Chapter 133: The Talk

Torin Pov- A week Later

It had been a full week since I saved the company and I did not feel one bit relaxed, my head felt like it was going to split open.

I sat at my desk staring at the view of the city sprawling in front of me, rubbing my temples with two fingers to dull the throbbing behind my eyes. My office , thanks to the immense sound proofing, was quiet except for the quiet, rhythmic hum of the air purifier and the harsh, breathless voice buzzing through my speakerphone.

The lawyer I had hired to get Oracle out of jail was currently delivering another useless, bureaucratic speech about High Court protocols.

"Torin, you have to understand the legal delicacy here," Vance droned on, his voice crackling over the line. "We aren’t dealing with a standard bail motion. Oracle isn’t just sitting in a holding cell, he is in prison and he is actively refusing to sign the release paperwork. He told the magistrate he belongs in a high-security lockup. Legally, I cannot force an adult Alpha to sign a bail release document if he deems himself unfit for public reintegration."

"I don’t give a damn about his existential crisis," I growled, leaning forward and resting my forearms against the dark polished wood. "Every single second Oracle sits in that cell, my company bleeds money. I promised Oracle would be in the public eye very soon so he needs to be in the public eye if people find out that he’s in jail because he stabbed an Omega mind you it is untrue but they will not care, it will be a shitshow,"

"I am doing everything in my power—"

"Your power isn’t cutting it," I cut him off, my voice dropping into a low, lethal register. "You are the highest-paid corporate defense attorney in this region. I don’t pay you six figures a month to give me legal excuses; I pay you to get results. If you don’t pull up your socks, find a legal loophole, and get Oracle’s hand on that bail document by the end of this week, you’re fired. I’ll hire a firm that actually knows how to do their job. Am I making myself clear?"

A heavy pause hung on the line before the lawyer cleared his throat nervously. "Extremely clear, Mr. Spade. I will... I will schedule an emergency session with the High Magistrate tonight."

"Good. Don’t call me again until it’s done."

I slammed the end-call button on my desk console, tossing my pen onto a stack of unread financial reports. I leaned back into my leather chair and closed my eyes, taking a harsh, deep breath.

Oracle was acting like an unhinged lunatic. It boggled my mind, like, why on Earth does he want to stay in that prison cell? I know the prisoners are hounding him, beating him left, right, and center. There isn’t a single day where he gets a break. The lawyer says that every time he sees him, he has a new wound. When I hear this, I feel bad because I’m the one who put him there. But now I’m trying to fix things, and he’s just making everything so damn difficult.

Like, what is wrong with this man?

If I don’t get him out of that cell soon, the media will rip me to shreds for lying during the press conference. A quiet knock at the heavy office doors broke my dark thoughts.

"Enter," I barked, adjusting my cuffs. The door pushed open, and Erin stepped inside. He was wearing simply loose grey pants and a white shirt carrying a thick leather binder and rolled-up architectural blueprints under his arm.

I sat up straight, watching him as he crossed the vast marble floor toward my desk. Even in his posture, something was completely off. Erin was usually chatty, but today his shoulders were rounded, his eyes fixed firmly on the carpet, and his entire presence felt muted , dull, drained, like a shadow of himself.

A sharp pang of guilt stabbed at my chest. I had been so utterly consumed by the press conference, Oracle’s legal crisis, and my own chaotic mess with Lorali over the past few weeks that I hadn’t even checked in on him properly.

Erin stopped at the front of my desk and placed the thick blueprint rolls down with quiet precision. "These are the preliminary design plans for the Whales Project, Torin. Just like you asked."

"Right. The coastal resort," I murmured, pulling the rolled sheets toward me and unrolling them across the table’s surface, weighing down the corners with heavy glass paperweights.

I leaned over the desk to examine the drawings, and despite the heavy stress lingering in my head, I caught my breath.

The design was staggering. It wasn’t just a standard luxury resort; it was an ambitious, almost dangerous architectural marvel. Erin had designed a sprawling glass-and-stone compound built directly into the jagged ocean cliffs, featuring cantilevered infinity pools hanging over open ocean drop-offs, floor-to-ceiling reinforced glass walls facing the tide, and private villas tucked into subterranean rock formations. It was bold, highly complex, and aggressively expensive.

