The boss's office was colder than usual.
Not in temperature — in tone.
Even the air felt sharp, like it was meant to draw blood if you breathed too deeply.
He sat behind his sleek black desk, fingers steepled, eyes unreadable as he watched me enter. The mirrored panels around the room hummed faintly, recording everything.
He didn't ask me to sit.
He didn't need to.
"I want to hear it from you," he said. "Everything that happened during the shipment."
I didn't flinch.
I didn't let myself.
"Yes, sir."
I kept my voice even, firm — the way I would if I were delivering a field report. Because that's what this needed to sound like. Not panic. Not guilt. Just protocol.
"We rerouted due to a flagged sweep in Sector D. One of Kol's contacts pinged in the early stages. Real-time monitoring picked up foot patrols moving in tighter formation near our intended return route. That's why we took the eastern fringe."
"And the delay?" he asked, voice flat.
"Terrain," I said smoothly. "We hit three collapsed corridors. An unstable tunnel. Had to take alternate roads with lower traffic. No signals. No aerial coverage. Just dirt and time."
He watched me.
Didn't speak.
Just sat there, staring.
I kept going.
"Four days into the reroute, we were hit with a coordinated ambush in a clearing near an old freight checkpoint. Armed, masked, trained. Not local militia. Not anyone freelance either. They were efficient. Professional."
"How many?"
"Roughly a dozen. Might've been more. Some flanked. Some held back. They boxed us in."
He raised a brow. "And you survived."
"I shifted."
That earned the smallest flicker of amusement in his expression. "Ah. So that's what those shredded corpses were."
I didn't respond.
He tapped his fingers once against the desk. "Continue."
"We pushed through. Loaded the cargo into a secondary container waiting at a reroute station. Driver verified identity. Tracking was resumed within the hour."
He leaned back in his chair, eyes narrowed.
"And the crate?"
"Untouched," I lied.
My heart didn't race.
My hands didn't twitch.
But somewhere inside, Nyx curled her lip.
Because we both remembered what was inside that crate. What it looked like. What it felt like just to stand near it. The thing inside hadn't moved, hadn't spoken — but it had watched. It had known.
But I couldn't say that.
Couldn't admit that we'd broken protocol.
That we'd opened the seal.
That we'd stared into something not meant to exist.
Because that would mean death.
For me.
For Kol.
For Mick.
For all of us.
So I said what I had to.
"The cryo-seal held. There were no breaches."
"And the tracker?"
"Still transmitting. Still alive."
He studied me for a moment longer.
Like he was waiting for a crack.
Like he was searching for the thing I hadn't said yet.
But I didn't break.
I just stood there, cold and still and perfectly composed.
He finally looked down at the datapad on his desk. "You'll be debriefed by logistics later this week. They'll want your comm logs. Transcripts."
"Understood."
"And until then…"
He smiled — slow, calculating.
"You'll be spending more time with our favorite omega."