Bakugo's point of view:

A week. A whole damn week.

No explosions. No shattered glass. No sneaky assassins falling out of rafters. Just silence.

I leaned back in my chair, arms crossed, glaring at the ceiling like it had personally offended me. The whole situation left a sour taste in my mouth. He was out there—our omega—and he was doing fuck knows what instead of coming back to finish what he started.

"You'd think a guy like that would have the guts to follow through," I muttered under my breath.

Across the room, Todoroki stood by the window, his gaze fixed on the city skyline like some brooding protagonist in a shitty romance novel. "Maybe he's smarter than you give him credit for," he said, voice annoyingly calm as always. "If he knows what he's doing, he's lying low for a reason."

I snorted, rolling my eyes. "Or he's just a coward."

Todoroki shot me a glance, his expression unreadable. "A coward doesn't throw themselves into a fight against you and Red Riot. He's waiting for something, Katsuki."

"Yeah, well, he can keep waiting," I snapped, sitting up and slamming my hands on the table. "I'm done playing his game. If he's not gonna come to us, then we'll go to him."

"Sure," Todoroki replied evenly, turning back to the window. "And how exactly do you plan to do that? We don't know his name. We don't know his face. All we have is a faint scent and the fact that he's good—maybe the best."

I gritted my teeth. He wasn't wrong, but damn if I was going to admit it. "We've got leads," I said, though the words felt thin. "Someone knows who he is. We just have to figure out where to look."

Todoroki finally turned fully toward me, his gaze sharp. "The assassin world is darker than ours, Katsuki. They don't operate with the same rules. It's not like our mafia network where alliances and territories keep things in check. They work in shadows, with no loyalty except to whoever pays them."

"Then we pay him," I said without hesitation.

Todoroki's brows lifted, just slightly. "You want to hire the guy who tried to kill our right-hand man?"

I leaned forward, resting my elbows on my knees. "Why not? If we're the ones giving him a job, then he's not working against us. And it's the best way to bring him out of hiding."

"But we don't know who he is," Todoroki pointed out, crossing his arms. "We can't exactly put out an ad."

I smirked, feeling the fire light up in my chest again. "Then we find out who he is. Get someone on it. Jiro and Tokoyami—they're good with digging up dirt. Let them figure out who the best assassins are and what they know about his world."

Todoroki didn't respond right away, but I could see the gears turning in his head. Finally, he nodded. "It's risky," he said, "but it might be our only option."

"Damn right it is," I said, already pulling out my phone to make the calls.

Jiro and Tokoyami were reliable, no-nonsense types who didn't ask unnecessary questions. If anyone could dig up information on the shadowy world of assassins, it was them.

I looked back at Todoroki as I dialed. "This is gonna work," I said, more to myself than to him. "And when we find him, I'm not letting him slip away again."

Todoroki's lips twitched into the faintest of smiles. "You're awfully confident for someone who got outsmarted by an omega."

I glared at him, but he was already turning back to the window.

Whatever. Let him think what he wants. The important thing was that our omega wasn't going to stay hidden for long. Not if I had anything to say about it.