The knock on the door wasn't loud. It didn't need to be. It was heavy, rhythmic, and possessed a finality that made the peeling wallpaper in the cramped hallway seem to vibrate.
Aria sat on the edge of the sagging mattress, her hand resting on Mia's burning forehead. The heat coming off her daughter's small body was terrifying, a dry, unnatural fire that only an Alpha bloodline could generate.
"Mom?" Leo whispered. He was standing by the door, his small hand hovering over the rusty deadbolt. He looked back at her, his grey eyes—so painfully identical to the man standing outside—filled with a calculation far too mature for a four-year-old. "He's not going to leave."
Aria closed her eyes for a heartbeat, inhaling the scent of the room. It smelled of mold, cheap instant noodles, and the metallic tang of the Wolfsbane potion she had just wrestled down Mia's throat.
It smelled of failure.
"Open it, Leo," she said, her voice steady. She stood up, smoothing the wrinkles of her worn sweater. She wasn't Lady V right now. She wasn't the mysterious designer. She was a mother backed into a corner, and she was done running. "We need… we need help. Real help."
Leo hesitated, then pulled the bolt back.
*Click.*
The door creaked open.
Damien Sinclair filled the doorframe.
The hallway of the tenement building was dim, lit only by a flickering yellow bulb, but Damien seemed to suck even that meager light into his orbit. He was wearing a charcoal three-piece suit that probably cost more than this entire building. Raindrops glistened on the shoulders of his wool coat, carrying the scent of a storm—ozone, expensive cedar, and cold, suppressed rage.
He didn't speak. He didn't move. He just looked down.
At the boy holding the door.
For five years, Damien had convinced himself that the child didn't exist, or if he did, he was a stranger's bastard. He had looked at the DNA report his security team had given him—the one Leo had sabotaged—and forced himself to believe the lie.
But looking at Leo now was like looking into a temporal mirror. The boy had his jawline. His nose. The same stormy, intelligent grey eyes that judged the world and found it wanting.
Leo didn't flinch. He adjusted his glasses, tilted his chin up, and spoke first.
"You're blocking the airflow," the boy said, his voice dripping with icy politeness. "It's stuffy in here."
Damien's jaw tightened. A muscle feathered in his cheek. He stepped inside, and the small apartment instantly felt like a coffin.
His eyes swept the room in a single, predatory arc. He saw everything. The water stains on the ceiling. The empty wrapper of the cheap crackers on the floor. The single, pathetic window that rattled in the wind. And finally, his gaze landed on Aria.
And the small, trembling lump under the thin blanket behind her.
"This," Damien said. His voice was a low rumble, terrifyingly quiet. "This is where you've been hiding them."
Aria stood between him and the bed, her chin raised. "It was the only place left, Damien. After you froze my accounts. After you flagged my passport. After you made sure I couldn't even buy a bottle of water in this city without your permission."
Damien took a step forward. The floorboards groaned under his weight. "You pawned the bracelet."
It wasn't a question. It was an accusation.
"I pawned it to buy antibiotics and food," Aria snapped, her fear giving way to a sudden, white-hot anger. "Because *someone* decided that starving a woman into submission was a valid negotiation tactic."
"I didn't know!" Damien roared. The composure cracked. His voice boomed off the thin walls, making the dust motes dance. "I didn't know about... *them*."
He pointed a trembling finger at Leo, who had retreated to stand by Aria's leg, and then at the bed.
"You knew I was pregnant," Aria said, her voice dropping to a whisper that cut deeper than his shouting. "Five years ago. You knew. And you handed me divorce papers."
Damien flinched as if she had struck him. The air in the room grew heavy, charged with the static electricity of two powerful auras colliding. But before he could respond, a small, pained whimper came from the bed.
*"Mommy… it hurts…"*
The anger vanished from Damien's face, replaced by something Aria had never seen there: panic. He pushed past her, not roughly, but with an unstoppable force. He dropped to his knees beside the stained mattress.
Mia was thrashing slightly, her face flushed a deep, unnatural crimson. Her silver hair was plastered to her forehead with sweat.
"Don't touch her," Aria warned, stepping forward. "Not with your bare hands. Her temperature is—"
Damien didn't listen. He reached out and brushed his knuckles against Mia's cheek.
He hissed and jerked his hand back. "Jesus Christ! She's burning."
"It's not a fever," Aria said, grabbing a wet rag from the bedside table and dabbing Mia's face. "It's Moon Sickness. Her body is trying to transition, but she's too young. Her blood… it's too strong. It's fighting her human half."
Damien stared at the little girl. He looked at the discarded bottle of dark liquid on the nightstand—a crude, unrefined Wolfsbane mixture from the black market. He recognized the smell. It was dangerous stuff. Illegal. Poison if the dosage was off by a milligram.
"You gave her this?" Damien looked up at Aria, his eyes wide with horror. "You went to the Underground? To the Rat King's territory? Alone?"
"I didn't have a choice!" Aria cried out, her composure finally breaking. Tears pricked her eyes. "My daughter was dying, Damien! I couldn't go to a hospital because they would flag her blood type and call *your* people or the government labs. I couldn't call you because you were busy planning your engagement party! So yes, I went to the damp, filthy underground and I threatened a shifter three times my size to get that medicine. Because that's what a parent does!"
