The coffee on the thirty-second floor tastes like burned decisions. I keep sipping anyway because it gives my hands a job. They want to shake. I don't let them.
Cassian Hale watches the river instead of me. He's a dark shape against the window, suit jacket open, cuffs rolled back half an inch like he's about to wash his hands of something. He used to laugh when I told him he caught sleeves on doorknobs. He doesn't laugh now. He hasn't in a long time.
On the wall, a polite sign reads: No Shifting Above Floor 10. It's unnecessary theater. In pack-run buildings, power keeps its human face.
He turns. "Sign, Elena." Clean, businesslike. "My schedule is tight."
My name in his mouth is glass. Not sharp enough to cut—just cold enough to sting. There are no lawyers in the room. No witnesses. Just him, me, a table that matches the sky, and a pen that leaves a deep black wake.
I pick up the pen. Petition. Settlement. Non-disparagement. He's efficient; he even had the ring box set out, an old velvet thing the color of a bruise.
I sign where the yellow flags tell me to. It takes eight strokes to erase a marriage.
"Thank you," he says, already reaching for the papers. "My driver's downstairs."
There's an imprint around my ring finger where metal used to live. I touch it with my thumb and it's tender, like a word scrubbed off skin. "You should keep the box," I say, nudging it back. "You'll need it again."
A flick in his eyes. Then nothing. The nothing is what used to kill me. The not-quite looking, the standing there but not with me. The first time I understood it, we were in a crowded restaurant and he was smiling at something I'd said, and then his pupils unfocused—like someone had changed the channel and left me on mute. He blinked and came back and I told myself every man gets distracted. I told myself things I don't tell myself anymore.
His aura lifts in the room, subtle as barometric drop before a storm—an almost-sound, the tired hum of old fluorescents. Humans feel it as a weight behind the eyes. Wolves are built to obey. I used to mistake the breathlessness for butterflies.
The tide pushes. I keep breathing.
He notices. His gaze lifts to mine, a slow drag upward. "Elena?"
"Mm?" I put my cup down. I've burned my tongue. Minor pain; it anchors me.
He's searching my face for something—remorse, begging. When he doesn't find it, he nods once, like a judge granting his own petition. "This is for the best," he says.
"Which part?" I ask.
"The relief." Softer now, like the room is sleeping. "For you."
He means it. He thinks I'll be happier without him. For a long time I would've said no. I carried us both and called it love. Then I learned something new.
I slide a second folder onto the table.
He doesn't look at it. Men like Cassian believe the world blinks first. "I'll have my assistant coordinate the delivery of—"
"It's an acquisition notice," I say.
That gets his eyes.
"Effective three p.m. today," I continue, "Voss Capital assumes sixty-two percent of Hale Dynamics' outstanding notes. Per section 8.2 of your senior credit agreement, a continuing event of default allows the noteholder to appoint an executive chair and enact protective covenants." I tap the flag. "I'm the noteholder. I'm appointing myself."
The storm front of his aura rolls closer, pressure sliding along my skin like weather. Today it breaks on me like foam.
He's still for a full beat. City noise hums up the glass: siren, horn, a train somewhere dragging its steel tail. When he speaks, the words are precise. "You purchased our debt."
"I purchased your breathing rights," I say, and press the stamp to the page. It cracks cleanly.
Something in him glitches—down in the amber place behind his irises where his wolf lives. Fingers unclose, then fist again. Lightning-quick. If I hadn't lived with it, I might have missed it.
The door opens without a knock. Lucien Black, CFO and Beta—a beautiful man who wears cologne like an alibi—slides in on silent shoes. Betas have a different pressure than Alphas: crisp ozone, the suggestion of teeth. "I saw the notice." Smooth voice. "Ms. Vale, this is irregular."
"Not irregular," I say. "Inconvenient."
"Default requires a missed payment. Hale Dynamics hasn't missed a payment in twenty-seven quarters. We're the model patient."
"Covenant default," I say. "Your coverage ratio slipped last quarter. You hid it with a one-off asset sale. Our auditors have questions about the timing."
Lucien's nostrils flare, just a shade. His aura snaps like static—a Beta reflex to challenge—until Cassian turns his head. The room's pressure spikes: one beat of don't. Lucien smooths his tie. "Even if such a default existed," he says softly, "replacing the chair—"
"Executive chair," I correct. "Temporary. Protective. You keep your board. I keep the life support plugged in while you clean up your ratios." I meet Cassian's eyes. "The vote's at three. Bring your best arguments. Leave the aura."
Silence goes dense enough to grip. On the window, my reflection looks pale. Pale can still hold a line.
Lucien tries again. "May I ask the reason for such… aggressive action?" His tone makes aggressive sound vulgar. "Is this personal, Ms. Vale?"
Behind it: Divorce. Gossip. She was a nobody until he married her. She's angry. She's small.
I rub the groove where my ring used to be. Every cutting line I've swallowed for three years claws up my throat.
Instead, I smile—the charity-gala smile I wore when Siena liked to whisper near my ear where cameras couldn't catch it. The smile that says I know the price of quiet.
"Of course it's personal," I say. "Everything that matters is."
Priya's text pings on my lockscreen. tell him his aura can't bully a spreadsheet. My background photo is a close-up of a tiny blue sneaker stepping on a crescent-moon doormat. I've cropped it tight enough that you can't see a face. Habit makes me swipe the screen down fast.
