The private medical bay on the 40th floor of Sinclair Tower was silent, save for the hum of the million-dollar sequencing machine.
Damien stood with his back to the glass wall, staring out at the storm that was drowning New York City. The reflection in the glass showed a man who looked calm, but inside, a volcano was dormant, waiting to erupt.
"Sir," Dr. Evans, the head geneticist, walked in. His hands were trembling slightly as he held a digital tablet.
Damien didn't turn around immediately. He watched a lightning bolt split the sky over Brooklyn.
"Tell me," Damien said. His voice was dangerously soft.
"It... it's a match, Sir."
Damien turned. His grey eyes were devoid of emotion, but his pupils had dilated into vertical slits—the sign of his wolf surfacing.
"Percentage?"
"99.999%," Dr. Evans stammered, offering the tablet. "The probability of paternity is absolute. The child... the girl... she carries the pure Alpha bloodline. And the boy..."
"The boy?" Damien snatched the tablet.
"We ran a secondary trace on the hair follicle's lingering contact DNA. There were traces of another child. A male. Identical genetic markers."
Damien stared at the screen. The glowing green text burned into his retinas.
**POSITIVE MATCH.**
**FATHER: DAMIEN SINCLAIR.**
**MOTHER: ARIA VERA.**
Twins.
He didn't just have a daughter. He had a son.
For five years.
For five years, he had lived in a grey world of work, money, and cold ambition. He had convinced himself that he was barren, cursed, or simply destined to be alone. He had mourned the loss of his mate, believing she had betrayed him and vanished.
But she hadn't just vanished. She had stolen.
She had stolen his heirs. She had stolen five years of first steps, first words, first shifts.
*Crack.*
The tablet screen spiderwebbed under Damien's thumb.
"Sir!" Dr. Evans gasped.
Damien threw the broken device onto the medical bed. He walked to the window and pressed his forehead against the cold glass. He let out a breath that fogged the surface.
He should be furious. He should be ordering his guards to tear the city apart. He should be roaring.
But instead, a low, terrifying laugh rumbled in his chest.
It started soft, then grew louder, echoing off the sterile walls. It was the laugh of a man who had won the lottery and lost his soul in the same second.
"Two," Damien whispered to the rain. "She hid *two* of them."
"Sir, what are your orders?" Marcus appeared in the doorway, looking pale. He had heard the news. "Shall we mobilize the extraction team? If they are in Brooklyn..."
Damien closed his eyes. He inhaled deeply. He could almost smell them through the storm—the scent of milk, rain, and his own blood.
"No," Damien opened his eyes. The gold in them was now burning with a cold, calculated fire. "No extraction."
"Sir?"
"If I drag her back now, she will fight. She will scream. She will play the victim," Damien said, adjusting his cufflinks. "I don't want a prisoner, Marcus. I want a wife. And I want a mother for my children."
"Then... how do we proceed?"
"We starve the rat," Damien said ruthlessly. "We let her see what life is like without my protection. We let her feel the cold, the hunger, the fear. And when she is broken... when she realizes that the world outside is far crueler than the monster inside... she will come crawling back."
He walked to the large map on the wall. He pointed a long finger at the borough of Brooklyn.
"Tighten the net. Freeze every asset she has left. Block her design accounts. Blacklist her name in every fashion house in the city. I want her to be unable to buy a loaf of bread without my permission."
Damien smiled, and it was the smile of a wolf watching a trapped rabbit.
"Let the game begin."
---
Meanwhile, in the shadows of Brooklyn.
The "safe house" was less of a house and more of a concrete box. It was a small, one-bedroom apartment in a crumbling brick building near the shipyards. It smelled of damp mold and old frying oil.
"It stinks in here," Mia stated, pinching her nose. She was standing in the middle of the living room, clutching her headless teddy bear.
"I know, baby," Aria sighed, locking the three heavy deadbolts on the front door. "But it's safe. No one knows we are here."
Leo was already inspecting the perimeter. He walked around the small room, checking the windows.
"The windows have bars," Leo reported, his voice trying to sound brave but quavering slightly. "And there's no internet. My tablet is a brick."
"Good," Aria said, dropping her bag on the dusty sofa. "No internet means no tracking. We are ghosts."
She went to the tiny kitchenette. She opened the fridge.
It was empty, save for a half-empty bottle of water and a jar of pickles that had expired in 2023.
Aria's stomach growled. She realized they hadn't eaten since lunch.
"Mommy, I'm hungry," Mia tugged at her wet jeans. "Can we order pizza? Like at the hotel?"
Aria's heart broke. At the Plaza Hotel, they had room service. They had fluffy robes. They had warmth.
Here, they had a single radiator that was clanking loudly but producing no heat.
