CHAPTER 105: FOUND YOU

Chapter 103

Duke Sebastian Doraemont

A silver fountain pen rolls from his fingers.

It hits the marble desk.

Clinks once.

Twice.

Silence swallows the sound.

Sebastian doesn’t move.

His laptop screen plays a grainy, shaky clip — a fight at a crowded amusement park. An alpha slammed into pavement, a blur of fists, security yelling, people filming instead of helping.

But none of it matters.

Because behind the chaos—

barely a breath in the frame—

is red hair.

A pale jaw.

A slight tremor in slender fingers clutching someone’s sleeve.

A ghost he never expected to see again.

"...Ciel."

The name escapes his lips like something sacred, like confession and hunger and madness rolled into one breath.

He zooms in. Enhances. Sharpen. Sharpen.

The pixels smear and split.

He doesn’t care.

He remembers that outline.

He remembers that trembling—

the delicious fear.

Alive.

A slow smile curves over his lips, too sharp to be human warmth.

"Found you."

He presses a button on his encrypted desk phone.

"Locate the original source of that video. Trace every repost and account. And don’t alert him."

A beat.

"And silence the uploader."

The reply crackles through the speaker:

"Yes, Your Grace."

**

Duke Marius Florence

A boardroom of executives sits frozen.

They know that look on their CEO’s face — reverent stillness, like he’s staring at God.

But he is staring at a phone screen.

A fight.

Noise. Violence. Chaos.

And behind it — red hair, jolting in fear.

Ciel.

His rarest acquisition.

His masterpiece.

His vanished jewel.

A tremor climbs up Marius’ spine like electricity.

"You’re alive."

His voice trembles. Then steeps in something darker.

"And you left me."

A champagne glass shatters in his hand. Crystal shards scatter across the glossy table. No one breathes.

His golden irises harden.

He stands, smoothing his white cuffs, angelic and terrifying.

"Clear my calendar."

"B-but sir, the national—"

"Now."

He walks out, calm, serene, terrifying in his devotion.

His phone buzzes.

He speaks softly, like discussing an art piece.

"Begin recovery protocols. Track that location. Private channels only."

**

Duke Richard Roderick

A war room. Tactical screens. Soldiers frozen mid-briefing.

Richard reads the moment the red hair flickers across his device.

His breath stops.

The room blurs.

Ciel.

Outside.

Unshielded.

Unclaimed.

Vulnerable.

A heartbeat becomes a roar in his ears.

"Clear the room."

The command is quiet, lethal.

Chairs scrape. Boots scramble.

Seconds later, it’s just him and the hum of war-tech.

He presses a comm button on his collar.

"Activate Containment Unit Theta."

Static. "Target?"

He closes his eyes.

"My omega."

His hand clenches into a fist so tight blood beads at his palm.

"I warned you," he whispers, aching and furious, "the world would hurt you without me."

**

Duke Laurent Duvall

Paint-splashed floors.

Canvases leaning like quiet, desperate worship around him — every stroke Ciel’s smile, Ciel’s tears, Ciel’s tilted chin.

Laurent holds a tablet, rewinding the shaky clip frame by frame.

Pause.

A sliver of red hair.

A frightened tilt of a head.

Someone shielding him — someone not Laurent.

His breath trembles.

"Oh... my beautiful rose."

He brushes the screen like one would stroke a cheek.

"You haven’t faded."

He laughs — breathless, fragile, euphoric.

"I knew the world couldn’t keep beauty like yours to itself."

He dials a number.

"Mobilize watchers. Track social chatter. City cams. Airport feeds. Underground channels."

Another pause, longer this time.

Eyes glazed with devotion.

"And send flowers to every hospital near that amusement park."

"Flowers, sir?"

"Roses."

A soft, dangerous smile.

"White ones. For purity found again."

He whispers, more to himself than to anyone living:

"When I paint you again... it will be even more divine."

***

Jack

Fucking hell.

I punch the wall again.

Knuckles ache. Don’t care.

Someone recorded that day at the amusement park — not viral, but circulating enough in those stupid niche omega-protection forums, alpha-fight subreddits, gossip corners that live for "rogue bond dynamics."

It wouldn’t matter... if not for one thing.

Ciel.

Barely a second.

Half his face hidden behind Nolan’s shoulder.

The tiniest flash of red hair.

But it’s him. Anyone who ever touched him, hunted him, obsessed over him — they’d know.

And if I noticed it...

They will too.

"Fuck."

I scrub my hands over my face, pacing. "Fuck."

