Jamie did not go alone.

He allowed Adrian to believe he had.

Lucas placed a transmitter inside Jamie’s watch. Caleb documented his uninjured condition. Ethan coordinated with a federal investigator he trusted outside Adrian’s local influence. Noah and Mason waited in a delivery van across the street, arguing over who would enter first if the plan failed.

“Neither,” Jamie told them through the earpiece. “You enter when I say.”

“We hate this plan,” Noah said.

“Recorded,” Lucas replied.

Adrian chose his private office above a SoHo fashion showroom. Glass walls overlooked mannequins dressed in clothing more expensive than Jamie’s rent.

Adrian smiled when Jamie arrived.

“Your household is unusually obedient.”

“You threatened their careers.”

“I threatened their fantasy. Five men do not fall in love with one confused boy. They compete until something breaks.”

Jamie sat without invitation. “You put something in my drink.”

“Can you prove it?”

“You entered my hotel room.”

“To help.”

“With a photographer waiting outside?”

Adrian’s smile thinned.

Jamie placed his phone on the desk. “Delete everything.”

Adrian came around the desk. “You should be grateful. Scandal creates careers.”

He touched Jamie’s shoulder.

Jamie stood so fast the chair struck the glass wall.

“Don’t touch me.”

In his earpiece, five men went silent.

Adrian lifted both hands. “Sensitive now? You were considerably more generous that night.”

“Before you drugged me.”

“You had already kissed half the room. I merely gave you permission to stop pretending.”

There it was.

An admission close enough to matter.

Jamie forced himself not to look toward the hidden camera Lucas had accessed.

“What about the other men in those photographs?”

Adrian’s expression changed.

“Ambitious boys make reckless decisions.”

“You mean you make decisions for them.”

Adrian seized Jamie’s wrist.

The office door crashed open.

Noah reached them first. He tore Adrian’s hand away and placed himself between the men, every muscle rigid with contained violence.

“He said don’t touch him.”

Ethan entered behind him with two federal agents. Caleb went directly to Jamie. Mason locked the outer showroom doors. Lucas remained in the hall, controlling the security system from his tablet.

Adrian laughed. “All five. How predictable.”

Noah took one step forward.

“Stop,” Jamie said.

Noah stopped instantly.

The power of it steadied Jamie.

The agents took Adrian’s phone and computer. Ethan handed them the toxicology results, video, access logs, and recordings. Lucas transmitted the recovered files from the other victims.

Adrian was led away without his smile.

In the elevator, Jamie began shaking.

Caleb checked his pupils and breathing. Ethan asked before touching him. Mason offered water. Noah stood guard at the door. Lucas watched the floor numbers as if he could prevent danger through concentration.

Jamie looked at all five.

“Hold me.”

They hesitated because five bodies in an elevator required negotiation.

Mason moved first, wrapping both arms around Jamie. Noah joined from one side, carefully containing his strength. Caleb placed a hand at Jamie’s back. Lucas took Jamie’s trembling fingers. Ethan stood in front and cupped Jamie’s face.

“Look at me,” Ethan said.

Jamie did.

The elevator descended while five separate points of warmth held him in place.

Nothing about the embrace was elegant.

Everything about it felt safe.

At home, the adrenaline collapsed into exhaustion. Jamie lay across the enormous sectional with his head in Mason’s lap and his legs over Noah’s. Caleb sat on the floor monitoring him without equipment. Lucas worked nearby. Ethan read the investigator’s updates aloud.

Jamie woke after midnight to quiet voices.

“He shouldn’t have been there,” Ethan said.

“He chose the plan,” Lucas replied.

“We enabled it.”

“We supported it,” Mason corrected.

Noah’s fingers moved gently through Jamie’s hair. “There’s a difference.”

Jamie opened his eyes. “Good. You’re learning.”

Five men looked down at him.

He stretched, then became aware of where every hand rested. Mason at his temple. Noah at his ankle. Caleb near his wrist. Lucas holding two of his fingers. Ethan’s palm on the cushion beside his shoulder.

Desire moved through the safety, slow and adult.

“I want to kiss all of you,” Jamie said. “Not because I’m scared. Because I’m not.”

He sat up and did exactly that, one deliberate choice at a time.

The room grew warmer. Hands found his waist, his hair, the line of his back—but every movement paused for permission.

Jamie stopped them before the moment became more.

“Not tonight.”

Every hand withdrew.

No resentment. No bargaining.

Only Mason asking whether Jamie wanted tea.

Lucas’s laptop chimed.

He read the new message twice.

“Adrian made a statement before his attorney arrived.”

Ethan’s eyes narrowed. “What did he say?”

Lucas turned the screen toward them.

ONE OF THE FIVE GAVE ME THE KEY.

Suspicion entered the room like smoke.

Noah stood first. “He’s lying.”

“Probably,” Lucas said. “But the hotel logs show a staff credential cloned from a phone in our suite.”

Everyone looked at everyone else.

Jamie hated Adrian for engineering that moment. He hated himself more for noticing Ethan’s access, Lucas’s technical skill, Caleb’s unexplained absence from twelve forty to one, Mason’s friendship with hotel staff, and Noah’s tendency to hide pain behind jokes.

“Phones on the table,” Jamie said.

Ethan complied, then stopped the others. “Only voluntarily. We don’t answer coercion by normalizing searches.”

Jamie stared at him. Even under suspicion, Ethan was protecting the rules.

One by one, all five unlocked their devices and handed them to Lucas. The cloned signal traced not to a deliberate transfer but to Mason’s phone, which had disappeared for nine minutes during the bar spill.

Mason went pale. “A waiter returned it to me.”

Lucas enlarged a security frame. The waiter’s face was partially turned, but the red thread around his wrist matched Adrian’s private-club staff.

“No traitor,” Lucas said. “A theft.”

Relief broke through the room, followed by anger.

Jamie moved to Mason before anyone else could. “Look at me. He used you. You didn’t give him anything.”

Mason’s hands shook. “You believed I might have.”

“For thirty seconds. I’m sorry.”

“You’re allowed to be afraid.”

“And you’re allowed to be hurt by what fear does.”

Mason leaned forward only after Jamie opened his arms. Their embrace was quiet, observed without competition.

Detective Shah called moments later. The cloned key evidence connected Adrian to Daniel’s case and two earlier complaints. Police were moving to arrest him.

But Lucas looked at the live tracker and swore.

Adrian’s phone was not at his apartment.

It was moving toward their house.

Police arrived before Adrian did, but Jamie refused to be hidden upstairs. He waited in the lit living room with Detective Shah while his roommates followed her order to remain away from the windows.

Adrian’s car stopped across the street.

He stepped out holding no weapon, only Jamie’s stolen yearbook. Cameras from two patrol cars recorded him approaching the gate despite three commands to stop.

“You ruined everything,” Adrian shouted toward the house. “They’ll leave when they know what you are.”

Jamie walked only as far as the front window. “They know more than you ever did.”

Adrian lunged toward the gate. Officers restrained him before he crossed the property line. The yearbook fell open in the rain, its pages bleeding ink into the gutter.

Jamie expected triumph. What came instead was exhaustion.

Five men gathered several feet behind him, close enough to support and far enough not to crowd.

“Can someone stand beside me?” Jamie asked.

All five started forward, collided, and stopped.

Despite everything, Jamie laughed.

“We are going to need a better system.”