Chapter 3: The Cold Reality

Reymonds POV

Ohh .. do not tell me it was all hallucinations

The sound of the heavy mahogany deadbolt clicking into place was like the loading of a gun.

In reality, the office was vast, silent, and bitterly cold. The floor-to-ceiling glass windows offered a panoramic view of Geneva weeping under a relentless, slate-grey downpour, but the rain didnt reach in here. Here, there was only the quiet hum of climate control, the scent of expensive leather, and the suffocating weight of my own pulse crashing against my eardrums.

In my mind, just a fraction of a second ago, the glass had been wet with our breath. Her hands had been tangled in my hair. Her scent, ozone and crushed cinnamon had flooded my lungs, driving my wolf into a frenzy of absolute, possessive triumph. I had imagined her skin beneath my palms, the shudder of her surrender, the sweet, intoxicating friction of a captive bird finally folding its wings inside my cage.

It was a lie. A brilliant, feral daydream born of seven years of agonizing, disciplined restraint.

The steam of that fantasy vanished into the sterile air, leaving behind the stark, biting truth. She hadn't surrendered. She was standing six feet away from me, pressed so hard against the leather back of my executive sofa that she looked ready to vault over it.

Her chest heaved. Her hazel-gold eyes, wide, bright, and flashing with the desperate panic of a cornered wild animal were fixed on me with pure, unadulterated hostility.

I hadnt touched her. Not yet. I had only locked the door, taken two measured steps across the Persian rug, and closed the distance between us. But the look on her face told me she could feel the phantom weight of my hands anyway. She could feel what I was going to do to her.

Before I could bridge the final inch, before my wolf could stop drooling at the scent of her waking terror, she exploded.

She didn't cower. She didn't drop her gaze like the fragile little human she pretended to be. With a sharp, furious gasp, she launched herself forward, driving both palms squarely into my chest.

It was like shoving a slab of granite. My boots didnt slide an inch. My shoulders didn't drop. I barely absorbed the impact, but the sheer audacity of it sent a hot, dark thrill shooting straight down my spine.

"Back off!" she hissed, her voice vibrating with a raw, trembling defiance that she was trying desperately to anchor with venom. "I'm only here to get the archive job, nothing else!"

She lied. She lied with her chin jutting out, her teeth bared slightly, and her hands still pressed flat against my black lapels as if she could physically hold my entire syndicate at bay.

A slow, humourless smirk curved the corner of my mouth. The polished, untouchable mask of Reymond Smith, the cold kingpin of the Smith Syndicate, cracked down the middle, letting the monster underneath bare its teeth.

"Is that right, Felisha?" I murmured, tasting her fake name like ash on my tongue. I lowered my head, closing the space between us until my height completely caged her in. "You walked through the front doors of my tower, in a city of two hundred thousand buildings, looking for an entry-level filing position in my private basement archives?"

Her breath hitched. Her hands, still planted against my chest, tightened into white-knuckled fists against my shirt.

"People need jobs," she snapped, though her voice lacked conviction now. The colour was draining rapidly from her cheeks, leaving her sharp, striking face pale as winter bone.

"People do," I agreed softly, my gaze dropping to the frantic, erratic pulse fluttering against the pale skin of her throat. "But ghosts don't."

I let the illusion of the polite, corporate stranger drop completely, letting the dense, suffocating weight of my alpha aura bleed into the room.

"I know exactly who you are, Natalia," I whispered, the name falling between us like a dropped blade. "Ive been tracking you since the night I let you run."

For a second, the blood completely left her face. Her eyes widened into twin pools of absolute terror, her internal walls splintering as she realized every paranoid nightmare she had harboured for seven years had just materialized in a bespoke black suit.

Then, the survival instinct kicked in. The Walker bloodline was stubborn to a fault; it would rather snap than bend.

Her expression hardened into a mask of cold, unyielding ignorance. She lifted her chin higher, forcing her voice into a flat, robotic register. "You have the wrong person. I don't know any Natalia. My name is Felisha Walker. If you're crazy, I'm leaving."

Without waiting for permission, she dropped her hands from my chest, spun on the heel of her worn sneakers, and bolted for the door.

She made it three steps.

I didn't chase her. I didn't need to. With a flick of my wrist, I reached out and pressed the master intercom button embedded in the dark mahogany of my desk.

The massive, floor-to-ceiling wall monitors behind my desk usually reserved for market surveillance and security grids instantly flickered to life.

The screens split into a four-way mosaic of the ground floor lobby.

Natalia stopped dead in her tracks, her hand hitting the heavy brass doorknob. She didn't turn around, but I could see the rigid, statue-like tension snap into every muscle of her spine as her eyes caught the reflection of the monitors in the smoked glass.

On screen one, the pristine, obsidian-and-chrome reception desk of Smith Blood-Security was being systematically cleared by three towering men in heavy tactical gear. On their shoulders, unmistakable even through the grainy security feed, was the embroidered crest of the Walker Pack: a silver crown resting over a pool of spilled blood.

One of them, a massive brute with a broken nose, grabbed the human receptionist by the throat, lifting her a foot off the ground while demanding to know if a girl matching Natalia's description had entered the building.

"Your father's hounds just walked through my front door," I whispered, closing the distance between us until my chest brushed the back of her oversized black hoodie. I leaned down, my lips grazing the damp hair at the nape of her neck, feeling her whole body shudder under the cold reality of my breath.

"They're sniffing the air, Natalia. They smell the ozone. They smell the cinnamon. It's only a matter of time before they trace that scent right up this elevator shaft."

She gripped the brass doorknob so hard her knuckles turned translucent, her shoulders shaking with a silent, suffocating fury.

I slid my hand over hers, trapping her fingers against the cold metal, stopping her from running anywhere in this world.

"Sign a fake mate contract and become my Luna right now," I murmured into her ear, my voice dark, absolute, and drenched in a terrible, inescapable finality. "Or I open this door, buzz them up to the penthouse, and let them drag you back to hell."