Wolves At The Table.
Zyrah’s Point Of View.
The morning light slanted through the high-rise windows like golden knives, cutting sharp angles across the polished obsidian floor of my office.
From this height, the city looked like a kingdom of glass and steel, cold, shining, and fragile.
I stood behind the long table in the conference room, the last few voices from the meeting still echoing faintly in my ears. Department heads had just left, buttoned-up, obedient, unaware of the war unfolding beneath their feet. They thought today was about quarterly projections and international portfolios.
They didn’t know I was laying the groundwork for the clean dismantling of an empire.
Ronan’s empire.
My employees didn’t need to know, let them move the numbers and sharpen the margins, let them sleep.
I was wide awake.
I walked back into my private office, the automatic doors hissing closed behind me like the sealing of a vault. The space was curated to the inch, monochrome, quiet, lethal. Clean lines, stainless steel, and glass, no warmth, memory, or photos, absolutely no trace of my past life with Ronan.
The only thing personal in this room was me.
I sat behind the desk, crossing one leg over the other as I scrolled through today’s intelligence. Updated shareholder maps, procurement bids, and a few strategic acquisitions that would quietly disrupt Ronan’s logistics network in the next ninety days.
It wasn’t flashy.
That was the point, no earthquakes, just fractures.
Hairline, silent, and spreading.
Suddenly, my phone buzzed, soft, and distinct.
I gazed and to my surprise, the sound didn’t come from my main line, neither did it come from the internal secure. This one was buried, a hidden channel Darius had personally encrypted, a line so cold it hadn’t buzzed since the day he set it up.
My brows furrowed as I unlocked the screen.
It had no sender name or a contact, only a single message.
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“You’re not the only one targeting Lancaster. Someone else is already cracking the Company.”
I stared at the text, my breath didn’t catch, neither did my heart didn’t skip, but something coiled, deep and slow, in the pit of my stomach.
Another hand in the dark.
Interesting.
I read the message again, slower this time. My fingers curled slightly over the edge of the phone, the silence in the room thickened around me.
Whoever this was, whoever had the reach, the nerve, and the audacity to contact me through that line, was either bold or desperate, and I didn’t believe in desperation.
S
I stood and walked to the wall of glass that overlooked the skyline. Somewhere in that glowing maze of skyscrapers was Ronan’s building, tall, sleek, arrogant.
I smiled, a slow, sharp curve of satisfaction.
E
I turned back to my desk and typed a reply into the secure channel, fingers poised, deliberate.
“Tell me your name, your details. If you’re playing in my shadow, you’ll do it on my terms, feed me, and stay quiet.”
I hit send without sending a signature because I didn’t trust whoever sent this message. I didn’t need trust right now, I needed results.
I paced back to the desk and poured myself a glass of still water. The clink of the crystal sounded loud in the silence.
So, someone else had started the fire.
Good.
Let them light the match, I’d bring the gasoline.
I stared at the message again, this wasn’t some idle bluff, this was information, maybe a warning, or a move.
And I didn’t like surprises.
gers and dialed the only person who
could match my calm when everything in-
fire.
I picked up my phone with steady side me wanted to set the on
Darius answered before it could ring twice.
“I got a message,” I said, already ward the window. “From the encrypted line.”
He was silent.
Then, coolly’ “a
did it did it say?”
I read the message aloud.
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There was another brief pause from him.
“I’m on my way,” he said. “Ten minutes.”
I ended the call, turned to the skyline beyond my office window. Somewhere out there, Ronan Lancaster was sitting on his throne, unaware that the ground beneath him was cracking, and now someone else was swinging at the same fault lines I had marked for demolition.
I didn’t know who the intruder was. Yet.
But Darius would find them, and if they were a threat, they’d disappear, just like every other mistake that underesti- mated him.
Exactly thirteen minutes later, the elevator doors slid open with a metallic hiss. Darius stepped into my office like a shadow sharpening into shape, his expression was unreadable.
“Show me the text.”
He said as he shut the door behind him without a word and crossed the floor toward me, his steps unhurried, deliber- ate, like he had all the time in the world to ruin someone’s life.
I handed him the phone.
He took it, eyes flicking over the message once. Then again, he looked up, and just like that, the temperature in the room dropped ten degrees.
“We’re being watched,” he said flatly. “Or worse, being shadowed.”
“Someone playing hero?” I asked.
Darius didn’t answer right away. He placed the phone down carefully on my desk like it might explode.
