Page 12

He breathed out through his nose. A long, slow exhale that was its own kind of answer.

"You're right, Magnus. We're civilized wolves." He straightened his jacket with both hands, the gesture deliberate and unhurried. "My sister and I are going to handle our business. And then we'll rip out the throats of each of your family members with a silver steak knife." A thin smile. "You know. Like gentlemen."

He turned his back on me. It was the height of disrespect. Katya followed her brother's lead, turning her back on my gun.

I'd heard pack silences my entire life. There was the silence of submission; heads down, eyes averted, the collective exhale of wolves who had accepted the hierarchy. There was the silence of grief. The silence of a hunt suspended mid-breath.

This was none of those. This was the silence of calculation. Of predators doing math.

It moved around the table like a current. Valentino's jaw tightened; a man counting odds. Even Elias — bound to my family by blood and marriage — had gone unreadable. His Second shifted his weight behind him with the precision of a man repositioning before a strike.

It was Sorsha who concerned me. Her smile hadn't moved, but her eyes had gone very, very still. She was the oldest Alpha at the table, the one who had survived the longest, and she hadn't done that by being slow.

"The talks are suspended," I said. Not over. Suspended. A man who says over is closing a door. A man who says suspended is telling you he will be back, and that the terms will be worse. "My office will be in touch to reschedule."

I walked out with no one at my back.

CHAPTER SEVEN

NELL

Ivar didn’t walk; he vibrated. Like an electron in an atom. Or was that a proton? Physics was the only class I got a B in, and that's only because I memorized the practice tests and then promptly forgot it all after I put my No. 2 pencil down.

As he led me through the side entrance of the main Blackwood estate, he chattered with a frenetic energy that reminded me of an atomic model. He was young, soft in the face, but the golden flecks in his eyes were just as sharp.

"So, it’s not just about stealing the money?" Ivar asked, tilting his head as we moved through a hallway lined with portraits that looked like they belonged in the Louvre.

The frames alone were museum quality: heavy gilt and dark wood. The lineage clearly depicted other Blackwood men through the ages. They had the same bone structure, the same quality of contained authority in the set of the jaw and the directness of the gaze, rendered in oil paint by artists who had clearly understood they were documenting something that was expected to last. Dark hair going silver at the temples in the older portraits. Eyes that held the amber even in paint. One man in what appeared to be Viking-era dress, his hand on the head of a wolf that sat at his knee like a kept animal and looked at the painter as if it was deciding if they would be a snack.

And then the other lineage, running alongside the Blackwood portraits with equal weight and equal frame size. Chinese men and women in silk and formal dress. A woman in a Qing Dynasty court robe. A man in a Nationalist-era military uniform. A couple from what looked like the 1940s; he in a Western suit, she in a qipao.

"No," I answered Ivar. "A hostile takeover is an art form. You don't just take the assets; you dismantle the will of the board. You squeeze their personal liabilities until they have to choose between their company and their yachts. It's a structural erasure."

Ivar’s eyes lit up. "Gunnar usually just breaks things until they stop working. You dissolve them. That's way cooler."

Behind us, Fenrir Blackwood walked in a silence that was more unnerving than any growl. I felt his gaze on the back of my neck; heavy, ancient, deciding, like the painting of the wolf. I kept my chin up, projecting the Odhiambo pride my grandmother had hammered into me. I wanted him to see a peer, not a prisoner. I wanted him to see the CEO I was about to become now that my job here was done.

We turned a corner into a kitchen that felt jarringly human. It was massive, smelling of ginger, garlic, and expensive olive oil. At the professional-grade stove stood a small Asian woman, her movements fluid.

Fenrir walked straight to her. His large, scarred hand cupped the back of her head as he pulled her into a deep, lingering kiss. I looked away, feeling like an intruder on something too raw for a boardroom.

Ivar rolled his eyes, a classic teenage gesture that momentarily broke the tension. He reached into the fridge, pulled out two juice boxes, and handed one to me with a wink. "My parents are gross. You get used to it."

When they finally broke apart, Mrs. Blackwood turned her gaze on me. It wasn't the look of a curious hostess; it was the look of a jeweler examining a stone for flaws. She shared a long, silent look with Fenrir. It was the kind of telepathy that only comes from decades of shared blood and secrets.

"This is Addie’s best friend, Nell," Ivar announced, oblivious to the weight of the silence. "She found out about the wolves, so she’s been staying at Magnus’s cabin."

The way Magnus’s mother looked at me changed. It went from curiosity to something darker—concern. Or perhaps pity. I felt like a lamb that had accidentally walked into the wolves' Sunday dinner and started critiquing the silverware.

"Hello, Nell. I'm Mei Ling."

"Hi." I held up my hand, five fingers splayed. To show her I had no weapon, perhaps.

"You must be hungry," Mei Ling said, her voice like silk over steel. "Sit. I will feed you."

Before I could answer, the back door swung open. A man built like a linebacker and wearing a grin that was far too charming to be safe sauntered in. He leaned against the counter, his eyes raking over me with an appreciation that was loud and unmistakable.

"Gunnar, shoes," said Mei Ling.