Everyone at the meeting immediately scattered, and suddenly there were people running all over the outside of the warehouse. Turns out the Cardinal Rebels had a lot more members than just Raspy guy and the woman called Lena. Theo lost track of Spiro on the cameras, and started screaming at him through the earpiece.

"Get out of there!" He ordered.

"Wait a second!" Spiro hissed back. Theo scanned the cameras, his eyes landing on one in particular. The warehouse was next to an old brick building, the two creating a narrow alleyway. He watched as Marcus darted down it, thinking he could slip through and pop out on the other side of the building. But there was a fence stopping him, and just as Marcus turned to run back out the way he'd come in, Spiro appeared in the alley's entrance, gun raised.

"Freeze!" He warned. Marcus stopped, both of them staring each other down. Marcus hesitated. "Should we take him in?" He muttered into the microphone. "He might have a ton of information on Mossberg and Oak." Theo didn't respond, still staring at the camera. He could see the alley, he could see Marcus Trenor's guilty fucking face.

And he wanted him dead. Dead for what he'd done, and what he'd been planning on doing. They could bring him in for questioning, sure, but then what? He'd be released and would go through with his original plan. Theo could warn Cyrus about it, but Cyrus might try to talk it out instead. He wasn't a fan of murdering. He wouldn't want to spill unnecessary blood. But Marcus... Marcus wouldn't hesitate about it.

Sometimes talking things out just wasn't an option, and while Theo knew what the right thing to do was, he also had to think about what option would keep his husband safest.

"Theo?" Spiro said urgently, his voice breaking his trance. But then Marcus frowned, looking confused.

"Theo?" He echoed, something flickering in recognition. Of course he knew the name. Everyone in the Hunters had warned him at one point or another that Theo was the one you never touched and never spoke to. "Oh, you've gotta be kidding me." Marcus reached for his back pocket, even though Spiro warned him not too, and he drew out a gun. "I can't have this shit getting back to him."

"T-theo, what do I do?" Spiro whispered. He thought they needed Marcus for questioning, but Theo knew now. Marcus knew too much. And he was a traitor. He would try and hurt Cyrus. He would kill Cyrus. Theo's mind wandered at that possibility. It made him want to die just thinking about it. Cyrus was his everything, and he had always been there to protect those around him. He protected the people in his gang and he protected his husband, no matter what. Why shouldn't Theo do the same for him? Why shouldn't he help in this way? That was all he wanted to do. Help and Protect. There was no other option Theo could see, especially not when Marcus knew about him and Cyrus.

"Shoot him." He ordered quietly. Marcus raised his gun and Spiro fired, a single shot slamming into Marcus's chest. He dropped to the ground, and Theo had a sick feeling that he wouldn't be getting back up.

"Oh God," Spiro whispered, lowering his weapon. A horrible feeling washed over Theo as the weight of what happened hit him. What had they done?

"Is-is he dead?" He whispered back. Spiro walked over and felt for a pulse. He shook his head.

"He's dead, Theo. Oh my god, he's dead. What do we do now?"

"Come back to the van," Theo said. "We'll call it in, explain what happened." Part of him wanted to puke, and Spiro must have read his mind, because that's just what he did next.

***

It was exactly 3:08 a.m. when Theo entered his home, and he wasn't quite sure why he thought the time mattered. The apartment was dark, Cyrus asleep, no doubt. They had gone back to the station to record their findings of the meeting, and to report Marcus's death. It wouldn't be on the news, Theo knew, and it was only of the only things he was grateful for. Marcus's death would be one that was quietly swept under the rug for as long as it could be buried there. But it wouldn't stay that way. The Cardinal Rebels were bound to be pissed off and want revenge, and then there was the matter of the Hunters. They didn't know Marcus was a traitor. They would assume Oak's gang killed him, and as easy as it would be to put the blame on them, Theo didn't feel like starting a gang war, and it would be war. Cyrus cared so much about his members. He'd fight for all of them, even if they insulted his honor. It was like a strange, drug connected family.

Theo felt like he was in a daze, although he wasn't quite sure why. They had killed a man, and while he didn't feel guilty about Marcus's death, he felt something. It was not a nice feeling. He dug a bottle of whiskey out of one of their cabinets and poured a glass, downing it. Even with the burning liquor, his throat still felt bone dry.

He had to tell Cyrus what happened. He had to, and he knew it. He'd explain it first though, explain how Marcus had been a traitor all along, and how he would've killed Spiro in that alley if he hadn't been shot first. He would make Cyrus understand, and he would. Cyrus was good at understanding. He wouldn't blame him—he'd blame Marcus, and he would explain that to the rest of the Hunters. Once Spiro got over the fact that he had pulled the trigger, he would be upset that they didn't get any information about the Hunters out of him, and Theo would find a way to smooth that over. They would move on, and everything would be okay again. He'd feed Spiro a new lead on the Hunters to distract him and occupy the gangsters on something other than war.

Theo poured another drink, his hands shaking. It was bad. All of it was bad, but he would fix it. He would fix it. He had to fix it, or everything would fall apart around him. He went to drain the glass again, but paused at the sight of the blanket fort, still proudly set up in the middle of the living room. He had been right. Paradise did always eventually burn down, and blanket walls weren't going to stop that. Nothing would.

An hour of thinking and drinking later, he crawled into bed beside Cyrus, still in his clothes, and stared up at the ceiling. The image of Marcus dropping to the ground replayed in his head, and he clenched his eyes shut in an attempt to focus on something else, anything else. But even the sound of Cyrus's soft snoring wasn't enough to block it out. Maybe it was guilt after all that was twisting away in his stomach and working its way up his throat. But it wasn't guilt over Marcus's death. It wasn't even guilt about killing someone. It was guilt about what Cyrus would think of him.

Theo didn't sleep that night.