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Davey, finally understanding the depth of Shan's fear—the kind of fear that grips your spine like ice and refuses to let go—started to move with an urgency he hadn't felt in years. His heart thundered as he reached for the set of keys hanging from the tiny hook nailed into the wall beside the door. It was supposed to be a quiet morning. It was supposed to be just another careful, cautious day. But nothing felt right anymore.
The metal clinked in his shaking fingers. He turned the key with a quick snap. The lock clicked into place with a sound too loud, too final.
And then—shadows moved.
Two tall figures emerged from the darkened hallway just beyond the threshold, their forms materializing like ghosts from a nightmare that had never really ended.
"Going somewhere, Mr. Davey?" one of them sneered, his voice low and gravelly, laced with contempt and something far darker—something ancient, possessive.
Davey froze.
It was as if the air had turned solid. Time fractured. His breath caught in his throat. His face drained of color as reality slammed into him like a bullet.
Before he could even think to react, one of the figures stepped forward, his movements swift and brutal. A hand—calloused, unrelenting—latched onto Davey's arm and yanked him back into the apartment. The door slammed shut behind them with a reverberating bang that felt like the tolling of a death knell.
That man… was Kang Jin-ho.
Shan's heart dropped. A sick premonition twisted in his gut. Terror stabbed through his veins, sharp and cold as frostbite. He spun around in blind panic, stumbling toward the futon where his son lay bundled in blankets.
"Jain!" Shan's voice broke with urgency. "Son, wake up! Please, wake up, honey!" He shook the boy gently but desperately, his hands trembling.
Jain stirred, blinking groggily. "Mommy?" he mumbled, his voice a tiny, fragile thing. "Why are you scared?"
But there was no time to answer. No time to soothe or explain. The world was crumbling.
The second figure stepped into the flickering hallway light, revealing a face Shan hadn't seen in years but would never forget. Ron. Kang Jin-ho's enforcer. His shadow. His blade.
Ron's eyes flickered for the briefest second when Jain called out "Mommy." A crack in his otherwise unreadable expression. A flicker of confusion—or perhaps realization. But his mouth remained hard. His eyes returned to steel. He said nothing.
Shan gently lowered Jain to the floor beside him and whispered, "Stay here, baby. Don't move. No matter what happens, stay behind me."
With shaking fists, Shan began pounding on the locked door. His knuckles bruised quickly from the force, but he didn't care. He couldn't stop. Couldn't breathe.
"Mr. Kang!" Shan shouted, his voice raw with desperation. "Please! Let Davey go! He's not involved! He's done nothing! Please, he just wanted to help me and Jain—he's innocent!"
Muffled noises came from inside—thuds, groans. The unmistakable sounds of struggle. Shan's stomach twisted. He could hear Davey being hurt. And he was powerless. Trapped. Useless.
Tears welled up, hot and furious. He turned his eyes to Ron, grasping for any shred of humanity in the man's heart.
"Ron," he pleaded, stepping closer, his voice cracking under the weight of sorrow, "please. You love him, don't you? I know you do. I saw it once, before everything went to hell. You still love Davey. I can see it. You can't just stand there and let Kang—let him destroy him. Please."
Memories surged like waves between them—of another time, another place. Before blood and orders, before pain and separation. Ron didn't answer, but his jaw clenched. That was enough. Enough to know he was breaking inside.
Shan fell to his knees, sobbing now. "Please, Ron. Save the man you love. Don't let him die for my sins. I begged him to help me. I dragged him into this. He's not at fault. He just wants to live a normal life."
From within the apartment, a voice boomed—thunderous, wrathful. Kang Jin-ho.
"You!" he roared, venom dripping from every syllable. "Davey! You thought you could hide him from me? Hide my son? You dared to make a fool of me, kept my blood from me all these years—"
A violent crash interrupted his words. Then: "You marked me! You gave me a child and then vanished! Today… it ends. I'll kill you and take back what's mine!"
"No!" Shan screamed, fists against the door. "Please, listen to me—Davey didn't—"
Inside, Davey's voice broke through, hoarse but defiant, threaded with pain.
"Shan! Take Jain and run!" he shouted, his voice ragged. "Don't worry about me! Just save him—please!"
Another crash. A thud.
And then—his voice again, barely audible, choked with agony. "Ron… if there's even one part of you that remembers… that ever cared… let them go. Let them live. Don't let him do this."
Ron stood still, frozen in the hallway like a man caught between past and present. His breathing was shallow. His fists clenched at his sides. The conflict was tearing him apart. Every instinct told him to obey Kang Jin-ho. But every memory of Davey—the warmth, the laughter, the gentleness—pleaded for something else.
Kang's voice slithered through the air like poison. "You think Ron will betray me, Davey?" he taunted. "He's mine. Bound to me. My weapon. My dog. Talk all you want. It ends tonight."
