I will have no mercy

Lucas’s POV

It wasn’t about the boy. I don’t care if the boy belongs to that human, but one thing I know she belonged to me. The boy has nothing that belonged to a Blackwood but Selina does.

I knew that now. I’d stared at him — really looked — and there was nothing. No pull. No scent. No spark of recognition that came from the bond we never spoke of but always felt. I watched him from across the street, walking hand-in-hand with Jonathan, that polished human placeholder Selina paraded like he’d earned her.

The boy wasn’t mine. And I didn’t care. Because I hadn’t come to take back a child. I came to take her and now, I wanted blood.

I stood at the edge of the rooftop, wind slicing across my jaw like razors, the city beneath me glittering and shallow. My phone buzzed in my pocket — one of my advisors, no doubt, with some urgent development in a merger or a crisis at one of our offshore holdings.

I let it ring. The world could wait. Tonight, I was thinking about him. Jonathan, her idiotic human boyfriend. The man she kissed in public like he was worthy of touching something that once belonged to me.

She’d done it on purpose.

She wanted me to see it.

To feel it.

And I did.

But not in the way she hoped. She wanted to break me.

She wanted to control the pace of the game, to remind me that she was still the woman I threw away.

But here’s the thing she’s forgotten:

I’m not that man anymore. I’m worse.

When I returned to my penthouse, the air inside was already charged. My wolf pacing just beneath the surface, snarling, feral, and hungry for something more than revenge. Not justice. Not closure. Domination.

I didn’t want to talk or explain anything to anyone

I wanted to take. Take what’s mine and silently silence him permanently. I wanted him out of the picture. Permanently.

I poured whiskey — no ice — and stood in front of the window, thinking not of Selina, but of what it would look like when Jonathan was gone.

Not killed outright. That would be too easy. Too obvious.

No, I’d strip him the way he thought he’d taken her. I’d ruin his reputation, discredit his firm, bankrupt his family. I’d drag every buried secret from his past into the light. And when there was nothing left?

Then I’d take Selina back. And she’d crawl if she had to.

My phone rang again. This time, I answered.

“Where are we with the surveillance?”

“We’ve placed eyes on the human,” my head of security said. “No signs of unusual activity. He’s clean.”

“No one’s clean,” I growled. “Dig deeper.”

“Yes, Alpha.”

I ended the call.

And texted a different number.

Find out who he fears. Everyone fears someone. I want that name.

Later that night, I watched the security footage from the gallery again.

Frame by frame. Her body language before she saw me. Her eyes when she did.

The way her breath caught.

The way she walked away, knowing I would follow.

The way she shook.

She was mine in that moment. And she hated it. She hated me for still having that power. But even more than that…She hated herself for responding to it.

And that’s how I knew I still had her. Bonds don’t break just because we pretend they’re gone.

They linger. They rot beneath the surface. And then they infect everything.

The next morning, I didn’t show up at any meetings. My entire schedule was cleared — not by my assistant, but by me.

I had more important things to do.

I stood outside the school Damon attended — hidden, of course. No contact. Just eyes.

And I saw it.

Jonathan. Dropping the boy off. Hugging him. Laughing.

Like a father.

Like me.

Except he wasn’t.

And never would be.

M

I clenched my fists so hard my knuckles cracked.

I didn’t want to hurt the child.

That wasn’t the kind of Alpha I was. But I wanted the man to bleed. Not just in body — in legacy.

And so I called in a favor.

A high-level media contact. A discreet one.

“I want everything you can find on Jonathan,” I said. “Legal. Financial. Medical. Affairs. College incidents. Scandals. His friends, his enemies. I want dirt so deep it makes headlines.”

“What’s the angle?” the voice on the other end asked.

“There is no angle,” I said. “Just bury him.”

By dusk, I was back in my car, parked two blocks from Selina’s building.

Not stalking. Waiting.

Because this game wasn’t just about power anymore.

It was about ownership.

About taking back what was mine.

And I’d let her run long enough.