Work Text:
There’s a little boy on the phone. “Um. Is this—“ Max grimaces immediately when he hears the high-pitched pre-pubescent voice. But this is his work phone. It’s not on any records. A wrong number, but it’s disturbing nonetheless. “Is this, um, De Leewu?”
His young tongue stumbles over the Dutch. Max goes still regardless. That’s his — That’s his nickname. Not just anyone calls this number up and addresses him as the Lion. Let alone some random kid.
“Speaking,” Max says coolly. “Who’s this? How’d you get this number, kid?”
“Umm,” despite the poor quality of the line, Max can discern the wobble over the tinnyness. “My mummy needs help.”
“I think you got the wrong number,” Max barks.
“No— no,” the pup says hurriedly, and god help Max— he can hear a little hitch in his voice. “No. You’re the Lion. You help people. You get the bad people. You need to help my mummy.”
“Call the police if you need help. Don’t call again.” His hand moves to the hang-up button.
“They won’t help!” the kid cries, and Max freezes. He sobs, forces out: “Daddy is friendly wiht them. They won’t listen to mummy They— Daddy tells them he’s clumsy, that he fell but he— he d–didn’t and no one b–believes me—” He pauses and at Max’s silence, barrels on: “I have money! We have money, so you can do it. So you can help him.”
Max feels a migraine coming on. He sits forward in his chair and pinches the bridge of his nose. “What’s your name, kid?”
There's a beat where Max’s thumb hovers a hair’s breadth from the button. He should hang up — this is a liability. A kid with a sob story.
“K–Kimi.”
“Kimi. And your mum’s name?”
“George.”
“And how old are you?”
He hiccups. “I’m seven.”
Shit.
Max closes his eyes, inhaling slowly as the scent of his own bitter cedar-and-ash alpha pheromones sharpens in the small room. A seven-year-old pup calling an international hitman's burner line.
"Listen to me, Kimi," Max says, his tone dropping into a low, commanding alpha baritone designed to settle panicked pups, even through a speaker. "Take a breath."
A shuddering inhale comes through the receiver. "Okay."
"Good boy. Is your dad an alpha?" Max asks, standing up and reaching for his encrypted tablet.
"Yes. He... he's big. He locked mummy in the bedroom because he tried to run away with me." Kimi’s voice drops to a terrified whisper. “Daddy hurt mummy really bad. He won’t let me see him…—” he breaks off with a sob over the phone.
Max feels anger settle, familiar and hollow, in his chest. A sense of purpose. He didn’t get The Lion as his tag for being fucking soft, but the part of him he tries to keep buried, remembers being that small, that helpless, that hurt.
He had no one to call. Kimi called Max.
He’s been quiet for too long, because he hears a quiet, “Mr Lion?” and the puppy’s voice still shakes, sounding choked and thick with tears. Max’s dead shrivelled hard stirs at the sound. No kid should sound like that — so… so defeated. “I—I can pay, if—”
“No need,” he says briskly. “And, besides: I’m worth much more than you can pay, kiddo.” The attempt at levity falls flat, and then the kid makes a faintly indignant noise, quietly disgruntled.
It’s small, barely a flicker that fades into a whimper, but there’s a hint of temper and spunk there that makes Max’s lip twitch up in the beginning of a smile.
“What’s your last name, Kimi?” Max asks.
“W–Wolff,” Kimi whispers. “We live in London. But mummy’s last name is Russell.”
Max sends the information over to Oscar.
Credit where credit is due, he gets a flood of information not forty seconds later; Oscar no doubt plugging the names into his profile database, and sending back anything he finds. Max tells him to cross-reference high-profile London alphas with police connections, a partner named George, and a seven-year-old pup.
Oscar pings a match. The picture on his screen shows an old-stern faced alpha in a crisp suit — apparently, a prominent property developer with a clean record and a heavy hand in local political donations. Friendly with the police. That explained the dead-end domestic reports. Beneath it, linked as his spouse, is a thin, pale faced omega with huge blue eyes and a pouty, pink cushioned lip. George.
“Okay, Kimi,” Max says, his voice flat, precise, and completely devoid of the hesitation he felt seconds ago. “I need you to listen to me very carefully. Are you in the house right now?”
“I’m under the stairs,” Kimi sniffles. “In the shoe cupboard. I—I took Daddy’s second phone when he left it on the counter.”
“Is your dad in the house?”
“No. He went to work. But he said he’s coming back at six.”
"The address, Kimi. I need you to tell me the address."