Shan pounded the door so hard it echoed like gunshots. "Kang Jin-ho! You're wrong! Davey isn't the one you want—it's me! I'm the one you mated! I'm Jain's mother!" His voice broke entirely. "Smell me if you don't believe it! You're an alpha—use your instincts! Smell your mate's scent! Use your pheromones! Just—just let Davey go, please!"
He slid down the door, his strength finally failing him. He wept openly now, sobs shaking his entire frame. Jain crawled toward him, eyes wide with fear, and clutched at his mother.
"Mommy?" Jain whimpered. "Why are you crying? Don't cry, please. I'm here. It's okay, I'm here." His small arms wrapped around Shan's neck. "Don't cry, Mommy."
Their sobs intertwined in the silence that followed.
Then—the lock turned.
The door creaked open, slow and deliberate.
Kang Jin-ho stepped out.
His face was still hard, flushed with rage, but his eyes… something in them had changed. Not softened, no. But shifted. Measured. Calculating.
He looked at Shan. At Jain.
He inhaled deeply.
"I see," he murmured. "It was you."
Then he gestured toward Ron, his voice cold and composed. "Go inside," he ordered.
Ron hesitated.
"I was… angry," Kang continued, voice clipped. "Dominant alpha instincts. Unstable pheromone response. Davey has been... exposed for too long. He's confused. He needs correction. Only you can fix him. Go."
The hallway held its breath.
Ron obeyed.
Wordlessly, he stepped past Shan and Jain. His footsteps were quiet, but heavy with meaning. He disappeared through the door, and it closed behind him like a final judgment.
The door clicked shut behind him, leaving Shan and Jain alone with Kang in the dim hallway.
The air was still. But it was the stillness before a storm, and every hair on Shan's neck stood on end.
Shan stood there, trembling.
His hands clenched and unclenched at his sides, fingers aching from pounding on the door. Jain clung to his leg, small and confused, his warm little hand the only thing keeping Shan from collapsing entirely.
Kang Jin-ho's presence was suffocating. He stood like a wall—tall, imposing, unshaken. His cold eyes flicked down to the child, then up to Shan. They burned with calculation, suspicion... and something else. Something primal, buried deep under layers of anger.
The room was still. The chaos of minutes before had left a humming silence in its wake, like the hush that follows a storm.
Davey lay half-upright, breathing shallow, pain and confusion clouding his mind. The bruises ached, but what hurt more was the look in Ron's eyes—the same look he remembered from years ago. Not the enforcer's cold stare, but the man he had once trusted, once whispered dreams to beneath moonlight.
Ron moved carefully, deliberately, not as a predator, but as someone approaching something sacred that he was no longer sure he had the right to touch.
"You're burning," he said, voice thick with restrained emotion.
Davey didn't answer. His eyes were glassy, but the scent of Alpha still saturated the room—Kang Jin-ho's aggressive, unresolved dominance had overwhelmed his body. The bond threads within Davey were raw, frayed, screaming for equilibrium. For completion.
Davey stirred, forcing himself to sit up despite the stabbing pain in his ribs. His voice, when it came, was jagged glass. "Why are you here?"
Ron said nothing at first. His eyes dropped to the floor, as if unable to bear the sight of Davey like this.
"I don't want your help," Davey continued, coughing. "I don't want anything from a criminal." The bitterness in his voice was a shield, built over years of abandonment.
Ron hesitated. "I can balance you. Just this once. Let me help you. It won't mean anything. I'll go after."
But it would mean something.
Because even now, despite everything, Davey's body responded to Ron's nearness—remembering the scent that once made him feel safe, the hands that once held him without bruises, the kiss that had first claimed him under soft lantern light, not force.
Slowly, painfully, Davey nodded.
Ron exhaled—a quiet, aching sound—and knelt down in front of him. Gently, he brushed Davey's disheveled hair away from his forehead, fingertips trembling. Their eyes met, and something ancient flared—something neither of them had dared feel in years.
The heat was subtle at first. Not the explosive kind that came from rut or forced submission, but a slow, familiar current that built from touch: a hand resting on Davey's side, a thumb tracing the line of his cheek, a scent curling through the air like warm incense.
Davey's omega instincts stirred—his body recognizing an Alpha he had once accepted, and deep inside, never truly rejected.
"Do you remember," Davey whispered, voice breaking, "when you used to hold me like I was the only thing that mattered?"
Ron closed his eyes. "Every night. I remember."
He leaned in slowly, giving Davey every moment to pull away. But Davey didn't. When their lips touched, it was not a kiss of lust—it was soaked in sorrow, aching with years of silence. Davey's fingers curled into Ron's shirt, anchoring himself.
As the bond between them began to reawaken, pheromones mingled—not with dominance, but with resonance. Ron's scent grew gentler, soothing, protective. Davey's body, taut with trauma, began to loosen beneath his touch. His breath grew heavier, not from panic, but anticipation. Instinct. Memory.
