cellar, leading me down into an even deeper sub-level.

The concealment was masterfully engineered—virtually impossible for an outsider to stumble upon—yet my nerves remained frayed. An icy shiver scraped down my spine.

"I’m not telling you shit! Do you have any idea who’s backing me? You’ll all rot in—" Gil’s threat ended in a wheezing gasp as a brutal strike to the solar plexus doubled him over, leaving him coughing convulsively.

"First, you’re going to sign off on a private, face-to-face visitation pass inside Alpha Rainn’s cell," Sayan’s voice cut through the stale cellar air, deadly and precise.

"N-Never!" Gil spat thick blood onto the gray concrete, burning me with a glare dripping with pure malice.

Turning on my heel, I brushed past the silent guards stationed at the door and headed back up toward my bedroom, completely deaf to Gil’s desperate attempts to yell after my retreating back.

My trust in Sayan was absolute. I knew he wouldn’t risk kidnapping such a high-profile target without a meticulously calculated plan. Gil wouldn’t be reported missing anytime soon.

In just two days, I would finally see my Alpha face-to-face. The overwhelming urge to rush to his side right this instant clawed violently against my ribs, making every breath agonizing without his scent to anchor me.

Our bedroom had grown completely hollow for me. Every time I crossed the threshold, I saw his contemplative silhouette outlined against the window, as if he were still standing there watching over me. The phantom ache in my chest made me want to scream.

Reaching the bed, I curled into a tight ball beneath the duvet, but barely half an hour had passed before a faint, cautious knock rattled the door. Slipping out of bed, I threw a long silk robe over my nightgown and opened the door, freezing in sheer surprise.

Sayan stood on the threshold. If there were people in this world who considered half an hour a trivial sliver of time, my husband’s best friend possessed a twisted talent for stretching those thirty minutes into pure, agonizing hell. The fresh, crimson splatter decorating his white t-shirt served as undeniable proof.

"Sayan? What happened?"

"Come on. You’re going to drink some tea, and I’m going to throw back a double shot of your mate’s whiskey," he grunted, turning on his heel as we exited the bedroom and descended the grand staircase.

Reaching the living room, I sank into a deep armchair, immediately noticing a frantic Rianna. The girl stood near the side table, holding a tea tray in trembling hands while casting fearful glances at the blood-stained man who had just walked in.

Reading the cause of her terror off her pale face required no effort. It wasn’t anxious care over my late-night tea—she was terrified for Sayan. Yet the man didn’t so much as spare her a glance as he paced past her.

A slick, gnawing anxiety burned through my stomach, but I waited patiently while he poured two fingers of amber liquor into a tumbler and downed the dose in a single gulp without so much as a flinch.

For a fraction of a second, time inside the room ground to a halt. Sayan fixed a darkened stare onto the empty crystal glass in his grip, then suddenly snapped. Throwing his arm back, he shattered the glass directly against the stone brickwork of the hearth. The flames roared in response. Jagged shards of crystal showered in every direction, making me shrink deeper into the leather armchair.

"Fucking bastards!" His roar shattered the silence, and in the next heartbeat, he lunged forward, planting both hands heavily onto the armrests of my chair, trapping me in place. "That piece of shit said there’s no mark on Magnus! Did you mark him?"