The silence in the studio wasn't empty. It was heavy, suffocating, displacing the air until it was hard to breathe.
Damien stood by the jeweler's workbench, his back rigid, his hand still hovering over the spot where Leo had dropped the phone. The screen had gone dark, but the name **K. VOLKOV** seemed to be burned into the retinas of everyone in the room.
Aria didn't move. She was staring at the raw silver wire she had just bent into a perfect circle. It sat on the velvet pad, innocent and gleaming.
It should have been searing hot. It should have smelled of charred wolf flesh.
But it was cool.
Damien turned slowly. He didn't look at the door where Leo had fled. He looked at Aria. His grey eyes, usually so composed, were fractured with a emotion she had never seen in him before: cognitive dissonance. His brain was refusing to process what his eyes had just witnessed.
"Leo," Damien said. His voice was terrifyingly quiet. "Go."
Leo, who had popped his head back in, froze. "But Dad, the stock—"
"Go to the East Wing," Damien ordered, not breaking eye contact with Aria. "Take your sister. Get in the vault. Lock it from the inside. Do not open it for anyone. Not for security. Not for me. Only for your mother."
"Why Mom?" Leo asked, his voice trembling.
"Because," Damien said, taking a step toward Aria, "I don't think anything on this earth can hurt her."
Leo didn't ask again. The terror in the room was palpable, a physical weight. He turned and ran, his small footsteps fading down the corridor.
The moment the heavy oak door clicked shut, the atmosphere snapped.
Damien didn't walk; he blurred.
In a heartbeat, he was across the room, pinning Aria against the heavy workbench. He didn't grab her throat—he wasn't trying to hurt her. He grabbed her left hand. The hand that had held the silver.
"Damien, let go—" Aria gasped, trying to wrench her wrist free.
"No."
He slammed her hand down onto the table, under the harsh white glare of the jeweler's lamp. He forced her fingers open, exposing her palm.
It was flawless.
Pale, smooth skin. No blisters. No redness. No blackened, necrotic tissue that should have formed the instant a Wolf touched ninety-nine percent pure silver.
Damien ran his thumb over her palm, pressing hard, looking for a reaction. A wince. A flinch. Anything.
There was nothing but the rapid, frantic pulse of her heartbeat under her wrist.
"How?" Damien whispered. The word came out like a strangled curse.
He looked up, his face inches from hers. She could smell the coffee on his breath, mixed with the sharp, acidic tang of pure adrenaline.
"I watched you, Aria. You held it for forty-five seconds. You *warmed* it. You bent it like it was copper wire."
"I... I have calluses," Aria lied, the excuse sounding pathetic even to her own ears. "From the needles. In Paris."
"Calluses?" Damien let out a harsh, incredulous laugh. "Silver is a chemical agent to us, Aria! It doesn't care about thick skin! It burns through nerve endings. It turns our blood to sludge. I have seen Prime Alphas—men who can tank a bullet—scream like children because a silver coin touched their skin for *ten seconds*."
He grabbed the silver ring from the pad and shoved it into her hand again.
"Hold it," he commanded.
"Damien, stop!"
"Hold it!" he roared, his eyes flashing silver. "Prove me wrong! Scream! Burn! Show me you are normal!"
Aria's fingers closed around the metal instinctively.
She expected pain. She wanted pain. Pain would be easier to explain. Pain would mean she was just a Wolf, just a woman, just Aria.
But there was no pain.
Instead, a low, vibrating hum traveled up her arm. The silver felt... alive. It felt like a circuit completing a connection. The heat in her chest—the Matriarch power that had been dormant since the shower—flared up in response, greeting the metal like an old friend.
Static electricity popped in the air around them. A spark of blue light arced from Aria's shoulder to Damien's chest.
*Snap.*
Damien recoiled as if he'd been tased. He stumbled back, staring at her with wide, horrified eyes.
"You aren't a Latent," he breathed.
Aria dropped the ring. It clattered on the floor, the sound echoing like a gunshot.
"I don't know what I am," she whispered, her voice breaking. She was shaking now, the adrenaline crash hitting her hard. "It started... it started when I came back. The white eyes. The heat. The silver... it doesn't hurt. It just feels heavy."
Damien ran a hand through his hair, destroying his perfect CEO facade. He paced the small room, turning away from her, then turning back.
"Volkov," he said suddenly.
Aria blinked. "What?"
"Volkov," Damien repeated, the pieces falling into place with a sickening thud. "That's why he's here. That's why he put the bounty on you five years ago."
He walked back to her, but this time he didn't touch her. He looked at her as if she were a bomb that had been ticking in his bed for years.
"Konstantin Volkov is a collector," Damien said, his voice grim. "But he doesn't collect art. He collects genetics. He runs a breeding program in the Siberian wastes that makes the Council's eugenics look like a kindergarten science fair."
Aria felt the blood drain from her face. "A breeding program?"
"He hunts for recessive traits," Damien explained, speaking faster now. "Anomalies. Mutations. He believes the Wolf bloodline is diluting, becoming weak. He wants to breed the 'Perfect Alpha'."
He pointed at the silver ring on the floor.
"And you... you are the Holy Grail of mutations, Aria. Do you know the legends? The nursery rhymes?"
Aria shook her head. She had grown up an orphan in the pack; she knew no stories.
"The *Argenti*," Damien said. "The Silver Walkers. A sub-species of Wolf that went extinct three hundred years ago. They were the executioners. The only Wolves who could wield silver weapons against their own kind."
He looked at her hands again.
"The Council hunted them down. Killed every last one of them. Because an Alpha who can hold silver... is an Alpha who cannot be killed."
Aria leaned against the workbench for support. The room was spinning.
"So I'm... what? A ghost? A monster?"
