Chapter 2

[POV: NORA | Timeline: Day | Location: Enforcement Headquarters]

The briefing room at the Enforcement Headquarters was made of steel and glass, designed to make you feel exposed.

Everyone's secrets were always visible to the right people.

I sat at the conference table with my hands folded, maintaining the posture I’d cultivated over years of working in the Pack medical system—present, professional, and emotionally unavailable. The skills that had made me an excellent trauma surgeon also made me excellent at hiding.

"Dr. Caldwell." The commander's voice cut through my thoughts. "Have you been briefed on the situation?"

"Yes, sir." I kept my tone level. "Seventeen new Rogue cells have been detected in the metropolitan area. Enforcement needs a liaison who understands both Pack medical protocols and underground healing practices in order to identify Rogue safe houses by their medical signatures."

It wasn't the whole truth.

The truth was that they had chosen me specifically because I had been studying Rogue physiology for the past two years under the guise of academic research.

I'd also gathered evidence that the official Enforcement narrative about Rogues was built on lies.

It was dangerous.

"You'll be working with Captain Thorne," the Commander said. "He's running the investigation into the recent attacks. Your job is to identify potential safe houses and medical patterns that would indicate underground operations."

"Understood."

"Dr. Caldwell, there's something else." The commander leaned forward. "There's a particular rogue we need your help identifying. He goes by Reth. He's a former Pack member who was trained in special operations and has been missing for five years. We believe he's now leading the cell structure."

My hands remained folded on the table, but my heart rate picked up.

I hadn't heard that name spoken aloud by an official in almost two years: Reth.

Reth had disappeared from the Pack's medical training program five years ago.

He had been listed as deceased in the official records.

He walked into my emergency clinic at two in the morning with a shoulder wound and a story about needing stitches, but he didn't have any file documentation.

He had somehow made me care about him while ensuring I never learned his true situation.

"I'll keep an eye out for any identifying markers," I said carefully.

The Commander slid a file across the table. "His medical records. He has a distinctive injury pattern from his operative days: He has scarring on his left side from a burn. He also has surgical implants in his left arm from a failed enhancement procedure. If you see those markers, we need to know immediately."

I opened the file with the mechanical precision that had kept me functional for two years.

Medical records: Surgical implants. Burn scarring on the left side.

My hands recognized the photographic evidence before my brain would accept it.

There, in the clinical medical photography, was a section of a shoulder and upper arm that I recognized with such precision that it took my breath away.

I knew that scarring.

I had traced it with my fingers four times when Reth had been asleep on my couch after particularly brutal safe-house sessions.

I had wondered about its origin, but I never asked. Reth didn't ask questions about my past, and I extended him the same courtesy.

"Dr. Caldwell?" The Commander was watching me carefully. "Are you all right?"

"Fine," I managed. "Just processing the scope of the assignment."

What I was actually processing was the realization that Reth—the man I had been falling in love with, despite every instinct telling me it would be catastrophic—was apparently a priority target for Enforcement execution.

I was about to be complicit in hunting him down.

He'd never told me about his situation.

Was he protecting me from something?

Or did he simply not trust me?

Either way, it felt like betrayal.