"Three o'clock," I repeat, pushing my chair back. The legs squeal. I don't mind the noise. Honest sounds feel correct today.
Cassian speaks, and the edges of his voice scrape like someone took sandpaper to velvet. "Elena—"
The tug in my ribs is ridiculous and immediate. I hate that it's still there, that him saying my name can throw open a drawer I nailed shut. I don't turn. I slide my ring into the velvet box, click the lid, and leave it beside the decree.
"For the best," I say, echoing him without meaning to. "See you at the vote."
Lucien steps aside to let me pass. He's polite; he always is, in the way a cat is polite to a bird when the bird is still behind glass.
The hallway smells like lemon oil and printer heat, and underneath, the clean musk packs carry after a shift even when everyone's buttoned into suits. My heels make a tidy clock down the corridor. An admin clears her throat and pretends not to stare; another scrolls a messenger app and pretends she was always doing that. I ride the elevator alone because I jab the CLOSE button before anyone can step in. Petty, maybe. It feels like getting inches back.
Numbers count down. Thirty-two. Twenty-nine. Twenty. I grip the brass rail. My lips look colorless in the mirror; my eyes are the wrong kind of bright.
"You breathing?" Priya asks when I answer her call.
"In and out."
"She buy it?"
"He," I say, and then correct myself because I won't give him that intimacy anymore. "Yes. They'll scramble, but the covenants are clean. We used their own ratios."
"That's my girl." She hears the way I'm leaning on the rail and adds, "You're not alone even when the walls hum like that."
The doors open to winter and glass. The lobby guard—Tonio, old pack-born with a gold pack ring he never removed even after retirement—tips his chin. I tip mine back. We are each other's favorite kind of strangers.
Outside, the river is dull steel. The sky threatens snow without committing. A billboard features Cassian's face over BUILD WHAT LASTS. The irony lands like a bruise.
I take a short block—the kind you walk to keep from shaking—duck into a corner café with steamed windows, and order soup. The kid in the beanie slips an extra roll onto my tray like he's done it for a hundred tired women. I text Priya: board portal go live at 2:50. audit packet labeled wolf-proof. She replies with a thumbs-up and a sticker of a wolf being bonked by a spreadsheet.
I eat three spoonfuls I hardly taste, wrap the roll for later, and go back. Momentum is a rope you either keep pulling or watch go slack.
In the revolving door, someone bumps my shoulder and mutters sorry without looking. I want to be angry and I want to be nothing. Instead, I am a woman with a plan and a timetable. It's enough to get me into the elevator, up, through.
On thirty-two, the reception area buzzes with whisper-meetings. The boardroom doors stand open, but the chairs are empty; the vote will be virtual. I pass through to Cassian's office because I left a piece of myself in there and I intend to take it back.
He's alone. Lucien's cologne is gone. The river keeps flipping its coin outside. Cassian has the decree in one hand and my ring box in the other. For a second, it looks like he doesn't know where to put them. He sets the box atop the decree and aligns their corners.
"Three o'clock," I remind him, because I am nothing if not punctual.
He nods. "You move fast."
"I learned from the most."
"Is that what I am?" he asks lightly. "The most?"
It's almost funny that he thinks this is about his ego. "You're the most," I say. "It's different."
He takes a breath and steps around the desk. Rooms lean toward him without meaning to. Power sits on him like a watchband. It would be beautiful if it weren't exhausting.
"Your aura doesn't work on me," I say before he reaches for it.
His jaw flexes. "I'm not—"
"You are," I say gently. "You've leaned on it so long you don't know what you feel without it."
Something almost like shame flickers and is gone. He nods once. "Then I'll ask instead." His eyes hold steady. "Why this, Elena? Why today?"
Because you slid divorce papers across the table like I was a delivery to be signed for. Because Siena is wearing white online. Because I have a child who says moon with his whole body and I will stop the tide with my hands if it means he gets a life where people say his name like it matters.
"Because I can," I say, which is true and also not. "Because the numbers warrant it."
He studies me like a bridge he's not sure will hold. "You look different."
"I am."
He inhales—and something catches, a tiny cough of surprise, like he expected air to behave and it didn't. For a heartbeat, his pupils flash—wolf to window. It's too quick to call proof. It's enough to make me believe the rumor I clutch like a talisman: whatever numbed him didn't kill everything between us.
"Three," I say again, because my throat feels strange and my spine wants to curve toward him. I refuse to be shaped by want. "Bring your best arguments. Leave the aura."
I turn. He says my name—only my name, nothing attached to it. "Elena."
I don't look back. Not because it would break me, but because it wouldn't. That's new. That's mine. "Try the coffee," I say, hand on the door. "It's terrible."
In the hall, the world returns in small noises—the click of keys, the hiss of a soda can opening, the oof of someone dropping a binder. I breathe like I'm practicing for something. Maybe I am.
At two-fifty-eight, the board portal pings. At two fifty-nine, I sit at the head of a room full of empty chairs, roll my shoulders, and watch my reflection arrange itself into a woman men don't interrupt.
At three on the dot, I press unmute. "Good afternoon, Directors. Thank you for logging in on short notice."
Participant tiles populate the screen in neat squares. Cassian. Lucien. Three independent directors. One unfamiliar tile flickers in late, white sleeve, champagne glint.
Observer added: Siena Vale.
The city keeps its coin in the air.