"Twenty-three—" a sniffle, "—twenty-three Harrington Gardens. But, Mr Lion, he— Daddy has cameras. He checks them from his phone. If you come—"
“I’m not coming through the front door, pup,” Max says, and to a regular kid, it’s a rather horrifying sentence. But for Kimi, who has probably seen some seriously fucked up shit, it actually helps soothe him.
Max's fingers fly across the tablet, pulling up blueprints of the Wolff residence. Oscar's already sent them — the bastard works faster than Max expected. Six-bedroom Victorian in Kensington. It’ll go for a pretty penny. High walls and a high-end security system. A domestic prison.
A quiet, shaky breath, and a thank-you so soft he can barely hear it. Max lets it slide easily, unfurling his fingers and reaching for his gloves. “Thank you for trusting me, Kimi.” The professionalism slips into his tone unbidden, feels almost unnatural while talking to such a small, broken creature. “I have to hang up now and call a friend, but trust me, kid, we’ll have you and your mum out and safe before you know it. Just hang on a little bit longer.”
The kid sniffles on the other end of the phone, but Max catches a hint of that spark again as he whispers, “okay. Thank you, Mr Lion.”
The interior of the house is suffocatingly quiet, reeking of heavy, territorial alpha scent meant to suppress and intimidate. Beneath that, there’s no scent of omega or puppy at all. It’s like no one lives here but Mr Wolff– but Toto. Every sign of life is covered by clementine bleach and sterile-smelling air conditioner.
Max pauses at the living room. There, on the couch, he can smell the sour, lingering fear scent of an omega. Something that can’t quite be drowned out by bleach and fabric softener.
Max suppresses a growl of his own, keeping his movements silent as he glides, phantom-like, through the dark hallways. The lush carpet smothers his boots. It’s dark, but Max’s eyes have adjusted, and shapes form in the dark as he slinks along.
Oscar bypasses the smart-home hub pre-emptively, looping the security feed to show an empty, peaceful house. It’s easy enough to disable their alarms.
He slips up the grand-staircase, careful to avoid any creaking stairs. His breath blooms against his balaclava, warming his face. He jitters with anticipation— he always does. Especially when his targets are pieces of shit. Old houses have their secrets — Max just has to learn how to read them.
Should he find Kimi first, or deal with Toto? He pauses in the landing, eyes flashing down the parallel corridors, both drenched in shadow. Max isn’t afraid of the dark, though. He kills the things that hide in the closet or under the bed.
He turns away from the heavy double doors at the end of the east corridor, heading west. He needs to make sure Kimi is alright first. Max worries his father might’ve done something when he came home from work. Kimi didn’t mention being hurt himself, after his and George’s escape attempt, but Max thinks you can never be too sure.
He presses his ear to the doors, silently listening for movement or breath. When he hits the one at the very end — completely blank, no sign that a child lives inside — he hears a sleepy mumble from inside. If he scents the air, he can smell milky puppy scent.
Max closes his hand around the doorknob and pushes it open.
Kimi is a small lump in the bed, only his nose and his tangle of brown curls poking out over his blue sheets.
He sits up in bed, rubbing his eyes as the dim light from the hallway falls into the room. It’s lighter in here, anyway. He has a dinosaur-shaped night-light on at the foot of the bed, setting everything into a mildly green glow. He looks up, big eyes wet and glassy as he takes in the masked figure in the doorway.
Max braces. Miraculously, he does not scream.
The kid is up a moment later. He grabs something from his nightstand and almost trips on the tangle of his duvet around his legs as he falls out of bed. He’s up a moment later, coming towards Max without fear — or, maybe, in spite of his fear.
The child lowers his head, his lips tightly pressed together. After a moment of fumbling, he opens up his small coin purse, which is embroidered with the face of a penguin, and struggles with it for a moment whilst Max frowns haplessly at him under his balaclava, and when he finally gets it open, empties the entire thing into his small hand.
A crumpled five-pound note, two pennies, and an empty toffee wrapper.
“Mummy has more,” Kimi sobs quietly. “Mummy, I— we can…” He hides his eyes in the crook of his elbow and cries, more desperately, “mummy…”
Max stares down at the small palm extended toward him. The green glow of the dinosaur night-light casts a strange, muted hue over the note and the scratched copper pennies. The empty candy wrapper catches the light, a pathetic little piece of trash offered up as collateral for a life. To save two lives.
His throat tightens, a sudden, fierce pressure behind his ribs that has nothing to do with the adrenaline surging through his blood.
