JFK International Airport, New York.
The automatic doors hissed open, and the air of New York City punched Aria in the face.
It wasn't fresh. It smelled of wet asphalt, exhaust fumes, stale coffee, and ozone. To anyone else, it was just the smell of a storm. To Aria, it was the scent of trauma.
She stepped onto the curb, her four-inch stilettos clicking sharply against the concrete. She pulled her white trench coat tighter around her waist. It was armor. Just like the oversized sunglasses hiding her eyes and the layer of "Vera" she had painted over her soul.
"Mommy! Look! Yellow cars! Just like in the movies!"
Aria flinched, her hand instinctively going to the small head beside her.
"Taxis, Mia," Aria whispered, scanning the crowded arrival lane. Her heart was beating a frantic rhythm against her ribs—*thump, thump, thump*—too fast for a human, normal for a wolf on the run. "Quietly, please. Remember the rules?"
"Rule Number One: Don't break anything," Mia recited, bored. She was hanging off the handle of their heavy luggage trolley.
*Creeeeaaak.*
A sickening sound of groaning metal sliced through the noise of the airport.
Aria looked down in horror. Under Mia's tiny, grip, the solid steel handle of the trolley had warped, twisting like a piece of soft licorice.
"Mia!" Aria hissed, slapping her hand over the dented metal before anyone could see.
"Oops," Mia blinked her large, hazel eyes. "It was... slippery?"
"It's solid steel, Mia," a cool voice came from the other side. Leo.
Her son stood there, adjusting his noise-canceling headphones. He looked bored, tapping away on a tablet that was definitely not running normal kid games.
"I've located the driver," Leo said calmly, ignoring his sister's vandalism. "Black Lincoln Navigator. Plate NY-8899. He's three minutes late. Unprofessional."
Aria rubbed her temples. A four-year-old who crushed steel by accident, and a four-year-old who judged people's punctuality like a CEO.
"Leo, stop hacking the driver," Aria warned.
"I didn't hack him. I just checked the public traffic grid and cross-referenced it with his employer's log," Leo shrugged. "By the way, Mom, why does the Sinclair Group's firewall look like Swiss cheese? For a billionaire, his security is pathetic."
"We are not here to fix his security, Leo. We are here to get the money and leave."
*Get in. Get paid. Get out.* That was the mantra.
The black Lincoln pulled up. The driver, a middle-aged man who smelled of cigarettes and mint gum, hurried out to take their bags.
Aria watched him closely. When he reached for the trolley, she smoothly placed her hand over the bent handle, masking Mia's damage.
"I'll handle this bag," she said, flashing a dazzling, practiced smile. "It's fragile."
The driver blinked, dazzled by her beauty, and nodded dumbly. "Of course, Miss Vera."
As she climbed into the backseat, the wind picked up. A gust of damp air swirled into the car before the door slammed shut.
For a microsecond—less than a heartbeat—Aria froze.
Deep within the cocktail of city smells, she caught something.
*Pine. Cold rain. And pure, terrifying power.*
Her inner wolf woke up from its five-year coma and whined. *Alpha.*
Aria slammed the car window shut, her hands trembling.
"Mom?" Leo looked at her, his grey eyes—*Damien's eyes*—sharp with worry.
"I'm fine," Aria lied, reaching into her purse and gripping a small, cold glass vial. **Wolfsbane Suppressant.** She needed a double dose. Now.
He wasn't here. He couldn't be here. But his city... his city remembered her.
---
**Sinclair Tower, Top Floor.**
The glass of whiskey in Damien's hand shattered.
The sound was like a gunshot in the silent boardroom. Amber liquid and blood dripped from his clenched fist onto the polished mahogany table.
Twelve executives stopped breathing. No one dared to move. No one dared to offer him a napkin.
Damien didn't even look at his bleeding hand. His head was tilted back, his nostrils flaring slightly. The grey of his eyes was swirling, flecks of molten gold fighting to surface.
*Scent.*
It was faint. So faint it might have been a ghost. But it had cut through the heavy rain, the air conditioning, and the stench of fear in this room.
**Vanilla.**
**Lotus.**
**Her.**
"Sir?" Marcus, his personal assistant, stepped forward cautiously. "Should I call a medic?"
Damien stood up. The heavy leather chair scraped violently against the floor.
"Meeting adjourned," he growled. His voice sounded like gravel grinding together.
"But Sir, the merger with the Russians—"
"I said," Damien turned, his eyes glowing a terrifying, inhuman gold, "**Get. Out.**"
The executives didn't need to be told twice. They scrambled for the door, abandoning papers and dignity in their rush to escape the Alpha's rage.
When the room was empty, Damien walked to the floor-to-ceiling window. He pressed his forehead against the cold glass, looking down at the ants crawling on the streets of Manhattan.
