Jonathan's POV“Lucas Blackwood is not a man who bows for spectacle,” I said. “He bows for consequence. For permanence. For an argument you cannot fold away. He tolerates fools. He tolerates noise. He does not tolerate matters that threaten his pack’s heart.” I let that hang like a stone.Lydia’s smile thinned. “And that is—?”“His family,” I said. “His mate. His son. That is the hinge on which he swings. Take that—and you take more than his attention. You own a hole in his armor.”The admission made her blink. It was small—almost insignificantly human—but it was a fissure. The next breath she drew was sharper.“You mean to go after a child,” she whispered, which sounds horrid when you write it down, but it sounded anywhere from greedy to incredulous in her mouth. Her voice tried to pretend it wasn’t a dangerous wonder; she’d smelled the possibility and found herself, for an instant, calculating.“Yes,” I said. “Indirectly. Carefully. Not to harm for harm’s sake. To leverage. To unset
Jonathan’s POVSelina had closed a door on me with care, just like someone sealing a letter. No flourish, no accusation—just the quiet, absolute cut of someone who’d already decided. The impression she left was the way a room smells after a candle is snuffed: smoke and a little pity, and the light gone.People break in different ways. I have learned the art of breaking slowly, of letting a shiver trace a scar before you make the incision that finally matters. Tonight, I did not want slow. Tonight, I wanted something quick and sharp enough to taste. I wanted to remind the world—and myself—that I never lose unless I choose to.Lydia Sykes lived in a house built on pretense and the applause of men who loved the sound of their own names. Her pack lands were manicured, the lines between flowerbeds and driveways measured for cameras and gossip. She greeted the world with a flash of white teeth and painted eyes, the performance perfected until conviction bent under question.I found the door
Lucas’s POVI’m tired of meetings that smell like stale coffee and recycled threats, tired of men polishing the same fears until they shine like excuses. I’m tired of the way the world treats love like a ledger entry — a column you can audit, an asset you redistribute when it suits the balance sheet. They speak as if my life, my choices, my mate, were data points at the council table. They whisper as if words have the power to change what the bond already knows.Grant walked me to the car without dramatics. He is the kind of beta who knows when to press the edges of a conversation and when to keep the silence broad and useful. Tonight the silence stretched, pulled taut by names people kept feeding each other like rumor meat.“There’s talk,” he said finally, practical as ever. “Jonathan Carr and the Sykes. People are saying they’re working together.”I let the engine warm. Headlights cut through the low clouds, painting the drive in a strip of pale truth. “Carr?” I said. The name sound
Jonathan's POVThere are knives that come in sentences. That was one of them. I let it slide like air over ice. It’s useful to be capable of losing before you make the enemy believe they have the upper hand. I kept my smile narrow and patient.“You’ve fallen for someone else,” I said. Not a question. Just the fact that it's a scalpel.She said my name and then the other man’s, like it was a spell that would clear the air: “Lucas.”It landed like a physical weight. The letters collected in the space between us, cold and accusing. She said it with a sigh that was half apology, half defiance. She’d wanted to confess it to me with something like dignity; she had failed. The admission was small and enormous all at once: Lucas Blackwood had edged into the places I owned.I kept my hand steady. The polite smile folded a little, like a hinge bent under pressure.“Selina,” I said, exactly the way you say someone’s name before you promise them something or kill their illusions. “You know how da
Jonathan's POVI had always cultivated stillness the way other men collected suits: precise, immaculate, and designed to hide the weather underneath. Tonight the stillness was a varnish too thin to hold. It cracked the moment I stepped back into the penthouse and the door closed behind me.I hadn’t seen Selina in months. Not properly. Not in the way that mattered. There had been meetings, messages, and the helpful, empty courtesies of a man trying to keep a property from burning down. But months. Long enough for the hum of her life to rearrange itself without me, long enough for Lucas Blackwood—ubiquitous, unbearable Lucas Blackwood—to settle like a rumor at the edges of everything I cared about.I watched him once, months ago, from a corner of a room that smelled of money and old whiskey. Men like Lucas moved through the world with an authority stamped permanently into the air. I was warned—more than once—that he was a man you didn’t cross. Pack politics was a thing to be respected.
Lucas's POVIf there was one thing I hated more than council paperwork, it was when Selina was pissed at me. The best sex of my life, and she’s cut me off, cold turkey, because I forgot about her not trusting me when it comes to that whore.Today, I called Grant to my office because I needed my mate happy, and to get her happy, I needed Lydia off my back. Which meant someone else had to keep the wolves from eating each other while I dealt with this drama.The office still stank of Selina’s perfume—a passive-aggressive reminder—and I was about to light a cigar to cover it when Grant knocked once and barged in. “Alpha,” he said, and dropped his armful of paperwork onto the desk like a dead calf.“Selina’s mad at me because of the councilman at our back and Lydia Sykes,” I said. Grant grunted; he had a mate, he understood. “I’m leaving you in charge for a few hours, unless you want to handle Lydia yourself.”Grant’s lips twitched, like he was weighing the options. “You want me to cull he