Without a word, Max drops to one knee. The tactical gear creaks softly under the movement, but he keeps his actions deliberate, slow, and unthreatening. Kimi shifts, warily. Max can’t blame him for being anxious around an alpha.
He lifts his hands and reaches for his balaclava, pulling the dark fabric up and over his head to expose his face. He lets his bitter, aggressive scent instantly collapse, smoothing it over until only the warm, protective undertones remain: a gentleness meant to soothe, something Max is not used to doing.
"Hey," Max keeps his voice low, a quiet rumble that barely carries past the threshold. "Look at me, Kimi."
The boy hiccup-sobs, his small shoulders trembling as he lifts his tear-streaked face.
Max gently closes his broad, gloved hand around the boy’s tiny fist, carefully curling Kimi’s fingers back over the money. "I told you on the phone. I’m expensive, kiddo. Much too expensive for five quid and a wrapper." He gives the small hand a firm, reassuring squeeze before letting go. "Keep it. You're going to need it for ice cream later."
Kimi wipes his nose with the back of his sleeve, his big dark eyes searching Max’s face with a desperate, heart-breaking intensity. "You... You're the Lion?"
"In the flesh," Max says, offering the barest hint of a crooked smile. "And I keep my promises, don’t I?”
Kimi’s lip bobbles and he looks like he’s going to cry again, before he jerks his head in a rapid nod. Kimi's nod is frantic, his small chest heaving with the effort of holding back another sob. Max reaches out and brushes a curl from the boy's forehead, a gesture so alien to him that his hand feels clumsy, oversized against that tiny skull.
"Good boy," Max murmurs, and the words feel strange on his tongue, but they make Kimi's shoulders loosen a fraction. "Now I need you to stay right here. Can you do that for me? Stay in your bed, pull the covers up, and don't come out until I come back for you. No matter what you hear. Understood?"
Kimi's eyes go wide, fear flickering back in. "But Daddy—"
"Your dad won't hurt you or your mum again," Max says, and there's steel in his voice now. "I'm going to make sure of that. But I need you to be brave for just a little longer. You were brave on the phone. You can be brave now."
The boy swallows, his throat bobbing, and then he nods again, slower this time. He scrambles back onto his bed, dragging the duvet up to his chin, his teddy bear clutched against his chest. His dark eyes watch Max from the green glow of the dinosaur light, wide and trusting in a way that makes Max's chest ache.
Max pulls his balaclava back down over his face, the fabric settling against his skin like a second layer of armour. He eases the door closed, the latch clicking softly, and then he's moving again — a predatory prowl that does not fit in this Kensington palace.
The heavy double doors at the end of the east corridor loom before him. He can smell Toto's alpha scent now, thick and territorial, layered over everything like a second skin. But beneath it, faint and sour with fear, there's another scent. Omega. George.
Max presses his ear to the wood. Nothing. He tries the handle — locked from the inside, it seems, but the lock is simple, a cheap internal mechanism that yields to his pick in seconds. He pushes the door open.
The master bedroom is vast, the walls panelled with dark wood that makes it seem claustrophobic, and heavy curtains drawn tight against the night. The air is stale, but Max’s nose has always been sensitive. He can scent alpha dominance, anger, but also— blood. Fear.
There are two figures in the bed. Max crosses the room towards the pair and looms over them.
Kimi was right in his assessment that Toto is big. Broad and tall, his chest pressed to George’s back as they lie in the bed together. Toto has a hand snaked around George’s hip, pulling them flush together. Even in sleep, George’s breaths are quick and unsteady. His hands are tied with zip ties in front of him, pinned to the poster of the bed in the corner.
His face is a ruin of purple and black bruising, one eye almost black, grazed at the edge and fresh, not quite scabbed over and his lip split and still weeping blood.
Max’s vision narrows to a sharp, icy point. Protective instincts he’d long thought dormant flare to life at the sight — and the smell of Toto and George’s scents mixed together.
He moves without a sound, a silent phantom stepping over the thick rug until he is standing right over the side of the bed. He presses a gloved hand to George’s mouth, and George’s eyes snap open. They’re bottled and red-rimmed, and go wide at the sight of an unknown figure looming at the edge of the bed.
His whine of protest is muffled by Max’s leather glove. “George,” he says, and George stills at the use of his name, stinking with distress. “Go to Kimi’s room.” Max lifts his finger to his lips to gesture for silence, before he unsheathes a knife from his hip. George flinches bodily, jerking back in panic and whimpering again through Max’s fingers. But all Max does is sever the zip-ties, and George’s exhausted hands fall limply.