“Whoever it is, they’re reckless,” he said. “To contact you directly, through that line? That’s not guts, that’s stupidi- ty.”
“Or desperation,” I offered.
He gave me a look, cold, and cutting. “Desperate people don’t live long.”
His tone didn’t rise, Darius didn’t need volume to intimidate. He had a voice like dry ice, quiet and deadly.
I crossed my arms. “You think they’re after what we are?”
“I think they don’t know who they’re standing behind in the dark,” he said. “But they’ll learn.”
The silence stretched between us, pulsing with tension.
“I want to know who it is,” I said. “If they’re a threat…”
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“I’ll gut them out of the picture,” Darius finished calmly. “No noise, or mess, just gone.”
I didn’t doubt him for a second.
That was the thing about Darius, he wasn’t explosive, he didn’t react, only calculated, set the board, and struck so qui- etly that most people never realized they were bleeding until they collapsed.
Ronan had no idea how lucky he was that it was me chasing him, and not my brother.
Darius’s gaze never left me. “You didn’t reply to the message yet?”
“I told them to send names, and their details, I want to see what they know.”
He gave a slight nod, though I could feel the disapproval beneath it. “Good, but stay cold, if they step out of line, they vanish.”
I nodded. “Of course.”
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Then his voice shifted, still ice, but laced with intent.
“I didn’t just come because of that.”
“Oh?”
“I had a meeting this morning,” he said. “With two of Ronan’s long-time allies. We met at a quiet location, no han- dlers, just them and me.”
I straightened slightly. “That fast?”
Darius smiled faintly, not warmth. “They’re already flinching, I pressed a little, and they’re coming here.”
My brows lifted. “Here?”
He nodded once. “Today, at noon, they want to meet you.”
I blinked, momentarily stunned. “You turned them that quick?”
“I didn’t turn them,” he corrected. “I opened the cage door, they’re choosing to fly.”
I laughed softly. “God,
that’s impressive.”
Opened the
“I gave them a preview of what happens when Lancaster collapses,” he said. “And a chance to stand on the right side of history.”
I crossed to my desk and leaned on the edge. “I’m honestly surprised.’
“I
“Don’t be,” he said. “Men like that don’t co
about loyalty, they care about survival.”
“Well,” I said, nodding. “Thank you.”
But Darius only shook his head. “We don’t thank each other until the contract is signed and the blood’s dry.”
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I met his gaze.
200 TYDUCTIOT &
He wasn’t being dramatic, he meant it, and he was right.
The war hadn’t started, not yet, but the weapons were being drawn.
By noon, the boardroom was polished, silent, and humming with the quiet tension of war disguised as business.
The walls were lined with cold glass.
The table stretched like a runway, long, obsidian, reflective. At the head sat Darius, sharp in black with his fingers in- terlaced, gaze hard and still. Beside him, I took my seat, calm, composed, my expression neutral but alert.
Then the doors opened.
Three men stepped in.
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They walked like men who once ruled the room, but now wore the weight of uncertainty in their shoulders. Wealth clung to their suits, but their eyes moved fast, calculating, reading, and reacting.
“We are here.” One of them spoke up. I stared at him as I recognized him as Edward Mays, CEO of a logistics firm that ran half of Lancaster’s shipping networks. Balding, stiff, always posturing. He used to take pride in being Ronan’ s echo.
I smiled at him as I shook him and turned to the man next to him. He was Charles Vane, old-money investor, private fund manager, always with a cigar in hand. Sharp blue eyes, smug mouth, the kind of man who bet on winners, and dropped the weak before the market could blink.
“It’s been a while.” He said with a smile showing his yellow stained teeth. I nodded and turned to the next man, he is Lawrence Cho, with newer money, newer power, tech background. Quiet, precise, but the most dangerous of the three, because he listened more than he spoke.
They took their seats across from me and Darius, exchanging tight nods and forced smiles.
“Ms. Aeternum,” Edward said first, his voice overly polite. “It’s… surprising to see you here again.”
I smiled faintly. “Surprises seem to be a theme lately, don’t they?”
Darius didn’t bother with niceties, he leaned forward slightly, his tone even and sharp.
“You’re here because you’re worried.”
Lawrence’s jaw ticked, but he didn’t deny it
“We’re here to listen.”
I folded my hands neatly on the table. “That’s all I need, for now.”
There was a beat of silence.
Charles lit a cigar without asking, and I let him.
They were waiting for me to beg, to give them an explanation, or plead for their allegiance like Ronan once did.
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I had no intention of doing any of that.