"Erin... this is incredible," I said, running a finger along the clean ink lines of the structural framing. "So ambitious. Take that you Masintosh scum." I say aloud those blood sucking monsters, who played me for a fool, said it had to be ambitious and an architectural masterpiece. What they didn’t say is that I couldn’t have someone help me.

"Thanks," Erin said softly, giving me a tiny, tight-lipped nod. He didn’t smile. He didn’t even look up at me, keeping his gaze fixed on his own hands which he rubbed together.

I pushed the blueprints slightly to the side, folding my hands together on the desk. I focused entirely on him, taking in the faint dark circles under his eyes and his tense, guarded body language. "Erin," I started, keeping my voice calm and low. "Is everything okay with you?"

Erin blinked, putting his hands out of his pockets and taking a subtle half-step back. "Yeah. Of course. Everything is completely fine."

"Erin, I am not blind I can see something is wrong," I said, leaning back and watching him closely. "You look completely exhausted. You’ve been quiet all week, you look like you haven’t eaten all week or slept. I’m worried man. Are you doing alright?"

"I’m perfectly fine, Torin," Erin repeated, his tone flat, entirely devoid of its usual gentle warmth. "Just working hard on the resort plans. I wanted to make sure the load-bearing calculations were perfect before the deadline."

I let out a heavy sigh, running a hand over my jaw. The guilt in my chest pressed down harder.

"Look... I’m sorry, Erin," I said quietly, my voice genuine. "I’m sorry I haven’t asked you sooner. I’ve been so wrapped up in my own stupid problems—Oracle, the press, the company,that I completely neglected you. I never even stopped to properly ask how you were doing after... after everything that happened. The loss of your pack."

Erin stiffened slightly, his jaw tightening, but he kept his eyes downcast.

"It makes my problems look utterly futile compared to what you’ve had to process," I continued softly. "Losing your entire pack in a day... I can’t imagine what that weight feels like, Erin. I should have been paying more attention."

Erin swallowed hard, his throat working as he shook his head slowly. "You don’t need to apologize, Torin. Truly. It’s fine. Everyday is fine. I’m... I’m getting through it, step by step. Work helps keep my mind occupied. Boleyn and Hospital keep me busy."

I looked at him for a long moment, remembering the chaotic, frantic weeks I spent in his house trying to make sense of everything that was happening at the time. I remembered the nights I spent in his kitchen and living room writing on the walls like a cave person.

I remembered something else. I may have been out of it most of the time but I specifically remember the day or the morning before I got the results of the blood test he told me that he liked a girl in his hospital.

"You know," I said, softening my posture and resting my elbows on the desk, "during that time... back when I was losing my mind drawing on bedroom walls... you mentioned someone to me."

Erin’s head snapped up slightly, his dark eyes widening in a sudden, darting spike of tension. "What?"

"You told me you liked someone," I reminded him gently, a small, encouraging smile touching my lips. "An Omega. You said you had a crush on her and that her pack was no good.."

Erin froze, his breath hitching audibly in the quiet room, but I misread his terror as shyness.

"Erin, you’re a good man," I said firmly, wanting desperately to offer him some comfort, some hope to pull him out of his dull, lifeless mood. "Just because your old pack is gone doesn’t mean your life has to stop. You deserve happiness. You deserve to build something for yourself here. I think you should go ahead and pursue that Omega you liked."

The silence that followed was suffocating. Erin stood completely rigid in front of my desk, his pale face draining of what little color it had left. He stared at me, his eyes wide, completely unreadable, carrying a depth of silent, agonizing tragedy that I completely failed to comprehend.

"Torin..." Erin’s voice was barely a whisper, hoarse and trembling around the edges.

"I mean it," I added, pushing the Whales Project blueprints back into the center of the desk. "Go find her, pursue her, give yourself a real chance. You don’t have to carry the ghosts of your past forever." Erin swallowed hard, pressing his lips into a tight, pale line. He pulled his hands out of his pocket, bowing his head once more to hide his expression from me.

"Right," Erin whispered, his voice dangerously quiet. "Thanks, Torin. I’ll... I’ll think about that."

"Good," I nodded, completely oblivious to the sharp blade I had just unknowingly twisted into my best friend’s heart. "Thank you again for the designs. I am grateful you have helped Spade Industries a lot. I couldn’t have been able to do this without you."

Erin turned without another word and walked quietly out of the office, his footsteps making no sound on the heavy carpet as the doors clicked softly shut behind him.