His Trouble Maker

Chapter 194

Chapter 194

JESSICA

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My wolf howls before | even understand why. Heat slams into my ribs, a hot, traitorous claw. My knees wobble.

Breath comes too fast. Both of them smell it - hunger and victory and something almost like fear.

Grayson’s eyes go bright. He looks like he’s found a prize. Riot’s mouth quirks, not amused - interested. “Oh,” he

says, quiet and slow. “So that’s the truth.”

“Stay away from her.” Grayson'’s voice is low and tight. He squares up as if he can stop the whole world by

standing in front of me.

Riot doesn’t bother with him. His attention is on me, like I'm the only thing in the room. He steps closer, and the

pressure of his presence makes the hairs on my arms rise. “The Triad toldyou'd fight it,” he says. “That

you'd cling to him because you think you have no other choice. But you do. You always did.”

“Riot.” | try to make the na warning. It splinters before it leaves my mouth.

“You belong to the Triad,” Riot says. No flourish. No . Just a fact, delivered flat and final. “And the Triad

wants you reclaimed. By me.”

My stomach drops like I've been kicked between the legs. Reclaimed.

“You can’t-"

Grayson moves without thinking, a raw animal motion. He lunges.

Riot catches him like he expected it. His hands are faster than they should be, steady in a way that makes my

skin crawl. They collide-fists, elbows, teeth-metal scraping leather, a loud, ugly sound. Graysons first hit lands,

a clean line of anger across Riot’s jaw. Riot tastes blood and smiles.

The fight isn’t pretty. It's close and fast and cruel. They're not any two men; they're wolves, and the room smells

like wet fur and adrenaline. | want to turn away. | can't.

My wolf thrashes and thrashes again, torn between them. Grayson! she says. Riot! she says. | can’t make her

stop.

Riot breathes in and the air tilts. You can feel something shift, like a switch flipped in the space between breaths.

He's not just fighting Grayson - he’s testing the bond. He wants the bond's answer in real time.

Grayson roars and rips at Riot's sleeve. Riot jerks back, then wedges his shoulder into Grayson’s chest, shoving

him against the tree.

“Is she yours?” Riot asks me, like a challenge. “Does she belong to you?”

Every part ofwants to say no. My body betraysand says something else.

| want to say Grayson’s nand mean it and not mean it at the stime.

10:14 Mon, Sep 22

Chapter 194

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“You think the Triad sendsto reclaim for nothing?” Riot leans in so close the heat of his breath fogs my mask.

“They want proof. They want to know where your loyalty falls when everything is stripped away.”

He pulls back and, like that, the fight ends - not because someone wins, but because someone else walks into

the room.

Kade.

He doesn’t look at me. He looks at Riot and Grayson the way a god looks at sparring children. “Enough,” he says.

That single word pulls all the hair on my arms taut.

Riot straightens. Grayson wipes blood from his lip and breathes like he’s been running.

“The Triad wants a decision,” Theo says, low. He steps nearer, until his shadow falls across both of them.

“Tonight.”

“Tonight?”

“Tonight,” “You will prove where your bond lies, Jess. Or we will choose for you.”

My wolf screams. My heart tries to explode out of my chest. Grayson’s hand finds my wrist - possessive,

desperate - while Riot’s gaze pinswith something that isn’t quite tenderness.

I'm supposed to be terrified. | am. | am also, impossibly, electric. Want and hate and anger braid into a single

rope and pull tight.

Kade turns away and leaves the room like he’s given us instructions and a sentence.

For a breath - a terrible, suspended second — everything hushes. Grayson looks atlike he’s asking for

forgiveness and war in the sblink. Riot looks atlike he’s catalogued every weakness he can find. My wolf

paddles desperately, claws scraping.

“You choose,” Grayson says. His voice is broken into pieces. “Choose me.”

“Prove you can keep her,” Riot says, cold as ice. “Prove you're not just appetite.”

| open my mouth. | have no idea what to say. | have no idea what to do.

Then, before I can think, before the bond or the Triad or either man can pullinto their plan -

- someone from the Triad steps out of the shadows holding a sealed envelope with my non it. My name,

written in ink I've never seen and yet somehow know.

“You'll want to read that before you make any promises,” he says.

My fingers reach for the envelope. Everything inwants to burn the thing, to tear it open and not look. To rip it

into pieces and swallow the ashes.

But | open it.

The single line inside makes the room tilt and the floor drop away.

10:14 Mon, Sep 22

Chapter 194

Deadline: four hours.

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| stare until the letters swim. Four hours to decide who | am. Four hours to choose a cage. Four hours to let them

choose for me.

Something nudges at the bottom of the envelope. A second scrap, folded small and slick with someone else’s

haste. | pry it out.

A Polaroid tumbles into my palm. | only see shapes at first - dim sheets, a hand at a collarbone, a familiar sweep

of dark hair. My throat goes dry. | flip it.

Grayson. In his bed. With someone else. Not a stranger, but a face | recognize too well and have tried to bury:

Bella.

The timestamp is sharp in the white border: tonight. Thirty-eight minutes ago.

My fingers go numb. It's a setup and a wound at once.

Under the Polaroid is a second note, this one written in a hand | do not like: If you choose him, people see this. If

you refuse, we still keep it for insurance. Choose wisely, Jessica Wilkinson.

The room closes in. The Triad doesn’t want my loyalty to be a private thing; they want it public. They don’t care

which n| say into the dark - they just want the world to know | belong to someone who can be owned,

exposed, traded.

My wolf claws at my ribs. Grayson’s hand tightens on my wrist like a leash. Riot watcheslike a hunter who

knows the exact moment his prey

will bolt.

Four hours. A photograph that screams betrayal. A choice that isn’t mine.

| fold the Polaroid over and press it to my chest. The paper is cold against my skin. Somewhere in the back of my

skull a new thought settles like a splinter:

They've already started to break us.

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