CHAPTER FORTY-TWO: Wolfe in Winter**

Damian Wolfe

They thought I was sleeping.

That I'd gone quiet.

Curled up in the penthouse like a wounded animal licking its wounds.

Let them.

I'd learned early that silence wasn't surrender, it was precision. The wolf doesn't snarl before it strikes. It waits. It calculates. And when it bites, it tears out the throat.

So I waited.

Let the headlines roll. Let the board panic. Let Monarch strut around with my name dripping from their tongues like they'd already won.

They hadn't.

Not yet.

Not while I was still breathing.

---

Bishop moved through the room like a ghost, muttering updates, stringing wires, setting traps. The war room at the Wolfe compound had been cold for years, untouched since my father's era. I'd always preferred cleaner battles, ones fought with leverage, not blood.

But Aria changed that.

She was fire. And fire doesn't care what it burns.

"She's in," Bishop said, flicking a dossier across the table. "Passed Monarch's vetting. Jasper's her handler now, officially. Everett's calling her 'a beautiful weapon."'

I didn't look at the file. I already knew what was in it.

"She's feeding them what they want," I said. "Fury. Instability. Ambition."

Bishop paused. "You think it's all an act?"

"No." My voice dropped. "I think it's real enough to hurt. But not enough to kill."

There was a difference. One she hadn't decided on yet.

"And if she decides otherwise?" he asked.

I finally looked up.

"If Aria Vale turns her fire on me for real…" I stood, buttoned my cufflinks, calm as ice. "…then I'll still burn the rest of them first."

---

~Later~

The private elevator opened into the archive chamber below Wolfe Tower. Vault 07.

No assistants here. No guards. Just me and rows of steel and silence.

This was the real heart of Wolfe Enterprises. Not the money. Not the skyscrapers. The secrets.

My father's old world.

And mine.

I keyed in the code. Red light. Then green.

The vault hissed open.

Inside, I found it where I left it—File C47A.

Alexander Vale.

I flipped through the pages. His original indictment. His "deal" with the Syndicate. Alexander's forged signature. And a name circled three times in black ink.

Mara Lennox.

My father's fixer. The one who disappeared the week Aria's father died.

The one person left who knew why.

"She's in Geneva," Bishop said behind me. "Alias: Elaine Skye. We have a location."

I closed the file.

"Good," I said. "Aria thinks she's baiting them."

"And she is," Bishop replied. "But someone's baiting her, too."

I nodded. "Then we kill the real game before it kills her."

Bishop hesitated. "You sure she wants to be saved?"

I didn't answer.

Because I wasn't.

Aria's war was hers now. She was playing it like a queen. Bold. Brilliant. Ruthless.

But every queen knows what happens when the king stops holding back.

And I was done watching.

---

Aria Vale

The skyline was smeared in gold and ash, the city glowing like it didn't know how close it was to collapse.

I stood barefoot in the penthouse Monarch gave me, steel, glass, and silence. From up here, the world looked small. Manageable. Like all it would take was one well-placed match and the whole machine would burn.

I poured a glass of scotch.

Didn't sip.

Didn't move.

Just stared at the dark window where my reflection didn't quite look like me anymore.

There was a knock at the door.

Three sharp raps.

I didn't need to ask who it was.

Jasper.

He strolled in without waiting for an answer, wearing black like a promise and smiling like he didn't mean it. He held a velvet box, again.

I didn't move from the window. "Another trinket?"

"An upgrade," he said. "You've earned it."

He set it on the glass table, slow and deliberate.

"I already wear your leash," I said, twisting the onyx ring on my finger.

"Not a leash," Jasper replied. "A key."

I turned then. "To what?"

He just smiled.

That was the first warning.

The second came when I tasted the scotch again and the burn didn't feel right.

Too sweet. Too slow.

My vision blurred.

My knees buckled.

I caught myself on the edge of the couch, heart slamming against my ribs.

"You bastard," I breathed.

Jasper didn't move. Didn't flinch.

"Shh," he said, crouching before me. "Don't ruin it with dramatics."

The world tipped sideways. My limbs went heavy. The floor met my knees. I tried to reach for the knife taped beneath the coffee table, but my fingers didn't work.

Not anymore.

Not fast enough.

Behind Jasper, the door opened again.

Everett entered.

Her heels clicked like metronomes of doom. She wore white tonight. I hated how pure it looked.

Aria Vale, dressed in vengeance and venom, paralyzed at their feet.

"This was inevitable," Everett said, circling me like I was already dead. "We can't afford question marks. Not with Wolfe circling the drain."

"I earned this seat," I hissed, slurring.

"You earned a role," Everett corrected, crouching down, voice low and warm like poison in tea. "But never a crown."

Hands lifted me, rough, impersonal. I tried to struggle. My muscles refused.

They strapped me to the dining chair. Not the kind used for torture. The kind used for ceremony.

Symbolism. Monarch's favorite drug.

Everett tilted my chin up.

"You wanted revenge?" she whispered. "You'll get it. Just not on your terms."

I stared at Jasper.

"You said you were done being moved."

He didn't smile this time.

"I was," he said. "But I never said you'd be the one to move me."

A gloved hand slipped the onyx ring from my finger.

Everett took it and slid it onto her own, right over black nail polish.

"You thought we'd let you lead us?" she said, stepping back, letting me see the truth of it, all of it.

The glass cage.

The false trust.

The stage built just to break me.

"No, Aria."

Her voice was final.

"You were just means to an end."