"You are a weapon," Damien said brutally. "And the most dangerous man in the world just bought the keys to the building where you are sleeping."
As if on cue, the intercom on the wall buzzed.
A cheerful, generic chime. *Ding-dong.*
Damien moved to the wall panel. He pressed the video feed button.
The screen flickered to life, showing the lobby, forty floors below.
The reception desk was empty. The security guards were gone. Standing in the center of the marble floor, looking up at the security camera with a bored expression, was a man.
He was tall, impossibly thin, wearing a white suit that matched his hair. His skin was pale as alabaster.
But his eyes were black. Solid black. No iris, no sclera. Just voids.
"Mr. Sinclair," the man said. His voice came through the speakers, smooth, cultured, and heavily accented with Russian velvet. "I believe I own this building now. It is rude to keep the landlord waiting in the lobby."
Konstantin Volkov.
Aria covered her mouth to stifle a gasp. Even through the grainy video feed, the aura radiating from the man was nauseating. It was cold. Dead.
"Don't let him up," Aria pleaded.
"I have to," Damien said, his jaw tight. "He owns 51% of the company. Legally, he can fire me, dissolve the board, and bring in a private security team to sweep the building for 'contraband' within the hour. If I keep him out, I lose the shield of the law. And then he just takes you by force."
Damien pressed the talk button.
"Volkov. You're early."
"I am eager," Volkov replied, examining his manicured nails. "I hear you have guests. A 'Madame Vera'? And two undocumented children."
He looked up, his black eyes boring into the lens.
"Send the elevator, Damien. Or I will start 'downsizing' your staff. I believe the doorman has a family?"
Damien cursed—a vile, guttural sound in the old wolf tongue. He punched the unlock code for the private elevator.
"Come up. Alone."
"Of course," Volkov purred. "I am a private man."
The feed cut.
Damien turned to Aria. The fear was gone from his face, replaced by a cold, hard resolve. The mask of the Alpha was back in place.
"Go to the vault," he commanded. "Use the service corridor. Stay with the children. If I don't give the 'all clear' in one hour..."
He paused. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a key card. A black one.
"Take the emergency exit in the vault floor. It leads to the subway tunnels. Take the kids and run. Don't go to Paris. Don't go to any place you know. Just disappear."
"Damien—"
"Go!" he roared.
Aria turned and ran.
She sprinted down the service hallway, her bare feet slapping against the cold tiles. She could feel the elevator rising in the central shaft. It felt like a slug of ice moving through the building's veins.
She reached the vault panel, punched the code, and the heavy steel door hissed open.
Inside, Leo and Mia were huddled together on a crate of gold bars. The vault was a fortress—airtight, soundproof, lined with lead and silver mesh to block scent.
"Mom!" Mia cried out, reaching for her.
Aria slid inside and hit the seal button. The massive gears ground together, locking them in with a thud that vibrated through the floor.
Silence fell. Absolute, heavy silence.
Aria slid down to the floor, pulling her children into her arms. She buried her face in Mia's hair, trying to mask the scent of her own terror.
But she couldn't block out the sensation.
Even through the lead walls, even through the steel, she could *feel* him.
The White Wolf inside her was pacing, scratching at the back of her mind. It sensed a predator.
*He is here.*
---
**In the Penthouse Living Room:**
The elevator doors slid open with a soft *whoosh*.
Damien stood in the center of the room. He had poured two glasses of whiskey. One for him. One for the devil.
Volkov stepped out.
He brought the cold with him. The temperature in the penthouse seemed to drop ten degrees instantly. He didn't smell like a wolf. He smelled like formaldehyde and expensive cologne.
"Damien," Volkov smiled, revealing teeth that were perfectly straight and filed slightly too sharp. "Lovely view. A bit ostentatious, but fitting for an American."
He walked past the whiskey, ignoring the drink. He went straight to the mantle, where a framed photo of the twins sat.
"Cute pups," Volkov murmured. He picked up the frame. "The boy... Leo? He has talent. He tripped a city-wide blackout last night to mask a heat signature."
Volkov turned, his black eyes locking onto Damien's grey ones.
"That was naughty, Damien. The FBI frowns on cyber-terrorism. It would be a shame if evidence of that hack were to... leak."
"What do you want, Konstantin?" Damien asked, his voice steady. "You didn't spend two billion dollars to blackmail a four-year-old."
"No," Volkov agreed. He set the photo down. "I spent it to buy the rights to inspect the assets."
He walked closer, his movement liquid, unnatural.
"I want the girl, Damien. The one who bends silver."
Damien didn't flinch. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"Don't lie to me," Volkov whispered, his voice sounding like dry leaves skittering on pavement. "I can smell the ozone on you. You touched her. You felt the spark."
Volkov leaned in, invading Damien's personal space.
"She is an *Argenti*. The last of her kind. Her blood can cure the rot in our genome. Her womb can birth a King."
He checked his platinum watch.
"I am a reasonable man. I will give you twenty-four hours to process the shock. Tomorrow night, at the Winter Solstice Gala, you will announce the transfer of ownership of the Sinclair Group... and its 'guest'."
"And if I refuse?"
Volkov smiled. It was a smile devoid of any humanity.
"Then I will declare the Sinclair bloodline a biological hazard. I will call the Council. I will tell them you are harboring a Silver Walker."
Volkov paused for effect.
"They won't just kill her, Damien. They will firebomb this entire tower to make sure she is dust. You, your children, your staff... everyone burns."
He turned and walked back to the elevator.
"Twenty-four hours. Bring her to me. Or watch your world turn to ash."
The elevator doors closed.
Damien stood alone in the silence. He looked down at his hand, the one that had held hers.
He wasn't fighting a corporate war anymore. He was fighting an extinction event.
And for the first time in his life, Damien Sinclair didn't know if he could win.