Page 2 of Knotting the Firefighters

The kitchen door slams shut with military precision.

The deadbolt clicks.

From the outside.

"Hello, little rose."

His voice through the door, smooth as aged whiskey, casual as Sunday morning coffee. The same tone he used when he'd hold me after sex, when he'd promise me the world, when he'd slowly, systematically isolated me from everyone who might have warned me what he really was.

That voice used to make me wet. Now it makes me want to vomit.

"Thought you could hide from me? From us?"

My hands shake as I grab for anything—a knife, a pan, something to fight with even though I know it's useless. You can't stab smoke. Can't beat back fire with a spatula.

Orange light flickers under the door gap now, dancing like it's alive. The temperature's already climbing, making my skin prickle with sweat that has nothing to do with the industrial ovens.

"Please."

The word tears out before I can stop it, pride be damned.

"Gregory, please?—"

His laugh cuts through the door, through the smoke, through my chest like shrapnel. That same dark chuckle that used to follow his fist through drywall, that preceded every cruel thing he'd ever done while calling it love.

"The Ironwood Pack doesn't leave loose ends, sweetheart."

A different voice now—Marcus, his beta. The one who used to watch me dress with hungry eyes while Gregory wasn't looking. "Should've taken our offer when you had the chance."

The offer.

Sign over my settlement from Los Angeles. Hand them the fire chief pension I'd earned through fifteen years of service, of running into buildings everyone else ran from. Give them everything that made my escape possible, and maybe they'd let me live.

Maybe.

"We already took your house," Gregory continues, and I can picture his cold smile, those green eyes that fooled me into thinking they held warmth. "Your savings. Your reputation. Thought we'd leave you one last thing to remember us by."

Heat presses against the door now, real heat. The kind I'd spent years fighting, the kind that eats through buildings and dreams and poorly executed escape plans with equal hunger.

This is really happening.

He's really going to?—

"Shame you couldn't even find a pack to protect you." Another voice—Dimitri, the sadistic one who liked to leavebruises where they wouldn't show. "Six months in this shithole town and you're still alone. Still worthless."

Their laughter mixes with the crackling flames, boots retreating down the hallway like this is just another Tuesday, just another Omega who needed to learn her place.

The smoke is black now, rolling under the door in waves that make my eyes stream. Muscle memory kicks in—grab a towel, soak it, press it to my face. Keep low, stay calm, find another exit.

But there is no other exit.

The walk-in freezer—locked from outside. The windows—too small, too high, industrial design at its finest. Even the service door is on the other side of the flames.

I sink to the floor where the air is marginally cleaner, my back against the cold steel of the prep counter. The cherry print on my apron blurs through tears I refuse to acknowledge.

This is how it ends?

After everything I've survived—my parents' death, the foster system, clawing my way up through the Los Angeles Fire Department despite every Alpha who said an Omega couldn't hack it—this is my ending? Dying in a community kitchen, killed by the man I'd once trusted with everything?