“Get up.”
The command hit Aria like a slap before she was even fully conscious.
A cold plastic bottle smacked against her ribs, bouncing off the thin mattress and rolling across the concrete floor. She flinched at the sound, at the guard’s shadow looming in the doorway, at the metallic scrape of his boot when he kicked the bottle toward her.
“No sleeping in. Wolfe wants you vertical.”
Aria blinked against the darkness. Morning had come, but her room had no windows—just four smooth gray walls, a steel door, and a single ceiling strip-light humming like a threat. Her throat tasted of metal and old tears. The collar around her neck was warm, pulsing faintly like it had synced with her heartbeat.
“Get. Up.”
The guard’s hand twitched toward his taser.
Aria scrambled upright, legs stiff, arms shaking. She was barefoot, freezing, and still wearing the thin nightgown from the night her world ended. The guard grabbed her by the arm and shoved her upright. She stumbled, groaning as the collar vibrated—sharp, punishing.
“That’s what happens when you don’t move fast enough, princess,” he muttered. “Wolfe doesn’t like slow pets.”
Her stomach knotted at the word.
Two guards marched her through Wolfe Tower’s private floors. The marble gleamed like ice under her feet, and the air carried the faintest trace of cedar, smoke, and something colder—Damian Wolfe’s cologne. A scent that belonged to power, violence, and a man who didn’t believe in forgiveness.
People stared as she passed.
Whispers chased her:
“Is that her?”
“Navarro’s brat?”
“He finally got her.”
“She’s prettier than I thought.”
“Shame the collar ruins the look.”
“Ruins it? Makes it better.”
One man whispered, voice low and filthy, “Wonder if Wolfe’s sharing her on Tribute Night.”
Aria’s chest tightened. She’d heard of Tribute Night only once—drunk guards in her father’s house, muttering about women dressed like gifts, men with masks, and games she wasn’t meant to know existed.
Her father had never let her attend. Her father had died protecting her from it.
Now she was a name on the list.
A guard shoved her forward. “Eyes down.”
She didn’t fight it. Didn’t dare. Wolfe Tower was a kingdom of glass, steel, and silent men who feared only one person—and it wasn’t her.
They reached the boardroom. The doors opened.
Damian Wolfe sat alone at the head of a long obsidian table. Morning light flooded behind him, making him look carved from shadow. Black suit. Black shirt. Black leather gloves. Tattoos swirling up his throat like a serpent whispering secrets.
His beauty was cold—machine-sharp cheekbones, mouth cut with precision, jaw made for command. A face that would have been angelic if not hardened by rage and built out of violence.
He didn’t look at her. Not at first.
He sipped black coffee, gaze fixed on the skyline like he was deciding what to conquer next. Only when the guards forced her into the room did he finally turn.
His eyes slid over her slowly—lingering on the collar, the torn nightgown, the bruises on her arms.
“Sit.”
One word.
It wrapped around her like a leash. She sat. Trembling. The collar pulsed approval.
Damian slid a thick binder across the table. Black leather. Silver edging. Her name embossed on the front in sharp metal letters:
ARIA NAVARRO — ASSET PROTOCOL 13
Aria’s stomach twisted. Her fingers shook as she opened it. Every page was worse than the last:
—Restrictions
—Movement bans
—Violation penalties
—Biometric lockdown clauses
—Punishment schedules
Her breath caught when she reached a section marked in red.
“Asset may be presented at Tribute Night at the discretion of the Syndicate Head.”
Her voice cracked. “Damian—please—I can’t be part of that. I can’t—”
He tapped a single gloved finger against the table. The sound froze her.
“You will survive whatever I decide you survive.”
She shook her head, tears burning. “I’m not like them. I never touched that world. I never touched my father’s—”
“That’s the problem,” he interrupted, leaning back in his chair. “You lived in a palace while others died in cages your father built. You floated while he drowned us.” His jaw clenched, fury coiled behind every word. “Ignorance is not innocence, Aria.”
Her voice broke. “What if I refuse?”
Damian tilted his head, studying her like a beast deciding which bone to break first.
“Then the collar detonates.”
Her world stopped.
“It won’t kill you,” he added calmly. “But it will make you wish it did.”
The guards stepped closer, their presence suffocating behind her. Damian pushed a silver pen across the table. It gleamed like a blade.
“Sign.”
She didn’t reach for it.
Her breath came in shallow bursts. “Damian… please…”
He leaned in. Very slowly. His face inches from hers. His voice a razor-soft threat.
“Sign,” he whispered, “or I’ll drag you downstairs and show you the room Navarro kept me in. I will let you smell that floor. Hear the echoes. Feel the chains. And you will understand what your father carved out of us.”
Her hand shook violently as she reached for the pen. Survival was louder than dignity.
She signed the contract with a tear falling onto the paper. The ink bled and spread like spilled blood.
Damian watched, expression unreadable. Not satisfied. Not triumphant. Something colder.
When she pushed the binder away, he rose from his chair—slow, deliberate, every movement a reminder that he controlled the temperature of the room, the rhythm of her breath, the shape of her future.
“Stand.”
She didn’t. Her muscles refused. The collar bit her—an electric sting that shot through her spine. She gasped and stumbled upright.
Damian’s mouth twitched. Not a smile. Something darker.
“Good girl.”
Heat rushed up her neck despite her fear.
He stepped behind her. The air changed—denser, hotter, charged. His gloved fingers brushed the collar, his touch sliding against the back of her neck. A soft, humiliating drag that made goosebumps ripple down her arms.
“You will obey three rules,” he murmured, voice sinking low, dangerous.
“One: you do not run.”
His hand drifted along the collar.
“Two: you do not lie.”
His breath ghosted her ear.
“And three… when I speak, you listen.”
Aria’s knees weakened. Her mind screamed at her to recoil, to spit in his face, to claw her way out of this tower—but her body reacted the way prey reacts to a predator: terrified, trembling… and impossibly aware of every inch of him.
Damian turned her to face him, gripping her chin between his fingers. Firm. Unyielding. Not gentle. But not cruel in the way she expected.
“From this moment on,” he said quietly, “you walk behind me. Not beside me. And never—ever—in front.”
He released her with a flick, dismissing her like an object.
The guards opened the doors.
“Take her to the executive floor,” Damian ordered without looking at her again. “Let every Syndicate member see what happens to the Navarro heir.”
His gaze slanted toward her once more, sharp as a blade.
“And make sure they see her collar.”