The elevator ride to the penthouse of the Sinclair Tower took exactly forty-five seconds. It was a smooth, silent ascent that made Aria's ears pop, a physical reminder of just how high above her old life she was being dragged.
Inside the mirrored box, the atmosphere was suffocating. Damien stood near the doors, still holding the sleeping Mia against his chest. He hadn't let go of her since they left the tenement.
Aria stood pressed against the back rail, her knuckles white as she gripped the cold metal. The scent of him—ozone, expensive cedar, and pure, overwhelming Alpha pheromones—filled the small space. Her body betrayed her; a shiver traced down her spine, a primal reaction she hated. Her brain was plotting a heist, but her skin remembered his touch, and it was terrified.
Leo stood in the corner, his small backpack clutched to his chest. He wasn't looking at his father. He was looking at the elevator's control panel, his grey eyes narrowing behind his glasses as he counted the floors.
*Ding.*
The doors slid open.
"Welcome home," Damien said. The words sounded foreign in his mouth, heavy with a meaning Aria wasn't ready to accept.
He stepped out, and the lights of the penthouse automatically flared to life, sensing his presence.
If the apartment in Brooklyn had been a coffin, this place was a cathedral of glass and steel. The entire south wall was a floor-to-ceiling window overlooking Manhattan, turning the city lights into a sprawling, glittering carpet beneath their feet. The furniture was sleek, Italian, and looked like it had never been sat on. The air was filtered, smelling of absolutely nothing—no mold, no rain, just sterile, expensive silence.
Aria stepped onto the marble floor, her sneakers squeaking loudly. She felt small here. Exposed. Like a stain on a pristine canvas.
"Dr. Aris is in the West Wing," Damien said, striding across the vast living room with purpose. "Follow me."
They passed a kitchen that was larger than Aria's entire childhood home. Leo dragged his feet, his eyes scanning the ceiling corners.
"Cameras," the boy whispered to Aria. "Thermal and motion. Military grade encryption on the sensors. This isn't a house; it's a bunker."
"Can you loop them?" Aria whispered back, barely moving her lips.
Leo frowned, adjusting his glasses. "The firewall is thick. It's not standard code; it's adaptive. I can't crack the main security grid without tripping a silent alarm. But the subsystems... maybe."
"Behave," Aria said aloud for the benefit of the microphones.
Damien led them into a room that looked less like a bedroom and more like a private ICU. Monitors lined the walls, dormant but ready. A man in a white lab coat was already there, adjusting the flow on an IV drip.
"Alpha Sinclair," Dr. Aris bowed his head quickly, exposing the submissive curve of his neck. Then his eyes widened as he saw the bundle in Damien's arms. "Is this...?"
"She needs stabilization," Damien cut him off, his voice tight. "High-grade fever. Hallucinations. Her mother gave her unrefined Wolfsbane an hour ago."
Dr. Aris gasped, looking at Aria with horror. "Unrefined? You could have stopped her heart!"
"I saved her life," Aria said coldly, stepping forward. She forced her shaking hands to still. "Her temperature was spiking past 105. She was shifting. The human hospitals would have flagged her DNA. Would you prefer I let the Council take her?"
Dr. Aris paused. He looked at the child, then back at the Alpha. He understood the stakes.
"Put her on the bed," the doctor instructed.
Damien hesitated. For a split second, he looked like he didn't want to let her go. His large hand cupped the back of Mia's small head, his thumb brushing over her ear. Then, slowly, he tried to lower her onto the sterile white sheets.
But Mia wouldn't let go. Even in her fevered sleep, her tiny fist was clenched tight around the lapel of Damien's wool coat.
Damien froze. He tried to gently pry her fingers loose, but she whimpered, her grip tightening with that shocking supernatural strength.
"She... she won't let go," Damien murmured, looking baffled.
"She seeks the Alpha source," Dr. Aris noted quietly. "Your scent is grounding her."
Damien looked at the girl, then at his coat. Without a word, he shrugged the expensive garment off his shoulders, leaving it wrapped around her like a protective cocoon as he laid her down.
Leo watched this, his expression unreadable, but his eyes were sharp.
Sensors were attached. A cooling blanket was draped. Needles flashed.
"The Wolfsbane did its job, barely," Dr. Aris muttered, checking the monitor. "But Alpha... this is temporary. Her blood is too potent. The suppressants will stop working eventually. Her wolf is trying to tear through a vessel that is too small to contain it."
Damien's face was a mask of stone. "What is the permanent fix?"
"Age," Dr. Aris said. "Or... the pure extract. The Seraphim strain."
Aria stopped breathing.
*The Seraphim strain.* The target. The only reason she was here.
"She will have it," Damien said instantly. "Whatever she needs."
"The Seraphim strain is in the Family Vault, sir," Dr. Aris reminded him. "It requires the Elder Key."
Damien nodded. "I will retrieve it. Tomorrow."
Aria's heart hammered. *Tomorrow.* She had less than twenty-four hours to steal it before he used it and lost his only reason to keep them here.
"She's stabilizing," Dr. Aris announced.
Damien let out a long breath. He ran a hand through his hair, disrupting the perfect styling. "Thank you, Doctor. Leave us."
Dr. Aris bowed and scurried out.
The silence returned. Damien turned to face them. He looked exhausted, the adrenaline of the rescue fading into fatigue.
"There are four guest suites in the East Wing," Damien said. "Pick one. The kitchen is fully stocked. The security system will recognize your biometrics by morning—I'll have the codes updated."
"We aren't staying long," Aria said.
"You are staying until she is well," Damien said, his voice hard. "Don't test me on this, Aria."
He looked at Mia one last time, wrapped in his coat. "I have work to finish. My study is off-limits. The elevator is locked down for the night."
He turned and walked out.
As soon as his footsteps faded, Leo pulled away from Aria. He walked over to the wall panel that controlled the room's smart features.
"Leo," Aria whispered. "You said the firewall was adaptive."
"The security grid is," Leo muttered, pulling a small USB cable from his pocket and jamming it into the service port on the thermostat. "But the environmental controls? That runs on a separate, legacy server. Sloppy architecture."
He tapped his screen furiously. "I can't loop the cameras yet, but I can make him uncomfortable."
Lines of code scrolled down the glass. "Done. I've redirected the HVAC flow. His office is now set to a crisp fifty degrees."
Aria couldn't help the small smile. She kissed the top of his head. "You are dangerous."
"I'm a Sinclair," Leo said, the surname sounding like a curse.
"Mom," Leo whispered from the bedside. "She's waking up."
Aria rushed back to the bed. Mia's eyelids fluttered open. She buried her face into the collar of Damien's coat, inhaling deeply.
"Mommy?" she croaked. "It smells like rain."
"Shh, baby. Rest."
"The King..." Mia mumbled, her eyes closing again, her cheek rubbing against the rough wool of the coat. "He was warm. Not like the Scarecrow."
Aria's heart clenched. The Scarecrow was the makeshift father figure Leo had built out of old clothes back in the apartment because Mia kept asking what a dad looked like.
Aria looked at the door where Damien had exited.
She stood up, her resolve hardening.
"Leo," she said softly. "Pull up the schematics for the ventilation shafts. If we can't hack the cameras, we go around them."
Leo grinned, the blue light of the tablet illuminating his face.
"Way ahead of you, Mom. We start at midnight."
The Heist was on.