George lets out a tiny, choked gasp — somewhere between relief and fear — his frame flinching violently against Toto’s front. The movement stirs the older alpha. Toto grunts, his heavy brow furrowing as he opens his eyes. "George, be fucking quiet and—"
Toto's words die in his throat as his sleep-blurred eyes register the masked figure looming over the bed. His body goes rigid, the alpha instinct surging to the surface in a rush of territorial fury. He shoves George aside, the omega crying out as he's pushed roughly against the headboard, skull hitting the wood, and Toto lunges upward, one hand already reaching for the nightstand where a gun lies in the drawer.
Max knows about the gun. He’s also faster.
His knife flashes, and Toto howls as the blade sinks into his forearm, pinning it to the mattress. The alpha thrashes, his other arm swinging wildly, but Max sidesteps, driving his fist into Toto's jaw with a sickening crack. Toto's head snaps back, his eyes rolling, but he's not done—he's big, and he's angry, and he's fuelled by the kind of rage that makes men stupid.
In the chaos, George jolts, scrambling off the bed on unsteady legs. He almost falls, catching himself on the bedpost, and then he's limping toward the door, his bare feet silent on the thick carpet.
“You think you can—" Toto snarls, ripping the knife from his arm with a spray of blood, his hand closing around the hilt as he swings it toward Max's throat.
Max catches his wrist, twists, and the knife clatters to the floor. He uses the momentum to flip Toto onto his stomach, one knee driving into the alpha's spine, pinning him flat. Toto's face is pressed into the mattress, blood from his wound soaking into the expensive white sheets, his breath coming in ragged, furious grunts.
Max unhooks his gun. It has a silencer. The Lion’s trademark — two bullets to the nape of the neck. He presses the pistol’s cold nozzle to the base of Toto’s skull, and the man freezes, snarls.
“Wait,” a voice comes from the door.
It’s George. He’s leaning against the doorframe, panting. Backlit, he looks tired and worn and thin. But grimly determined. “Wait,” he says again, then holds out his hand. “I want to.”
Max says, his voice low, “you don't have to do this."
"Yes," George whispers, his voice cracking. "I do." He takes a step forward, then another, his bare feet silent on the carpet. He's wearing nothing but a thin t-shirt and shorts, his legs mottled with old bruises, his ribs visible through the fabric.
Toto snarls beneath Max's knee, his voice muffled by the mattress. "You pathetic little omega. You can't even hold a gun. You're nothing without me. You're—"
"Shut up," George says, and there's a tremor in his voice, but it's there — a spark of fire, a hint of the defiance that had been beaten out of him. "Just shut up."
Slowly, Max pulls the gun back. He doesn't lower it entirely, but he shifts his weight, giving George space.
George takes the weapon. His hands — bleeding at the wrists where the zip-ties tore into his skin — are shaking violently, the weight of the heavy suppressed pistol threatening to drag his arms down. He has to use both hands to level it, his chest heaving as he takes a shuddering breath.
"George, baby," Toto gasps, his tone instantly shifting from fury to a sickening, calculated tenderness, though his face is still pinned under Max’s boot. "Listen to me. You don't want to do this. I’m sorry. You’re not thinking straight. You just make me so angry.”
George falters. “I…”
“Think about Kimi. You’re nothing without me. Put the gun down, okay, baby? Let me fix this."
At the sound of the kid's name, George’s posture changes. The desperate, trembling fear drains out of him, replaced by a cold, hollow silence. His icy blue eyes — half-swollen shut, blood weeping down his cheek — narrow into glacial slits.
"You don't ever," George rasps, his vocal cords raw and destroyed from days of crying, "say his name again."
Thwip. Thwip.
The silencer coughs twice in rapid succession. The double-tap to the back of the skull snaps Toto’s head forward into the mattress. The heavy alpha’s body jolts once, a violent, brief tremor, before going completely limp. The suffocating, aggressive scent of clementine bleach and dominating alpha pheromones instantly begins to sour, dying out as the life leaves the frame.
The gun drops from George’s hands, hitting the rug with a dull thud.
For a second, the omega just stands there, staring at the empty space where his tormentor used to be. Then, his knees give out entirely.
Max reacts instinctively, stepping away from Toto’s cooling body and catching George before he hits the floor. The moment Max’s arms fold around him, George breaks into sobs that rattle is bone-deeply exhausted, fragile frame. He clings to the front of Max’s tactical vest, his weak fingers knotting into the fabric, burying his face into the space between Max’s neck and shoulder.