Damien slowly stood up. He looked at the Wolfsbane. He looked at the half-eaten packet of crackers. He looked at Leo, who was watching him with a mixture of fear and defiance.
And then he looked at Aria. She was thin. Too thin. There were dark circles under her eyes that makeup couldn't hide. She was trembling, not from fear, but from exhaustion.
Guilt hit him like a physical blow. It was a nausea that rolled in his gut. He had done this. With his wealth, his power, his "Grey Protocol," he had forced the mother of his children into a rat hole, forcing her to feed poison to his daughter just to keep her alive.
He felt like a monster.
"We are leaving," Damien said. His voice was devoid of emotion now. It was cold, hard steel.
"I can't move her," Aria protested, blocking his path. "The stress could trigger a seizure. She needs rest, she needs—"
"She needs a sterile environment," Damien cut her off. "She needs a climate-controlled room. She needs pure serum, not this gutter filth you bought from a junkie." He grabbed his phone and tapped a single button. "Bring the car around. Now. And call Dr. Aris. Tell him to prep the Med-Bay at the Tower. Paediatric emergency. Code Red."
He hung up and looked at Aria. "Pack what you need. Which, looking around this place, is nothing."
"You can't just take us," Aria hissed, though her resistance was weakening. She knew he was right about the medicine. "We are not your property."
Damien stepped close to her. He was so close she could feel the heat radiating off his chest, smell the rain on his coat. He loomed over her, his grey eyes darkening into black, the wolf inside him surfacing.
"You are right," he murmured, his voice rough. "You aren't my property. But those two?" He gestured to the children. "They are my blood. My heirs. And I would burn this entire city to ash before I let them spend another hour in this filth."
He turned to the bed. "Leo."
The boy stiffened. "What?"
"Grab your sister's bear," Damien commanded. "And hold the door."
Damien bent down and scooped Mia up into his arms. He did it with a surprising gentleness, cradling her head against his shoulder, wrapping his expensive wool coat around her sweating, shivering body. Mia whimpered in her sleep, her small hand instinctively clutching his lapel.
Damien froze for a second as her tiny fingers gripped his suit. His throat bobbed.
"Aria," he said, not looking back at her. "Get the boy. We go. Now."
Aria looked at Leo. The boy looked at her, seeking permission.
She nodded slowly. It was a defeat, and they both knew it. But looking at Mia in Damien's arms—safe, held, protected—Aria knew she had lost this battle the moment she opened the door.
She grabbed her purse—the one containing the stolen retina scans and her hacking tools—and took Leo's hand.
"Come on, Leo," she whispered. "We're going... we're going to the tower."
"Into the belly of the beast," Leo muttered, but he let her lead him.
They walked out of the apartment. Damien didn't bother to close the door. He left it wide open, leaving the poverty and the desperation behind them like a shed skin.
Outside, a convoy of three black SUVs was idling, blocking the narrow street. Rain slashed down in sheets. Men in black suits—Sinclair security—stood like statues in the downpour, forming a perimeter.
When they saw Damien emerge carrying a child, a ripple of shock went through them, but they were too disciplined to speak. The rear door of the middle vehicle was opened.
Damien slid inside, settling Mia on his lap. Aria and Leo climbed in next to him.
The interior of the car was warm. It smelled of leather and safety. The silence was absolute.
As the convoy began to move, rolling over the potholes of Brooklyn and heading toward the gleaming spire of Manhattan across the bridge, Aria looked out the window. The city lights blurred into streaks of gold and red.
She wasn't free anymore. She had walked back into the cage.
"Dr. Aris is waiting," Damien said into the silence. He was staring down at Mia's sleeping face, his expression unreadable. "He's the best geneticist in the state. He'll stabilize her."
"Thank you," Aria said stiffly.
"Don't thank me," Damien said, his voice dropping to a growl. He looked up, locking eyes with her in the rearview mirror reflection. "This isn't charity, Aria. This is custody."
Leo scoffed quietly, pulling a small, battered tablet out of his backpack. "Good luck with that, old man."
Damien looked at the boy. "What did you say?"
"I said," Leo didn't look up from his screen, his fingers flying across the cracked glass, "you can lock the doors, but you can't lock the network. If you think we're staying, you haven't checked your firewall lately."
For the first time that night, a flicker of something amusement passed through Damien's eyes.
"Is that a challenge, son?"
"It's a promise," Leo replied.
Aria closed her eyes and leaned her head back against the leather seat.
They were going to the penthouse. The most secure fortress in New York. The place where she was supposed to steal the Seraphim Serum from his private vault.
Fate, it seemed, had a twisted sense of humor. He was bringing her right to the target.
*Focus,* she told herself. *He thinks he has captured us. He doesn't realize he just invited the thieves inside the bank.*
The car sped onto the bridge, suspending them between the dark water below and the blinding lights of the city ahead. The engine purred, driving them relentlessly toward the past she had run from, and the future she had to steal.
The King had reclaimed his family. But he had no idea he had just let the Trojan Horse through the gates.