The sterile, crystalline silence of the private hospital suite was a lie.
Tristan Ashford lay amidst the opulent sprawl of marble floors and automated luxury, his gaze fixed on the ceiling as if he could bore a hole through the literal architecture of his confinement. The wound in his side twinged—a reminder of the sabotage—but his mind was miles away, anchored to the sharp, haughty image of Isidore Davenant.
The vibration of his phone on the over-bed table broke his reverie. It was Jesper.
"What?" Tristan answered, his voice a low, dangerous rasp.
"Mr. Ashford! Have you seen the digital feed? Have you turned on the news?" Jesper was shouting, his professional composure clearly having suffered a catastrophic collapse.
Tristan rolled his eyes, the crystalline blue of his irises darkening with boredom. "Jesper, if this is about the stock dip, I told you to handle it. What is there to see besides vultures circling a carcass?"
"It's not the stock, Mr, Tristan! The fans... they've gone feral! They've localized at the Davenant estate!"
Tristan froze. The boredom evaporated, replaced by a cold, sudden dread that felt like a bucket of ice water down his spine. "What do you mean? What the hell happened at the estate?"
Without waiting for Jesper's frantic stuttering, Tristan grabbed the sleek remote and jabbed at the power button of the massive TV mounted on the wall.
The screen flickered to life, showing a live aerial shot of a familiar, starkly modern black-and-white structure. It was Isidore's sanctuary.
A news reporter, standing safely behind a line of riot police, was speaking with breathless intensity.
"—situation escalating at the Davenant Penthouse. Tensions reached a fever pitch moments ago when Mr. Davenant appeared in the garden. In a shocking act of aggression, a protester managed to strike the scholar with an object—confirmed to be a tomato—leading to a chaotic retreat. The fanbase remains incensed, blaming the CEO for Mr. Ashford's recent injury..."
Tristan didn't hear the rest.
The image of Isidore—his proud, elegant Isidore—Being pelted with filth by a faceless mob caused something in Tristan's chest to snap. A white-hot, volcanic fury surged through his veins, obliterating the pain of his stitches.
He gripped the remote so hard the plastic groaned. With a guttural snarl of pure, unadulterated rage, he hurled the device across the room. It struck the TV screen with the force of a projectile, splintering into a thousand jagged shards of plastic and silicon.
"How dare they!" Tristan roared, his voice echoing off the marble. "How dare those wretched animals lay a finger on my Isidore!"
The door to the suite burst open as three nurses rushed in, terrified by the sound of destruction. They found Tristan sitting upright, his crystalline blue eyes flashing with a predatory, lethal light that made them tremble.
"Mr. Ashford! What happened? Are you hurt?" the lead nurse stammered.
Tristan ignored them as if they were ghosts. He snatched his phone, his fingers flying across the screen as he dialed the one person he knew would be standing in the center of the storm.
Back at the Davenant penthouse, the air was thick with the scent of ozone and unspent rage.
Isidore sat on the velvet couch in the living room, his head leaning back against the cushions. His eyes were closed, but his breath was coming in short, shallow gasps. His blood pressure was spiking again, a rhythmic thumping in his ears that threatened to drown out the world.
Zayn was a wreck of nervous energy. He sat beside Isidore, clutching one of the Omega's hands and rubbing it frantically.
"Calm down, Davenant. Just breathe. Look at me—just breathe, okay? The security is holding. Leon is... well, Leon is probably committing several felonies outside, but the gates are closed."
Isidore didn't open his eyes. He didn't have the strength to look at the tomato juice that had likely stained the couch. "Whatever has gotten into them... it wasn't our fault, Zayn."
"I know that!" Zayn chirped, his voice a pitch too high. "That's what I'm saying! But these fools have no minds. They hear 'Tristan Ashford was injured at a dominion Enterprises studio' and they turn into a medieval lynch mob. It's almost funny, right? In a 'we might die' sort of way?"
Isidore opened one eye. It was cold, dead, and utterly unamused.
Zayn flinched. "Okay, okay! Not funny. Bad joke. Terrible timing."
Suddenly, Zayn's phone shrieked in his pocket. He pulled it out, blinking at the caller ID. "It's... it's Mr. Ashford is calling."
Isidore's posture stiffened instantly. He didn't move, but the flush in his ears deepened from a stress-red to a vivid, humiliated crimson.
Zayn cleared his throat and swiped to answer. "Yes, Mr. Ashford? We are a bit busy with a—"
"What the hell is going on, Zayn?" Tristan's voice barked through the speaker, so loud it was audible to everyone in the room.
Zayn jumped. "Didn't Jesper tell you? There's a bit of a... crowd..."
"I don't give a damn about the crowd!" Tristan snarled, his voice trembling with a protective ferocity.
"I'm talking about Isidore! Why the fuck were they allowed to humiliate him? Do those idiots have any idea what they've done? If anything—if anything happens to him, I swear on my life, I will personally remove every fan who had the guts to throw that damn tomato at my beautiful Isidore!."
Zayn's mouth twitched. He looked at the phone, then at Isidore, utterly stunned by the sheer, unbridled possessiveness in the Alpha's voice. He had never heard the "Golden Boy" of the screen sound so much like a territorial beast.
Isidore, however, had turned his head sharply away from Zayn. The blush had traveled from his ears to his neck, his heart doing a strange, fluttering dance that had nothing to do with high blood pressure and everything to do with the word "Beautiful."
"Well, Mr. Ashford," Zayn stammered, trying to regain his professional footing. "We are... we are working very hard to ensure this nonsense goes no further. Leon is handling the perimeter."
"Where is he?" Tristan demanded, his tone dropping to a low, urgent growl. "Where is Isidore? Put him on."