"No pizza tonight, sweetie," Aria said, forcing a smile. She dug into her bag and pulled out a packet of crackers and the bag of gummy bears Mia had saved. "Tonight, we are having... a picnic! A floor picnic!"
"With pickles?" Leo asked skeptically.
"With pickles and gummies," Aria declared. "It's an adventure."
She spread her ruined trench coat on the floor as a blanket. The three of them sat down in the dim light of a single flickering bulb.
Outside, the wind howled like a dying animal. Rain lashed against the barred windows.
Aria watched her children eat the dry crackers. Mia was shivering. Leo was trying to clean his glasses on his dirty shirt.
They were billionaires' heirs. They should be sleeping in silk sheets. They should be eating organic meals prepared by a chef.
Guilt, sharp and toxic, pierced Aria's chest.
*Is this right?* The voice in her head whispered. *You are protecting them from him, but you are punishing them too.*
"Mom," Leo broke the silence. He wasn't eating. He was looking at her with his serious grey eyes—Damien's eyes. "Why does the Giant Man hate us?"
Aria froze. "He doesn't hate you, Leo."
"Then why are we hiding?" Leo asked. "Why did he lock my computer? Why did he put our picture on the billboard?"
Aria put down her cracker. How could she explain five years of pain to a four-year-old genius?
"Because... he wants to own us, Leo. Like he owns his buildings. Like he owns his company. And people aren't things to be owned."
"But he's our dad, isn't he?"
The question hung in the damp air.
Mia stopped chewing her gummy bear. She looked at Aria with wide, golden eyes.
Aria closed her eyes. She couldn't lie to them anymore. Not after today.
"Yes," Aria whispered. "He is your father."
"Is he a monster?" Mia asked quietly. "Like in the stories?"
Aria looked at the shadows dancing on the wall. She remembered the way Damien had looked at Mia in the lobby. The way his hand had trembled. The way he had said *Burnt toast*.
"No," Aria said softly. "He's not a monster, Mia. He's a wolf. A very lonely, very powerful wolf. And wolves... they don't know how to be gentle. They only know how to hunt."
Suddenly, a loud noise startled them.
*THUMP-THUMP-THUMP.*
It was the sound of rotor blades. Heavy. close.
Aria scrambled to her feet. She rushed to the window and peered through the grime.
High above the Brooklyn skyline, a black helicopter was cutting through the storm. A powerful searchlight beamed down, sweeping across the rooftops of the tenement buildings.
The light passed over their building. For a second, the room was illuminated in blinding white.
Aria threw herself over the children, shielding them with her body.
"Stay down!" she hissed.
The light lingered for a heartbeat, then moved on. The helicopter roared away toward Manhattan.
Aria lay on the dusty floor, her heart hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird. She held her children so tight it hurt.
He knew.
He didn't know exactly which room, but he knew they were here. He was flying over them, watching them, mocking them.
"Mommy, you're hurting me," Leo whispered.
Aria loosened her grip. She sat up, her face pale but her eyes burning with a fierce, terrified determination.
"We need supplies," Aria said, her voice shaking. "We need cash. And we need a way out."
"How?" Leo asked. "We have nothing."
Aria looked at her wrist. There, gleaming in the dim light, was the only thing of value she had left.
A bracelet. Not the cheap one Elena wore. This was a vintage Cartier piece, a gift from her grandmother. It was worth maybe twenty thousand dollars.
"We sell this," Aria said, unclasping it. "Tomorrow. We find a pawn shop. We get cash. And then..."
"Then what?"
"Then we call Uncle Zane," Aria said, the name tasting like ash in her mouth. "Because the only thing that can stop a wolf... is another wolf."
---
High above in the black helicopter, Damien sat in the leather seat, looking down at the grid of Brooklyn.
He held a glass of whiskey in his hand.
"Sir," the pilot's voice came over the headset. "We've completed the sweep. No visual confirmation."
"It doesn't matter," Damien said, taking a sip. The amber liquid burned his throat. "She's down there. I can feel her."
He looked at the dark cluster of buildings near the shipyard. He pictured her huddled in the dark, cold and afraid. He pictured his children hungry.
A twinge of pain shot through his chest—his wolf whining at the thought of his cubs suffering.
*Go get them,* his wolf growled. *Warm them. Feed them.*
*Not yet,* Damien's human side argued coldly. *She needs to learn. She needs to break.*
"Take us back," Damien ordered. "Tomorrow, we tighten the screws. Tomorrow, I want every pawn shop, every clinic, every grocery store in Brooklyn to be watching for her face."
He swirled the ice in his glass.
"Sleep well, Aria," he whispered to the dark city below. "Because tomorrow, the real hunt begins."