Chapter Thirteen: Wolves in Silk
It's one of those quiet, deep nights when the city outside my windows seems more like a dream than a real place. I stand here, silhouetted against the glass, not really seeing the lights. I'm thinking about the one thing I'd spent a lifetime avoiding: love.
I'd always believed love made people careless. It made them forget the rules, ignore the dangers, and drop their guard. For a man like me—raised on loss, sharpened by betrayal—carelessness was a death sentence. So I'd kept my heart locked away, cold and safe.
Until Aira.
She walked into my world with soft eyes and a quiet smile, and something inside me shifted. It wasn't a loud or dramatic feeling. It was a slow, persistent hum of awareness. An instinct I usually reserved for spotting threats was now focused entirely on protecting her. The problem was, in my world, protection always started with knowing exactly what you were protecting someone from.
That's why I called for Leon.
Leon is more than just head of security; he's a fixed point in my life. He appeared in the office doorway without a sound, his presence calm and solid. A faint scar traced his jawline, a reminder of a loyalty that had been tested and proven.
"You wanted me," he stated, his voice even.
I finally turned from the window. "I need a background check. On Aira Grace."
If the request surprised him, he didn't show it. He simply nodded. "Depth?"
"Everything. Her childhood, her family's finances, their political connections. I want to know about old grudges, quiet ones. The kind people don't talk about at parties."
"Understood," Leon said. He paused. "I'll need Leo for the digital trail. He's the best."
"Use whoever you need. Just keep it quiet."
"And Sophia?" Leon asked carefully.
"Especially not Sophia," I replied, my tone leaving no room for argument. My sister's friendship with Aira was genuine, and I wouldn't risk muddying those waters with my own suspicions.
After Leon left, the spacious office felt suddenly too large and too quiet. I told myself this was just due diligence. A responsible precaution. But a darker, more honest part of me knew it was fear. I was afraid of what I might find, and even more afraid of what I felt.
I had watched Aira closely these past weeks. I saw the way she observed the world—with a weary disappointment that was somehow still open-hearted. I'd caught her smiling softly to herself over a passage in a book, a smile that seemed surprised by its own existence. She was gentle in a world that rewarded hardness, and that made her dangerously vulnerable.
A woman like that either existed completely outside my world of shadows and deals, or she was standing at the very heart of it without a clue. I had to know which it was.
---
For three days, I kept my distance. I didn't call or text. Instead, I watched. From a car parked down the street from her dorm, from a café table across the quad, from the shadows of a building as she walked home from the library. She moved through her life with a gentle predictability that was utterly disarming. She was exactly what she seemed: a young woman who carried quiet sadness but hadn't let it extinguish her light.
It should have been a relief. It wasn't. It just made the knot in my stomach tighter.
On the fourth evening, Leon returned, and with him was Leo. Where Leon is grounded physicality, Leo is all sharp intellect and silent observation. He rarely speaks, but when he does, people listen. The atmosphere in the room thickened the moment they entered.
I remained seated behind my desk, a silent command for them to proceed.
Leon placed a plain manila folder on the polished wood. "It's not straightforward."
"Explain," I said, my eyes on the folder but not yet opening it.
"Her personal history is… curated," Leo said, his voice soft but precise. "School records have unexplained gaps. Medical history is sparse. It's a profile that's been cleaned up. Not by an amateur."
"And her family?" I asked, my voice dangerously calm.
The silence that followed was more telling than any report. Leon and Leo exchanged a brief, heavy glance.
"Her father," Leon began, choosing his words with care, "is not just a politician in the public sense. His influence operates in layers. The public face is one thing. The private alliances are another."
"Stop."
The single word cut through the room. I held up a hand, my eyes closed. In the darkness behind my eyelids, I saw Aira's face—the trust in her eyes when she looked at me, the unguarded way she laughed at one of Sophia's jokes. The stark contrast between her innocent warmth and the cold reality of the file on my desk was a physical pain.
I opened my eyes. "I don't want the details. Not yet."
Leon frowned. "Sir, if there's a potential threat, or a conflict of interest—"
"I said, not yet." The finality in my tone was absolute. It was the voice I used when a decision was made, consequences be damned.
Leo shifted slightly. "What are your orders?"
"For now, you forget this file exists. You forget you ever looked. You do not dig another millimeter deeper unless I give the direct command."
The two men looked at me, a mixture of professional concern and personal loyalty warring on their faces. They knew the risks of willful ignorance.
"Rowan," Leon said, dropping the formality, "that's a dangerous way to proceed."
I met his gaze, and for a second, the mask of the cold leader slipped, revealing the raw conflict beneath. "I know," I said, my voice low. "But so is what I feel for her. I need to figure out which danger matters more."
With a final, reluctant nod, they left me alone with the truth.
For a long time, I just sat there, the unopened folder a silent accusation. Finally, I reached for it. I didn't read every line. I didn't need to. A few key names, a handful of interlocking business and political interests, the shadowy outline of a long-standing rivalry… it was enough. The puzzle pieces clicked into a picture I recognized all too well.
Aira Grace is the daughter of my family's oldest, most carefully disguised enemies. The wolves who smile for the cameras and wear silk ties. The kind of men who destroy families from the inside out, who had, in ways both direct and indirect, contributed to the hollowed-out feeling in my own home after Lyanna's death.
A bitter, hollow laugh escaped me. The irony was perfect. I had finally, unwillingly, given my heart to the one woman whose world was built to destroy mine.
My hand clenched into a fist on the desk, knuckles white. If I walked away now, she would become a target anyway—collateral damage in a war she knew nothing about. If I stayed and let her in, she would become my greatest, most exploitable weakness.
There was a third option, of course. The one that lives in my blood. I could become the thing that all the other dangers fear. I could wield my own darkness not just for business or revenge, but as a shield.
I leaned back, the resolve settling over me like a second skin, cold and familiar. The love I felt didn't soften. It hardened into something purposeful and fierce.
For now, she will know nothing. I will continue to be the man who listens to her talk about philosophy, who makes her smile, who makes her feel safe. I will let her believe in that man.
And when the hidden wolves finally show their teeth, they will find that Rowan Royce is no longer just a businessman, or a grieving brother, or even a cautious lover.
I will be the storm.
Love won't make me careless. It will make me ruthless. And it will decide, once and for all, who is left standing when the dust settles.