The worst kind of enemy is the soft-spoken, bored one.

The obsessive one with too much time, too much power, and a grudge shaped like the person you love.

I thought we had time.

Stupid.

I smash my fist into the counter this time.

Less blood. Harder surface. Even trade.

Gripping the edge, I force my breath steady.

I’m angry — no, furious — but beneath that?

Cold fear.

I’m absolutely fucking terrified.

Because what the fuck can I do against the most powerful men in the fucking country?

Men who run politics, media, armies, the damn economy?

What do I have?

A renovated beach house.

Some money.

A life I deluded myself into believing I could build quietly.

It’s not enough.

It was never enough against them.

I think about Lanny.

My son. My kid.

His little laugh.

His ridiculous puff-cheeks when he sleeps.

His chubby hands grabbing my shirt like I’m his whole world.

If one of them even suspects... even guesses...

They won’t just come for Ciel.

They will take Lanny.

My breath cracks.

Not breaks — cracks, like ice under boots on a frozen lake.

I’ve survived homelessness.

Violence.

A system that doesn’t care if people like me die quietly in the dark.

I clawed my way up once to live.

But this isn’t about me living anymore.

It’s about keeping them alive.

I look at my arm — scraped knuckles, smeared blood, swelling bone.

Symbols of impotent rage.

Symbols of how physically incapable I am of stopping monsters who will take away the man I love.

I groan, pain buzzing through my arm as I clench my fist again.

***

Ciel

"What do you mean you want us to leave?"

Nolan’s voice is low, sharp—dangerous in a way I rarely hear from him.

Jack doesn’t move. Doesn’t blink.

His jaw is tight, knuckles white, chest rising like he’s holding back a scream big enough to crack the world.

"I mean exactly what I said," he bites out.

"Pack a bag. You and Ciel take Lanny and leave."

The room feels too small.

Tight.

Like walking on glass.

"Jack—" I start, but he cuts me a look that freezes me in place.

He’s never treated me like this, I don’t budge despite how scared I am.

I know he’s not mad at me, but I don’t like an angry Jack.

Lanny’s little cry cuts through the air like a knife.

Perfect timing.

My chest tightens — babies always know when the world is on fire, don’t they?

I scoop him up, hold him close.

The second his tiny arms cling to me, I walk , fast , out of the room.

I don’t want Lanny hearing this.

And I... I need a second to breathe, too.

***

Nolan

The moment the door clicks shut, I am on him.

Jabbing my finger hard into his chest, a sharp, punishing gesture. He doesn’t budge an inch, the solid wall of his muscle absorbing the blow like it was nothing.

"The fuck you mean, we should leave, Jack?"

My voice is shaking with anger — and fear I refuse to acknowledge.

Jack ignores the tone, eyes flicking toward the hallway, toward Ciel.

"You’ll be getting your diploma soon," Jack says quietly, like he already decided.

"I’ve transferred money to your account. Bus, then plane, then train, then car. Change routes. Don’t take major stations, don’t use the same—"

"Don’t fucking ignore me!" I cut him off, my voice cracking with the force of my shout.

He goes utterly still.

Then, slowly, he turns his head fully towards me.

The look in his eyes isn’t just anger; it is a glacier, ancient and implacable, promising a cold that could kill.

It makes every instinct in my body scream to submit, to apologize, to flee.

It’s now that I realize that Jack is a fucking alpha.

I grab his shirt and yank him forward.

Stupid move.

He could break me in half.

He doesn’t.

He just stares — and it’s worse.

Jack gives me a look that says stand down or I will make you. And not in the hot, sexual way.

Fight-or-flight shoots through me, instinct screaming to back up.

I don’t.

"You don’t get to decide that," I spit.

"You don’t get to throw us out like cowards just because you’re scared."

"I’m scared?" he repeats — voice low, terrifying.

I gulp, my fingers on shirt trembling.

But I think of Ciel’s wide, scared eyes, of Lanny’s frightened cry. I picture the life we’d built here, the first real home I’d ever known, and I see him dismantling it with the detached precision of a fucking bomb disposal expert.

"Talk to me," I demand., my voice quieter now, but no less fierce.

"Don’t you dare hand me a damn itinerary and think that’s a conversation. What aren’t you telling me?"

***

Ciel

I rock Lanny slowly. His little hands clutch my shirt.

"...Dada," he whimpers, sleepy and sad.

My throat aches. I whisper into his hair:

"Dada’s scared, baby. But we’re not leaving him."

I feel my fingers shaking, stroking his tiny back.