Ron's hands moved with reverence, tracing the fragile planes of Davey's ribs, the bruises on his side. His kisses followed—along the collarbone, the crook of the neck, down the chest. Davey's body arched slightly, reacting to every breath, every pause.
The bond flared faintly between them—like a candle re-lit.
"I never stopped being yours," Ron whispered against Davey's throat. "Even when I was too much of a coward to stay."
Davey let out a soft, broken sound. He tilted his head, exposing the vulnerable curve of his neck—unmarked now, but aching with phantom memory. Ron pressed his nose to it, inhaling deeply. Not biting. Not claiming. Just… remembering.
"I won't mark you," he murmured. "Not unless you ask."
"I'm not yours to mark anymore," Davey said.
Ron didn't argue. He kissed the spot anyway—softly. Tenderly. With the reverence of a worshiper before an altar.
Their movements, once slow and questioning, began to carry urgency—not from lust, but from the sheer gravity of everything they hadn't said for seven years. Their bodies locked together, hips moving in sync, breaths ragged, the mattress creaking beneath them. But still—no violence. No rut.
It was heat, but not driven by chaos. It was an ache, born of longing. Their pheromones danced—omega warmth and alpha grounding, rising and falling like ocean waves. Ron moved deeper into Davey, and Davey met him—not out of submission, but out of mutual need. Out of the echo of a bond that had never truly shattered.
The world shrank to the space between them. To touch, breath, rhythm.
Davey clutched Ron tightly, face buried in his shoulder, tears sliding down his cheeks—not from pain, but from everything that had been lost. Every word Ron hadn't said. Every night he had cried alone. Every year without this connection.
And Ron, too, was trembling—biting back the instinct to bite, to mark, to claim. Because this wasn't about ownership. Not anymore.
They found release together, not just physically, but emotionally—two halves of something broken finally breathing in sync.
Afterward, they lay still. Davey on his back, staring at the ceiling. Ron on his side, watching him.
"I'll go," Ron said softly. "You don't owe me anything."
"You already left once," Davey replied. "I don't think I can survive it again."
And neither of them knew what would come next.
But in that moment, wrapped in sweat, memory, and scent—they were not enemies. Not criminals and outcasts.
Just Alpha and Omega.
Just Ron and Davey.
The room was thick with the scent of aftermath: sweat, pheromones, and the faint trace of old grief made new again. The walls, once echoing Kang's threats, now held only the shallow rhythm of breath — two sets, uneven but alive.
Ron sat up first, the dim light brushing across his bare shoulders. He was silent, elbows resting on his knees, palms over his face like a man in confession. His chest rose and fell too fast — not from the act itself, but from the flood of everything it awakened. Guilt. Relief. Longing. Regret. All the things he had buried for years under obedience and armor.
Behind him, Davey curled slightly into the bed's edge, the sheet drawn halfway up his side, but not out of modesty — more like a shield. His eyes stared at the ceiling, unfocused, wet at the corners. He hadn't spoken a word since it ended. Not because there was nothing to say… but because there was too much.
The bond had stirred. Not reformed… but stirred. And that was enough to break something fragile inside both of them.
Ron turned his head, slowly. "You're shaking."
"I know," Davey murmured. "I don't know if it's because I hate you… or because I don't."
The words hung in the air like smoke.
Ron didn't flinch. He didn't argue. He accepted them, because they were true — and because he didn't deserve the luxury of denial.
"I wanted to hate you," Davey continued, eyes still on the ceiling. "I wanted to remember you as the one who ran. The one who knelt at Kang's feet while I begged for my life."
"I did kneel," Ron whispered. "I still do."
"Then why come back?" Davey finally looked at him. "Why now?"
Ron didn't answer immediately. His throat tightened, like the words were lodged too deep.
"I thought I could forget you," he finally said. "But I never did. I saw you in every city. In every omega with tired eyes. In every dream where you still waited for me. And I hated myself for it."
Silence fell again, broken only by the sound of Jain's faint whimpering outside the room — as if the child's presence was a distant lighthouse in the fog of adult pain.
Davey sat up now, the sheet falling from his chest. He didn't cover himself. He didn't need to pretend anymore.
"That wasn't love," he said, voice softer now. "What we did."
Ron nodded slowly. "I know."
"It was desperation. A drowning man clinging to a memory."
"I know."
"I wanted to feel safe… and for a moment, I thought maybe you could give that back."
Ron swallowed hard, his eyes shining. "And did I?"
Davey looked at him. Really looked at him — not the soldier, not the servant of Kang, but the boy who once pressed flowers into the pages of poetry books and called him "my moon" in a voice soft enough to break hearts.
"Yes," he said finally. "But it's not enough."
Ron nodded. It felt like a knife to the heart, but he nodded.