Chapter 8 8

"I'll be there. Send me the time."

She hung up first, which she never did  and that's when I noticed a second call sitting unanswered in my log. Unknown number. One voicemail attached, ten seconds long.

I played it while walking. Three words, then silence. "Your mother's lying."

"Noted. One more thing: the gala. You're attending a stag, correct?"

"Correct."

A teasing edge crept into her voice. "Just confirming before I line up a date for you."

My jaw tightened at a face I hadn't asked to think about. "No."

"Positive?" She let it drop before I could snap again. "Fine. Love you."

Something in my chest eased, just slightly. "Love you too."

A full decade separated my oldest sister from my youngest, but the three of us, Aria and Scarlett,  had never needed blood alone to stay tied together. Our father had bonded with an enemy bloodline, and that single decision had poisoned every year of our childhood since.

In this family, you either held the people you trusted close, or you learned to sleep facing the door.

By the time I reached Lunar Enterprise, whatever restraint I had left was gone. God help the first person who blinked wrong at me. Staff scattered as I crossed the lobby, security straightening like soldiers at inspection. Anyone caught on their phone during my walk-through was getting a termination notice by lunch.

The building already ran tighter than most Fortune towers. I was about to make it tighter still. My people could complain in the break room all they wanted; this wasn't about comfort. Every day, our enemies circled closer, looking for the one gap that would let them in. This wasn't corporate paranoia. This was survival.

I stepped into the elevator beside Kian, one of my sharpest analysts, and keyed in the code for the top floor. Normally the doors closed the second I entered  nobody with sense shared a car with me. But this time a scent hit me first warm, spiced, unmistakable, chasing its way in before she did.

She rushed through the gap holding two coffees, and the second her scent filled the space, something in me that had been snarling all morning over my mother  over Idris, over everything  went quiet.

My wolf didn't want to fight in front of her. It wanted to protect her from the parts of me that weren't safe to be around.

"Morning, Mr. Silverhowl." Polished. Professional. Not a flicker of nerves in it.

I filed that away and said nothing.

She smelled like her coffee and something underneath it that was entirely her own, and I hated how much that combination made my hands want to close into fists  not from anger, but from something closer to hunger. I shut that thought down hard.

She wasn't provoking me. She was just standing there, same as anyone else in that box would be. I ignored her anyway, because it was easier than examining why I couldn't.

"Floor?" Kian asked  flatly, careful, the cadence of someone raised without hearing in one ear.

She turned to face him fully before answering, coffees balanced in one hand, fingers already moving in sign.

Of course she knew . I'd read her file the night before first for me, reviewing a hire's resume personally  and noted the four languages listed. I hadn't expected fluency in something this specific. I'd also noticed, the day before, that she pronounced Lyra's name with the correct inflection instead of flattening it the way everyone else in this building did.

Kian's face split into an actual smile. I'd worked with him for three years and never once seen it.

It was aimed at her.

They fell into a conversation with their hands that I couldn't follow, and something ugly and possessive flickered behind my ribs before I shoved it down.

Kian stepped off his floor. She rode the rest of the way with me in silence.

When the doors opened, she followed me straight into my office with no hesitation, no knock. I turned, already prepared to end her employment on the spot, and found her simply setting a cup down on my desk like she belonged there.

She left without waiting for thanks, brushing past me toward the door like she already knew none was coming.

"There's a company card on Lyra's desk," I said to her back.

"Already used it." She glanced up and met my eyes directly for half a second before dropping them.

I still went. Almost nobody looked at me like that. Not on purpose.

"Get me security in ten minutes," I said, rounding my desk. "We're adding retina and fingerprint locks to every access point by the end of day."

"Right away, sir." She swayed out on heels that looked one wrong step from betraying her. I didn't watch.

I did anyway.

Outside, I caught Lyra's voice, hushed and disbelieving. "You just walked into his office? Uninvited?"

"I did. Braced for him to throw something. Guess his morning rage was still loading."

I didn't mind that description one bit.

MIRA POV

Friday morning, a black-and-red fancy car sat idling outside Lunar Enterprise, nose-first into a fire hydrant like the owner had never once considered consequences applied to him Silas, maybe Or Kieran Definitely not Jeremy, he struck me as the type who'd drive something quieter, something that didn't need to announce itself.

Not that I'd spent time picturing what Jeremy Silverhowl drove.

My phone buzzed before I reached the elevator bank. Nyra, obviously  she'd been sending me daily "motivation" all week.

Nyra Remember  Silverhowl puts his pants on one leg at a time like the rest of us. He just makes a billion dollars doing it.

Me: Stop.

Nyra Why? Still thinking about his

An eggplant emoji finished the sentence for her. I powered the phone off and shoved it in my bag.

I hadn't slept well. I definitely hadn't dreamed about a boardroom, or a hand on my knee, or a stare that undressed me without apology. Sleep deprivation. That's all it was.

I needed caffeine before I needed anything else.

Lyra caught me in the kitchenette, breathless. "Thank God. The exec meeting just got bumped up with no warning."

"Tell me what to grab." Business Mira had arrived, dressed for war in a fitted fifties-cut dress that hit the line between sharp and severe.

"Conference room, up here. Silverhowl's team is sending proposal packets any minute."

His voice hit the floor before he did  mid-call, ice in every syllable. "Absolutely not." Lyra flinched at a conversation that wasn't even directed at us.

"Incoming," I muttered. "Brace."

He passed us without a glance, suit sharper than my entire tuition bill, and disappeared into his office long enough to bark one order through the closing door.

"Get me the head of Grey Tradings. Now."

"Yes, sir," we said in unison, to a door that had already shut.

I grabbed a phone. Avi Grey didn't answer. His assistant didn't answer. I redialed until someone finally pulled him out of a meeting.

"He wants you upstairs. Immediately. He has thirty minutes before his next call. I'd move like my job depended on it."

Five minutes later, Grey stormed off the elevator, red-faced. I was mid-step toward the printer when Silverhowl's door opened on its own, like he'd sensed him arriving.

"Status on Morpheus," he demanded, no greeting.

Grey's color drained. "It's  complicated. My team can walk you through"

"You're done. Get out."

Grey's protest died halfway out of his mouth against a stare that didn't blink.

I stood frozen between two desks, running through a protocol I'd never actually had to use. Security? HR? Both?

Grey left on his own before I had to decide. The office door slammed behind him hard enough to rattle a picture frame down the hall.

Lyra found me mid-call to HR. I hung up and mouthed what the hell.

"First time seeing him fire someone?" She didn't wait for my nod. "It happens daily. Sometimes hourly."

"Is it always that"