LOGINDominic SteeleDominic had Vera Kessler's folder open on his desk within the hour, and the first page alone told him they were no longer dealing with a vague suspicion about a rival Alpha's ambitions.Rowan had brought her back to the villa himself, under guard but not under arrest, a distinction Vera herself had been quick to point out the moment she'd stepped out of the car, hands raised, insisting she'd come voluntarily rather than been caught fleeing. She sat now in the study across from Dominic, Sophie beside him this time, exactly where she'd insisted on being, and Lena stood near the door with her tablet already open, cross-referencing what she was about to say against everything she'd traced through the night."Start from the beginning," Dominic said. "Everything, in order. I want to understand precisely what you sold, to whom, and what you know about what happens next.""I didn't sell everything," Vera said, and there was none of the composed detachment s
Sophie SteeleSophie found out about the car parked near the northern perimeter from Miriam, not from Dominic, and that single fact told her everything she needed to know about exactly how this household still operated when the stakes were high enough to frighten the people who loved her."I only know because Rowan called ahead asking me to keep Ethan indoors this morning, no explanation given beyond a raised security concern," Miriam said, standing in the kitchen doorway with the particular carefulness of someone delivering information she suspected wasn't hers to deliver. "I assumed you already knew. I'm sorry if I've said something I shouldn't have.""You haven't said anything wrong," Sophie said, already moving past her toward the study, feeling something cold and familiar settle into her spine, the exact sensation she'd spent seven years building a life specifically to never feel again. "You've said exactly the thing I should have been told directly, an hour a
Lena MarshLena hadn't slept in eighteen hours when Rowan found her still hunched over her tablet at six in the morning, and the first thing he did, before saying a single word about the border inquiry or Vera Kessler or anything that had kept either of them awake through the night, was set a cup of coffee down in front of her and physically close her laptop."Five minutes," he said. "That's all I'm asking. Five minutes of not looking at that screen.""Rowan, there's a transaction confirmation sitting in that log that I still haven't fully decoded""And it will still be sitting there in five minutes," he said, sitting down across from her at the small kitchen table, close enough that his knee brushed hers under it, deliberately, the way he'd started doing lately, small and unhurried claims on the space between them that no longer needed four inches of distance to feel safe. "You've been awake all night. Dominic's been awake all night. Rowan's been driving half t
Lena MarshLena nearly missed it entirely, buried three layers deep in a routine security sweep she ran every few days out of habit rather than expectation. She would spend the rest of that night grateful, in a way that made her hands unsteady, that she hadn't skipped the sweep the way she'd been tempted to after the exhausting week they'd all just had.The flag was small. A single inquiry logged by the regional network's shared monitoring system, the kind of system pack territories used to track unusual movement or interest near shared borders. This particular inquiry had originated from a location near the northern border, well outside Steele territory, requesting information cross referenced against a name Lena recognized instantly and wished, immediately, that she didn't.Vera Kessler.She sat up straighter at her desk, pulling the log entry closer, reading it twice to make sure she wasn't misreading a coincidence into something significant simply because she
Vera KesslerVera had told Gerald Steele the files would stay sealed, and she had meant it, the way she meant most things she said to clients, right up until the moment her landlord left a second notice under her door and her business account dipped low enough that she found herself doing arithmetic she hadn't done in years, the kind that made promises feel considerably less binding than they had a month ago.She sat at her desk that evening with the Steele file open in front of her, the same file she'd sworn to keep sealed and unused, and told herself she was simply reviewing it, nothing more, an old professional habit of keeping her records organized rather than any actual intention to act on what she found there.The file told a fuller story now than it had when she'd first been hired, months of accumulated observation about the household's rhythms, the boy's supervised lessons on the lower lawn three mornings a week, the specific gaps in the estate's perimete
Sophie SteeleSophie's phone rang three times before she registered whose name was on the screen, and by the time she actually answered it, her hands had gone unsteady in a way that had nothing to do with the chaos still unfolding downstairs over whatever Caius had found buried in the regional filing system."Helena," she said, stepping into the hallway and pulling the door shut behind her, needing distance from Dominic and Lena's low, urgent conversation before she could give this call any real attention."I wasn't sure you'd pick up," Helena said, and there was none of the composed precision Sophie had always associated with her mother's voice, only something considerably more uncertain. "I know the last time we spoke, I wasn't asking for anything beyond forgiveness for one specific failure. I'm calling now to ask for something bigger, and I want to be upfront about that before you agree to anything.""Go on.""I'd like to visit again," Helena said. "Not to del
Sophie Steele POV.“Oh! Oh! Ohmmmm, yes. Fuck me. Please."Who knew things would spiral this fast? Well it's another Friday night and I'm in my home, the weight of not having a functional social life crushing on me like a wave that doesn't quite know what to do with itself. At ninete
Sophie Steele POV.I step in.The water is hot and the pressure remains exactly as I remember it. I feel my shoulders come down gradually. I raise my face to the water and allow it to soak me while I am breathing in and out. The steam thickens around me. The rest of the house
Sophie Steele POVAnd now I am home. And really, I am expecting to be wowed the moment I get here with any difference or whatever, but everything is still the same way I left it. The beautiful gates of the Steele family villa open with the same calmness they always have, like they
Sophie Steele POVWith a jolt I wake.The first thing that registers is disappointment. I'm no longer in my bedroom in the Steel mansion seven years ago. I'm currently in my luxury loft studio in the heart of Los Angeles surrounded by art, supplies and the kind of serenity that cannot