"He's gone," Max rumbles softly, keeping his hands broad and firm on George's back, avoiding the worst of the visible bruising on his spine. "He's dead. He can't touch you or your pup again."
George is hyperventilating, his skin burning hot and clammy against Max’s cool suit. "Kimi," he chokes out, sobbing so hard he can barely form the syllables, his small frame shuddering with delay-action shock. "My baby— I need— I couldn't protect him—"
"Hey. Look at me." Max gently hooks two fingers under George's chin, tilting his battered face up. The omega looks like a tragic collage of purple hematomas, swollen tissue, and terrified, bloodshot eyes. "Kimi is fine. He’s the one who called me, George. He saved you."
A fresh wave of tears overflows George's eyes, washing tracking lines through the dried blood on his cheeks. He frowns. “He... he called you?"
"Smart kid. Got his father's burner, found my line – you gotta ask him about that, by the way," Max says, sweeping a thumb softly over a clear patch of George's cheekbone, deliberately putting out a strong wave of calming, steadying alpha scent to coat over the omega's lingering panic. He braces, not sure how he’ll react to the motion, but George leans into it.
"We need to go. My guy is looping the security cameras, but we have a short window before someone notices. Can you walk?"
George tries to push himself up, but his left leg immediately buckles beneath him with a choked gasp of pain. Toto had clearly done damage to his hip or knee. Anger broils in Max’s gut.
Without asking, Max scoops one arm under George's knees and the other around his back, lifting the omega easily against his chest. George squeaks as he goes.
He’s shockingly light, far too light for a tall man, really, his ribs painfully prominent under his oversized shirt. He whimpers, burying his face straight into the crook of Max's neck, instinctively seeking the soothing scent rolling off Max’s pulse point.
Max scoops up the gun, clicks the safety on, then carries him out of the master bedroom, stepping cleanly over the blood pooling on the carpet, and moves back down the darkened hallway toward the west wing.
When he nudges Kimi's door open with his foot, the little boy is still huddled under the duvet, holding his teddy bear tightly. The green dinosaur light casts a faint glow over his anxious face.
"Mummy!" Kimi cries out the moment he catches sight of them, throwing the covers off and scrambling off the bed the second he sees George in Max's arms. Max lowers them both into a crouch so they’re not knocked over when Kimi barrels into his mum and flings his tiny boney arms around George’s neck.
"Kimi— oh god, baby," George sobs, the omega burying his face in his son’s brown curls, smelling him, reassuring himself that the pup is whole and breathing. Kimi squints up at George's bruised face, his lip trembling, but he doesn't cry. He just squeezes his mother tighter.
"Alright," Max interrupts gently, pulling a dark, heavy coat off the back of Kimi's desk chair and wrapping it around George’s bare, shivering shoulders. "Reunion on the move. Up we go, pup."
Max uses his free arm to scoop Kimi up against his side, hauling both mother and child into a secure carry. Kimi wraps his legs around Max's waist and buries his hands in the shoulder of Max's tactical jacket. Max loops his arm around George’s hip, the touch clinical and detached, as they limp out of the house.
Toto killed in the night. George and Kimi declared missing. Hostages or ransomed, kidnapped to some degree. Fine by Max. At least they’re safe.
They exit down the rear servant stairs, bypassing the main floor entirely, and step out into the crisp, cold London night air. A blacked-out SUV is idling in the alleyway behind the property, its lights completely off and its windows blacked out. The rear door glides open smoothly as they approach, revealing Oscar in the driver's seat, typing furiously on a laptop mounted to the dash.
"Clean exit?" Oscar asks quietly without looking back, his fingers flying over the keys.
"Clean," Max replies, carefully maneouvering George into the back seat first, then setting Kimi down right beside him.
The moment George hits the leather seat, he pulls Kimi into his lap, wrapping the heavy coat around both of them like a shield. His body is still violent with tremors, the shock of the violent adrenaline crash leaving him pale, shivering, and weak. He eyes Oscar warily — with a paranoia he had not directed at Max.
He goes tense as Max reaches in, but all he does is apologise softly as he pulls the seatbelt over both of them and clicks it into place. He hesitates for a second, looking down at George. The omega’s split lip is bleeding again, and his breath is coming in short, fragile hitches.
Max reaches into the pocket of the door, pulls out a bottle of sealed clean water and a sterile cloth, and offers them both to George, who takes then with his spidery, quivering hands.
"You're safe now," Max says. "Both of you. I'm taking you to a private safehouse in the countryside. No cameras or police or Wolffs.”
No wolves, perhaps, but certainly lions.