“I’m not here to make you choose sides,” I said calmly. “I’m here to offer you a contingency, a future that isn’t tied to Lancaster’s slow descent into public ruin.”
Edward’s lips twitched. “Public ruin’s a little dramatic.”
“Is it?” I raised a brow. “Your shipping contracts are currently under review for audit, two of your overseas partners have flagged their payments. Your warehousing division just lost its biggest distributor in Downtown.”
He froze as the smile on his face vanished.
I smiled, but it didn’t reach my eyes. “You didn’t think that was a coincidence, did you?”
Darius leaned back, satisfied.
Charles blew smoke toward the ceiling. “I can see that you’ve done your homework.”
“I lived with the man for three years,” I replied coolly. “I know where the cracks are, I’m just… widening them.”
Lawrence finally spoke, quiet and calm. “What are you offering?”
I tilted my head slightly. “Options, first is an immunity from the fallout, and access to the real infrastructure once it changes hands.”
By d
They said nothing, but the shift in their posture was immediate. At that point, I knew that this wasn’t just a conversa- tion anymore.
This was a transaction.
“I’m not asking you to betray him,” I continued, voice smooth. “I’m asking you to survive him. Lancaster is bleeding, and it’s only going to get worse, when the board fractures, and it will, you can either be on the right side of the re- build, or buried with what’s left.”
Edward cleared his throat. “You don’t think he’ll recover?”
“No,” I said simply. “Because I know what’s coming next, and he doesn’t.’
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Darius turned his head slowly, eyes locked on them like a blade resting on a throat. “And we don’t waste time on nos- talgia, you work with us, you stay quiet, and you walk out richer than you in.
me
”
Lawrence looked at me, his eyes narrowed as he stared at me deeply, “This isn’t about revenge for you, is it?”
“No,” I said. “That’s just the bonus.”
There was a long silence.
Then Charles crushed the cigar out in the ashtray.
You’ll send us the details?”
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Darius nodded once. “Today.”
The three men stood.
“Nice doing business with you” Lawrence spoke out, and as they filed out of the room, none of them looked back.
As the doors shut behind them, I leaned back in my chair and exhaled slowly.
“That,” I murmured, “was a good first breach.”
Darius didn’t smile. “One domino down,” he muttered.
The room had gone quiet again after the doors shut. The scent of Charles’s cigar still lingered in the air, curling into the stillness like a whisper that didn’t know it was dismissed.
I sat unmoving in my chair, eyes still locked on the seat where Edward had been moments ago. The meeting had gone well, everything they said, every nod, every subtle agreement, it should’ve reassured me.
But something twisted beneath my ribs.
“Do you trust them?” I asked softly.
Darius, still seated beside me, didn’t move at first. His fingers tapped once on the glossy surface of the table, then stopped.
“No,” he said, without hesitation. “Not entirely, and that’s the point.”
I turned toward him slowly. “What if they run back to him? What if they’re still loyal to Ronan, and this was a way to gather intel? Test us and lure us in.”
Darius scoffed, one low, sharp breath through his nose, he didn’t look amused.
“They won’t,” he said simply. “Because I know where each of those men’s families live.”
My stomach went still.
His voice didn’t waver.
“Edward’s daughter goes to that little boarding school in Geneva. Charles has a wife who shops on Fifth every Wednesday at noon, routine like clockwork. Lawrence has two sons in Pointe, a nanny, and a weekend schedule.”
He turned his cold gaze to me then, not with cruelty, but with precision.
“No man is brave enough to betray someone who has their bloodline mapped like a chessboard.”
I stared at Darius, quiet for a beat.
He wasn’t threatening them.
He was reminding them.
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“I don’t take chances with you,” he said. “And I sure as hell don’t let snakes walk twice.”
I exhaled slowly, grounding myself again.
Stil, the doubt itched beneath my skin like a splinter I couldn’t shake.
He saw it in my eyes, and for the first time, something shifted in his tone, not softer, but closer.
He reached out and gave my shoulder a single, firm pat.
“I will burn down every piece of that bastard’s life,” Darius said, low and lethal. “Brick by brick, and when I say I’ll do it for you, Zyrah, you better believe me.”
I looked at him, and I did believe him.
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There was no one in this world more dangerous than a man like my brother, with intelligence like ice and loyalty sharp enough to kill.
Without another word, he pushed away from the table, straightened his jacket, and walked out of the boardroom, leav- ing me alone with silence and smoke.
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Ronan’s Point Of View.