He inhaled deeply, desperate to catch that scent again.
Nothing. Just rain and dirt.
"Am I going mad, Marcus?" Damien asked softly.
Marcus, the only beta wolf who could withstand Damien's pressure, stayed by the door. "It's the anniversary, Sir. Tomorrow makes five years since... since she left. It's normal to... sense things."
"I didn't sense it," Damien slammed his uninjured hand against the glass, spiderweb cracks appearing under his palm. "I *smelled* her."
"She is gone, Damien," Marcus used his first name, a rare breach of protocol. "The investigators found nothing. The trail ended in France three years ago. She doesn't want to be found."
Damien closed his eyes. The gold faded, leaving behind a dull, lifeless grey.
He looked at his bleeding hand. The physical pain was grounding. It was better than the hollow ache in his chest.
"You're right," Damien whispered. "She's gone."
He turned back to his desk, his face hardening into the mask of the ruthless CEO.
"The designer. Vera. She arrived?"
"Yes, Sir. She's at the Plaza."
"Good. Have her come in tomorrow at 9." Damien pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and wrapped his hand. "And Marcus?"
"Sir?"
"Tell security to triple the perimeter checks. If a fly enters this building without my permission, I want to know its gender."
"Understood."
Damien sat down, staring at the empty chair opposite him. *Vanilla.* It was just a hallucination. A cruelty of his own mind.
He didn't know that the cruelty was just beginning.
---
**The Plaza Hotel, Presidential Suite.**
"Whoa! Mommy, look at the bathtub! I can swim in it!"
Mia's voice echoed from the bathroom.
Aria dropped her coat on the velvet sofa and immediately went to the mini-bar. She ignored the champagne and grabbed a bottle of cold water. She popped the cap of the vial she had been clutching and dumped the bitter liquid into the water, drinking it in one gulp.
The burning sensation in her throat settled her nerves. The suppressant would mask her scent for 12 hours. To any other wolf, she would smell like nothing—just expensive perfume and human skin.
"Check complete," Leo walked into the living room, snapping his laptop shut. "Three bugs. One in the lamp, one under the coffee table, one in the phone. Amateur work. I looped the audio feed so they'll just hear static."
Aria sighed, sinking into the sofa. "Good job, Leo."
"Who is listening to us?" Leo asked, sitting cross-legged on the floor.
"Competitors. Or enemies," Aria said vaguely. She couldn't tell him the truth: *Your father has enemies who would skin you alive to get to him.*
Her phone on the table buzzed.
Unknown Number.
Aria stared at it. She knew that number sequence. Sinclair Group internal line.
She took a deep breath, put on her "Vera" mask—cold, French, arrogant—and answered.
"Vera speaking."
"Miss Vera."
The voice on the other end was deep, resonating through the phone like a cello string. It wasn't Marcus.
Aria's grip on the phone tightened until the plastic creaked.
"Mr. Sinclair," she replied, forcing her voice not to waver. "To what do I owe the honor? I usually deal with assistants."
There was a silence on the line. Heavy. Breathing.
In his office, Damien held the receiver, his eyes narrowed. He was analyzing every frequency of her voice. It was lower than Aria's. More confident. And the accent... thick, Parisian.
*It's not her,* his logic told him.
*Liar,* his instinct whispered.
"My assistant tells me you have strict demands," Damien said slowly. "No face-to-face meetings before the contract is signed. No video calls."
"I value my privacy, Mr. Sinclair. My work speaks for itself."
"In my city, privacy is a luxury," Damien's voice dropped, becoming silky and dangerous. "I need to know who I'm letting into my inner circle. Tomorrow. 9 AM. Be here."
"I'm jet-lagged, Mr. Sinclair. Perhaps—"
"I didn't ask," Damien cut her off. The Alpha command laced his words, subtle but undeniable. It made Aria's inner wolf want to bare its neck in submission. She dug her nails into her palm to resist it.
"9 AM," Damien repeated. "Don't make me come fetch you."
Click.
The line went dead.
Aria stared at the phone. She was shaking. Not from fear, but from a terrifying mix of anger and arousal. Five years, and his voice still had that effect on her.
"Mommy?" Mia waddled out of the bathroom, a towel wrapped around her head like a turban. "Are you okay? You smell like... burnt sugar."
That was the smell of an agitated wolf fighting suppressants.
Aria closed her eyes and exhaled slowly. She stood up, walking to the window to look at the towering skyscraper dominating the skyline.
"I'm fine, baby," she whispered, her reflection in the glass looking sharp and dangerous.
She wasn't the prey anymore. She was the one holding the knife.
"Leo," she called out.
"Yeah?"
"Print the sketches. The ones I made last night."
"The romantic ones?"
Aria smirked, but there was no humor in it.
"No. The ones with the thorns."