Zayn glanced at Isidore, who was currently staring at a vase of flowers as if he intended to set them on fire with his mind. He shook his head frantically at Zayn, his lips miming a silent 'No!'
"He... he's taking a shower, Mr. Ashford," Zayn lied, his voice wavering. "To, uh... wash off the... incident."
A heavy, pained sigh came from the other end of the line. Tristan's voice softened, but the underlying edge of steel remained.
"I swear, Zayn. I will kill all of them. Anyone who dares to insult my Omega will regret the day they learned my name."
The line went dead.
The silence that followed was heavier than the noise outside. Zayn slowly lowered the phone, his eyes wide.
"Well," Zayn whispered. "I suppose that counts as a defense."
Isidore stood up abruptly, his silk robe snapping around his legs. He didn't say a word. He didn't look at Zayn. He simply marched toward the stairs, his spine as rigid as a sword.
"Davenant? Where are you going?"
"To find a bigger lock for the door," Isidore hissed over his shoulder, his face still glowing a brilliant, furious pink.
The film studio, usually a temple of fabricated dreams and celluloid magic, was now a cold, sterile crime scene draped in the long shadows of industry spotlights.
Joshua stood in the center of the chaos, the brim of his police cap casting a shadow over his sharp, inquisitive brown eyes. Beside him stood a man who seemed to belong to a different world entirely—Zephyr. He was tall, an architectural marvel of a man with hair the color of spun moonlight and eyes of a haunting, crystalline violet that seemed to harbor a thousand unspoken enigmas.
On the evidence table sat two identical objects: a harmless prop and a lethal, cold-steel blade.
"So, what's the story, Zephyr?" Joshua asked, gesturing to the twin shadows on the table. "What does the forensic soul of this evidence tell you?"
Zephyr didn't immediately respond. He leaned down, his movements possessing a feline, dangerous grace.
He didn't just look at the knives; he inhaled. He closed his eyes, his long lashes fanning against the pale skin of his cheekbones as he dissected the invisible molecules of the air.
For a full minute, the studio held its breath.
"Ormonde Jayne," Zephyr whispered, his voice a smooth, baritone velvet.
Joshua blinked, confused. "Ormonde Jayne? Is that a suspect or a street name?"
Zephyr pushed his silver-rimmed glasses back up the bridge of his straight nose, his violet eyes flashing with a sharp, intellectual fire. "It is a perfume, Joshua. A very specific, very expensive olfactory profile. Oudh and hemlock."
He straightened his posture, looking effortlessly elegant amidst the grime of the investigation. "Before the first frame was even captured, someone saturated in that scent switched the prop for the real steel. It wasn't a mistake. It was a ritual."
Joshua placed a finger under his chin, his mind racing to keep up. "A switch before the cameras even rolled... that implies premeditation. Someone who knew exactly where the props were staged."
They both turned their heads toward the huddle of crew members, stylists, and assistants—a sea of nervous faces illuminated by the harsh overhead lights.
Standing apart from the crowd was Jesper.
Tristan's manager and lawyer looked like a portrait in obsidian and silk. His black hair was tucked into a long, impeccable ponytail that trailed down his spine, and his dark eyes were darting across the room with a mixture of professional stoicism and deep-seated stress.
He was a man fighting two wars: one for Tristan's health and one for Isidore Davenant's reputation.
Little did Jesper know, he was being scrutinized by a new predator in the room.
Zephyr, the man of ice and logic, found his focus fracturing. He watched Jesper's graceful, frantic movements—the way the man's obsidian eyes caught the light, the way his jaw tightened under pressure. For the first time in his career, Zephyr felt a flush of heat creep up his neck. He was mesmerized by someone so seemingly plain yet so deeply compelling.
He quickly averted his gaze, adjusted his glasses again, and felt a rare, stinging prickle of shame.
Joshua, sensing the shift in the air, decided to focus on a trembling stylist nearby. He crouched down, making himself appear less threatening to the witness.
"Have you seen anyone else near the prop storage?" Joshua asked, his voice low and steady. "Anyone who didn't belong?"
The stylist stuttered, his hands shaking as he gripped his clipboard. "Y-yes, Officer. It was Mr. Kai. I saw him lingering there when I went to call him for the shoot. He seemed... preoccupied."
Joshua nodded, a grim satisfaction settling in his chest. "Mr. Kai. Interesting."
He turned back to Zephyr, who was still subtly stealing glances at Jesper. Joshua saw the blush on the detective's face and a wicked smirk touched the officer's lips. He stepped directly into Zephyr's line of sight, flickering his fingers in front of the blonde man's face.
Zephyr jumped, his violet eyes widening as he snapped back to reality. The blush deepened, making him look devastatingly handsome in his disarray.
"Well, well," Joshua chuckled, his voice dripping with amusement. "Our dear, cold-hearted detective seems to be in quite a 'distracted' mood today."
Zephyr pushed his glasses up for the third time, his voice regaining its icy veneer. "I am merely analyzing the demographics of the room, Joshua. Don't be tedious."
"Analyze all the 'demographics' you want later," Joshua said, patting his holster as he looked toward the exit. "We don't have time for a library romance, Detective. Let's dig into the rot of this case before the trail goes cold."
Then Joshua's retreat back, the heavy studio doors groaning as they swung shut behind the officer. The silence that followed was thick, flavored with the metallic tang of blood and the fading, ghostly effluvium of Ormonde Jayne.
The detective adjusted his silver-rimmed glasses, his mind recalibrating. He stepped over the yellow police tape with a feline grace, his focus shifting to the man who was no longer just an actor, but a primary anomaly in his perfect logic: Kay Lockwood.
Outside, the late afternoon sun was beginning to bleed into the horizon, casting long, skeletal shadows across the studio lot. Joshua was leaning against the squad car.