“Walk faster.”
The guard’s voice cracked like a whip behind her as Aria stumbled out of the elevator and onto the 78th floor. She’d barely taken three steps when he shoved her forward, hard enough to force a gasp from her throat.
The collar tightened—not painfully, but with a warning pressure that made her stomach twist.
The 78th floor of Wolfe Tower didn’t resemble any office she had seen in her privileged life. It looked like a cathedral built for a god of money and violence.
Glass walls stretched floor-to-ceiling, reflecting the skyline so vividly it felt like New York hovered in the room. Steel beams crossed overhead like ribs. Even the marble floor looked cold enough to bruise.
Aria stepped out wearing borrowed clothes—black slacks, a fitted blouse far too tight, shoes that pinched her toes. The collar hummed faintly at her throat, glowing a soft icy blue.
Every head turned.
Executives in suits priced higher than cars. Assistants typing with robotic speed. Security with expressionless faces and fingers hovering near weapons. Every pair of eyes tracked her like she was a creature dragged in from an alley.
“Keep up,” Damian ordered without turning his head.
His voice alone made her legs move.
Aria followed him down a long corridor lined with glass offices, each one pristine, silent, sterile. The people inside paused to stare at her—the fallen heiress, the last Navarro, now collared property of the man who destroyed her world.
Whispers followed her like smoke.
“Navarro’s daughter?”
“Look at the collar…”
“He really did it.”
“She’s his asset now.”
“Poor thing—no, lucky thing—depends on how Wolfe plans to use her.”
The last comment made her face burn. She dropped her gaze, but not fast enough—three assistants smirked when they noticed the flush.
Damian didn’t react. He walked ahead as if she were just another file in his system. Yet every few seconds, he cast an over-the-shoulder glance to make sure she stayed exactly two steps behind him. Not beside him. Behind.
He wanted the entire floor to see that.
He stopped abruptly at a sleek glass desk where a woman with platinum hair typed with perfect, lethal efficiency. Rina Maddox—Damian’s personal executive assistant. Beautiful in a cold, architectural way, with cheekbones sharp as weapons and eyes that held no softness.
Rina looked Aria over like she was scanning a contamination.
“This is her?” Rina asked.
Damian nodded once. “Her tasks are on your tablet. Give her everything.”
Rina tapped her screen. “Everything” turned out to be a stack of binders taller than Aria’s torso. She held them out.
“You will alphabetize, scan, cross-check, and deliver physical copies by five.”
Aria blinked. “…It’s already noon.”
Rina smiled—a slow, pretty, merciless curve. “Yes.”
The binders slammed into Aria’s arms, nearly knocking the wind out of her. She staggered but didn’t drop them. Fear kept her upright.
A few employees snickered.
Aria carried the stack past the break table, where she saw Damian’s coffee machine—a sleek chrome monster she had watched Rina operate earlier. Wanting to prove she wasn’t completely useless, Aria set the binders down and poured him a cup.
Her hand trembled the entire time.
She turned—and collided with a passing guard’s shoulder. The cup jolted, coffee splashing over her fingers and onto the marble in tiny brown droplets.
The floor went silent.
Damian’s footsteps approached behind her—slow, precise, suffocating. She didn’t dare turn around, but she felt his presence like a shadow swallowing light.
“Is there,” he said quietly, “a reason my coffee is on the floor instead of in my hand?”
Aria whipped around, bowing her head in panic. “I—I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean—”
The collar vibrated—a sharp pulse that made her breath hitch.
Damian’s eyes darkened. “Try again.”
Her face burned as she grabbed a napkin, wiping her hand furiously. Another assistant giggled. Aria ignored her and brewed a second cup, gripping it carefully with both hands this time.
When she offered it to him, her fingers brushed his glove. Heat shot up her arm—fear, adrenaline, humiliation all tangled together.
Damian didn’t break eye contact as he lifted the cup and took a slow, deliberate sip.
“Better,” he murmured. “Don’t disappoint me again.”
Aria almost collapsed from relief.
The elevator chimed.
Every person on the floor straightened, tension slicing through the air. From the polished doors stepped Sabrina Knox—five-foot-ten of lethal confidence wrapped in black silk. High cheekbones, blood-red lips, eyes lined in kohl. A model. An assassin. A woman rumored to have warmed Damian’s bed and spilled the blood of his enemies with equal ease.
She spotted Aria instantly.
Her lips curled.
“Well,” Sabrina drawled, clicking across the floor in stilettos sharp enough to kill, “so this is the little Navarro princess.”
Aria swallowed. “I’m not—”
Sabrina stepped close enough for her perfume to suffocate the air—jasmine and venom.
“You’re exactly what you are,” she whispered. “Nothing more. Nothing less.”
Damian’s voice cut between them like a blade.
“Sabrina. Enough.”
She smiled sweetly at him—fake, poisonous—then brushed Aria’s shoulder in passing. “She won’t last a week.”
Aria felt the words like claws in her ribcage.
Damian watched the exchange in silence, then turned fully toward Aria. His expression sharpened—not pity, not amusement—something colder.
“You’re coming with me tonight.”
Aria’s breath stilled. “Where?”
Damian’s jaw flexed. “To see what your father built.”
He didn’t wait for her response.
He simply walked away, expecting her to follow.
The guards closed in behind her, directing her toward the elevator with not-so-gentle nudges. Aria obeyed, heart hammering, dread curling through her like smoke.
She stepped into the elevator beside Damian. Sabrina watched from the corridor, smirking like a wolf watching a lamb walk into a trap.
The doors slid shut. Aria finally breathed—but too late. Damian’s voice cut the silence.
“You freeze when she talks to you,” he said.
Aria’s head snapped up. “I—I didn’t—”
“You did.” He didn’t look at her. His hands stayed clasped behind his back, posture perfect and terrifying. “And you’ll need to learn quickly how to stand without shaking, Aria. Because tonight…”
He glanced at her then, eyes dark and unreadable.
“…you will see exactly why your father begged me to spare him.”
Her blood turned to ice.
The elevator continued downward, each floor bringing her closer to the unknown, to the dark heart of Wolfe Syndicate—the place her father never wanted her to see.
The place Damian intended to show her first.