Manhattan had seen storms. It had seen blood. It had seen Syndicate wars that cracked entire city blocks like bones.
But it had never—ever—seen Damian Wolfe like this.
The moment Damian stepped into the war room, his eyes were already burning with a fury everyone felt down to their marrow. Jaxon stood still. Rina stopped breathing. Several executives lowered their gazes immediately, as if looking Damian in the eyes was a death wish.
“Where is she,” Damian demanded—not asked. Demanded.
No one answered fast enough.
In a blur, Damian slammed his fist into the steel table. The impact split the metal down the center with a screech. Papers flew. A glass monitor cracked from the vibration. The room jumped like someone had detonated a small bomb.
“FIND. HER.”
Rina swallowed hard. “W—we’ve checked the usual safehouses—”
“Not enough.”
He turned toward the city map projected across the wall—a sprawling web of territories, enemy dens, Syndicate ports, underground markets. The lights reflected against his eyes like mirrors of fire.
“She didn’t flee,” Damian said through clenched teeth. “She was taken.”
Jaxon stepped forward cautiously. “Damian… you don’t know that. The guards—”
“She wouldn’t leave me,” Damian snapped.
Silence.
Even he heard the truth in his own voice and hated it—hated the desperation threading through every word, hated the way his thoughts kept circling her like a hunted animal searching for one familiar scent in a forest full of predators.
He cleared his throat, voice roughening.
“Someone took her. And when I find out who, I will peel the skin off their fucking bones.”
Executives exchanged alarmed looks.
Not because Damian was angry—Damian was always angry.
But because this time… he was unhinged.
He didn’t sit. He paced like a caged beast, pulling on his gloves with sharp snaps that cut through the air.
“Put out a bounty,” he ordered. “Top tier. No restrictions.”
Rina’s eyes widened. “A bounty? For who?”
“For anyone who even thinks they know where she is.”
“But Damian—if you announce she’s taken, it will confirm she’s—”
He turned slowly. Too slowly.
His voice dropped into something so cold it made the room’s temperature drop ten degrees.
“I didn’t say announce she fled.”
He lifted Aria’s abandoned collar from the table. The metal glinted like a severed leash.
He clenched it in his fist until the edges bit into his skin.
“I said announce she was taken.”
Rina hesitated. “That will start a city-wide hunt.”
“Good.” Damian’s lip curled. “Let them hunt. Let them crawl. Let them beg to tell me what they know.”
He tossed the collar aside. It clattered across the table like a weapon.
“They want to play games?” His voice sharpened. “I’ll show them war.”
***
The Syndicate’s network exploded across the city.
Every bar. Every port. Every underground gambling ring. Every brothel. Every smuggler dock. The whispers spread faster than gunfire:
“Wolfe’s girl was taken.”
“He’s out for blood.”
“He’s tearing the city apart.”
“If you know something… run.”
Damian didn’t sleep. Didn’t blink. Didn’t stop.
He led the raids himself, tearing through hideouts like a demon sent by hell itself. The first warehouse yielded nothing. The second, nothing. The third contained only terrified traffickers who swore they hadn’t touched Navarro’s daughter.
Damian shot two of them anyway.
He kicked down door after door, dragged rivals from their beds, pinned leaders to walls with a knife under their throats.
“Where is she?”
“Where is she?”
“WHERE IS SHE?”
Every denial was met with increasing violence.
Jaxon tried to intervene exactly once. Damian shoved him into a wall so hard the plaster cracked.
“Don’t,” Damian growled with a feral intensity. “Don’t you dare tell me to calm down while she’s out there with them.”
“Them?” Jaxon echoed quietly.
Damian blinked—once—realizing he’d slipped.
But it didn’t matter anymore.
He stormed out the door and into the night as if he could murder the entire city by himself.
***
Rina watched Damian leave again, coat flaring, gun holstered, eyes dead like a man walking into his own grave. She exhaled shakily.
“This is bad,” she whispered.
“Very,” Jaxon muttered, rubbing his temple.
“He’ll kill allies,” she warned. “Not enemies. Allies.”
“Not if we find her first.”
Rina’s expression softened—pity mixing with dread.
“He loved her,” she said quietly.
Jaxon flinched. “Don’t say that. Not now.”
“He did,” Rina insisted, her voice trembling. “Everyone saw it. The way he looked at her. The way he touched her. The way he almost… broke.”
Jaxon said nothing. Because it was true.
Damian Wolfe—untouchable, unbreakable, unstoppable—had cracked.
And the crack had a name.
Aria.
***
They returned to the tower past midnight. Rina followed Damian into his office to deliver the latest report: still no trace of Aria.
Damian stood at the window overlooking Manhattan. The city lights flickered in his eyes like dying stars.
“Say it,” he demanded.
Rina’s voice shook. “We… we haven’t found her.”
Something inside him snapped.
He grabbed the nearest desk and flipped it, the metal screeching as it crashed into the wall. Papers flew. A lamp shattered.
Jaxon rushed in just as Damian ripped open a drawer and threw a monitor across the room.
“Damian—”
“She left the collar.” Damian’s voice cracked. “She took it off and didn’t look back.”
“Damian—stop—”
“DO YOU KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS!?” he roared.
The room shook with the force of it. Rina flinched as Damian slammed both palms onto the conference table, shoulders heaving.
“It means she didn’t want to come back,” he whispered.
Silence swallowed the room.
Jaxon took one step. “Damian—”
“No.” Damian shook his head. “I need air.”
He reached into his pocket and pulled out the collar.
Held it in both hands. Stared at it like it was the last piece of his sanity. Then he sank to his knees.
Rina gasped. She had never—ever—seen Damian Wolfe collapse.
He pressed his forehead against the cold metal.
“Aria,” he whispered. Once. Broken. “Aria… where are you.”
The name scraped out of him like a confession dragged from the deepest wound. Jaxon exchanged a look with Rina—fear, sympathy, disbelief twisting in both their eyes. Because Damian Wolfe wasn’t losing his empire.
He was losing his heart. And the entire city would burn before he accepted that truth.
Damian tightened his grip on the abandoned collar, breath shaking with fury and anguish mixing in his chest. With a voice raw enough to carve open the night, he whispered her name like it was both a prayer and a curse.
“Aria…”