Julius didn't remember walking back inside. One moment the cold air was the only thing keeping him upright, and the next he was standing near the bar again, a glass in his hand that he didn't recall picking up.
His pulse hadn't slowed. His skin still felt the ghost of Harrison's fingers at his throat, and worse, some part of him didn't want it to fade.
He needed to stop this. Tonight.
Helen found him a few minutes later, her expression unreadable. "You were gone a long time," she said.
"I needed air." It wasn't a lie, not entirely.
She studied him for a moment, and something in her face told Julius she'd seen more than he wanted her to. "Julius, who is he?"
His stomach dropped. "Who?"
"Don't," Helen said quietly. "I saw you on the balcony. I saw the way you looked at him before you even came back inside."
Julius opened his mouth to deny it, but the words wouldn't come. For the first time since they'd met, he had nothing ready to say to her.
"It's complicated," he managed finally.
"That's not an answer." Helen's voice stayed level, but there was an edge under it now. "We're getting married in four months. If there's something I need to know—"
"There's nothing to know," Julius cut in, too fast.
Helen held his gaze a moment longer, then looked away first. "I hope that's true," she said. "Because I didn't agree to compete with anyone for you, Alpha or not."
She walked off before he could respond, leaving him standing there with the weight of her words settling over him like a verdict.
Julius set the glass down, his hand unsteady. He needed to fix this — not just with Helen, but with whatever Harrison thought he'd started. He pulled out his phone and called Marcus.
"I want everything on how Harrison got access to the dining room," Julius said the moment Marcus picked up. "Names, timestamps, who let him through security. Tonight."
Marcus hesitated. "Julius, I should tell you — Harrison didn't just talk his way in. He's connected to people on the board. Whitmore's people."
Julius went still. "Say that again."
"The merger you've been chasing for months," Marcus said carefully. "Harrison's the reason it's been stalling. He's been buying up Whitmore's debt for the past year. Quietly. If he wanted to, he could kill the deal with one phone call."
The floor seemed to tilt under Julius's feet. This wasn't infatuation, and it wasn't even really about him — Harrison had been circling his company long before that night in the club.
Or maybe, Julius thought grimly, he'd used the company as an excuse to get close enough to do exactly what he'd done.
"Get me a meeting," Julius said. "Just him and me. No board, no lawyers."
"Are you sure that's wise?"
"No," Julius admitted. "Set it up anyway."
He ended the call and looked back across the room, to where Helen stood near the doors, watching him with an expression he didn't have a name for. For the first time all night, Julius understood that the danger wasn't only what Harrison wanted from him.
It was what he was willing to risk to get it.