“Of course, it’s about the work.” Her tone shifted. The warmth thinned, and beneath it, he heard the steel that had once commanded lecture halls full of art history students who didn’t dare check their phones. “Ozara says her daughter is brilliant. Stubborn. Uncompromising about her art. Sounds familiar.”
He didn’t answer. He was looking at the portfolio on the drafting table. The villain on the cover. The defiant inks.
“I’ll evaluate the portfolio on its merits.”
“You’ve already evaluated it. I can hear it in your voice.” Softer now. The steel giving way to the mother underneath. “Don’t overthink this one, Zeir. Your father overthinks. Look where it got him.”
The line went dead. She always hung up before the other person was ready. A power move she’d perfected decades ago.
He’d sworn at fourteen that he’d never take over his father’s corporate position. At thirty-two, the locked drawer suggested the oath had an asterisk.
Nyx arrived at two.Didn’t knock. Never knocked.
Compact. Efficient. Dark hair pulled tight. She moved through his office the way people move when they’ve decided wasted motion is a personality flaw. She set a tablet on his desk.
“The proxy pings. Two attempts on the digital archives this week. Foreign routing, consumer-grade encryption. I’ve locked the vulnerability, traced the origin, and set secondary monitoring.”
“Threat level.”
“Low. Expensive tools, amateur hands. Someone paid for sophistication they don’t know how to use.” Three screens swiped in four seconds. “If they try again, I’ll have the device signature within the hour.”
“Keep me updated.”
Nyx collected her tablet. Paused at the table’s edge. Her gaze dropped to the open portfolio—Sable in the throne room wreckage, dark and meticulous, a woman who’d won everything and lost more.
“New submission?”
“Potential collaborator.”
Nyx studied the page for three seconds. Two more than she gave most things.
“She’s good.”
“Yes.”
“I’ll run a background check.”
“It’s an art collaboration, not a security clearance.”
“Anyone who enters this building is a security clearance.” She tucked the tablet under her arm. “That’s not paranoia. That’s protocol.”
She left. The door closed with the soft, deliberate click of a woman who considered careless door-closing a character flaw.
The building emptied in stages.
Production first—the colorists and letterers and designers filtering out by six, their departure a slow subtraction of keyboard clicks and low conversation and the low hum of creative work winding down. Kael left at seven, pausing in the doorway long enough to clock the portfolio still open on the work surface. He raised an eyebrow. Said nothing. Didn’t need to.
Nyx left at eight. She never said goodbye. She stopped being present, the way security-minded people did—a skill that was both invaluable and slightly unsettling.
By nine, the building breathed with the sounds Zeir preferred. HVAC humming. Elevator cables settling. The old industrial bones creaking against the cold. Night sounds. The city beyond the windows, bright and restless, a mirror of the animal beneath his skin.
He moved to the drafting table.
The portfolio was still open. Had been all day—between meetings, between editorial passes, between the hundred small decisions that filled an alpha’s hours. His gaze had returned to it the way a compass needle found north. Sable’s face. The villain’s defiance. The work that made his ribs ache with a recognition he refused to name.
He reached for the key chain in the center drawer.
Cold metal. Familiar weight. The lock turned. The drawer slid open.
