"Five hundred is the floor," Voren said. No posturing in it at all. "I’m not going lower."

Seraphine was quiet for a moment, looking at him the way you look at something you need to think about from more than one angle.

"MindNest is stable," she said finally. "I have plans for other companies eventually. But there’s something else I’m focused on, and that’s finding my daughter. And when I do, she becomes everything. The business, the city, all of it drops to second place."

She held his gaze. "That’s why Corvine has the CEO title. He can carry it without me with all the human resource we have put in place together. So I’m asking you honestly, knowing I could leave the country and not look back, do you still want to put five hundred billion into something I might walk away from?"

If Bryan had truly been Ravyn’s biological child, none of this would have spiraled this far out of control. She knew that deep down, in that quiet, stubborn place she usually avoided touching, but reality wasn’t something she could keep dodging forever, especially not now when the truth was already inching its way toward the surface, threatening to tear everything open at the worst possible moment.

And that looming exposure, pressed against her chest like a weight she couldn’t shake off, driving her into a kind of desperation that made her thoughts sharper, more frantic, and more dangerous.

Because now, it wasn’t just about hiding anymore, but rather moving faster than the truth itself.

She needed to find her daughter and hide her somewhere safe before Ravyn finds out the truth about Bryan.

So her plan, reckless as it felt, began to take shape with a chilling clarity.

The word ’leave’ moved through Voren in a way he didn’t have clean language for. Something that arrived without permission and settled somewhere it hadn’t been invited. He kept his face exactly where it was.

"Where would you go?"

"Why does that matter to you?" She asked flatly, no heat in it. Just clean and direct. "Because of the shares? That’s not enough of a reason for me to map out my future for you. I don’t stay in predictable lanes and I won’t pretend otherwise just to make this easier for you."

He watched her with the attention of a man who’d spent enough time in rooms with powerful people to know the difference between someone performing conviction and someone who simply had it. She had it.

He thought about the Sovereign Circle meeting. The version of her who had maneuvered him into that corner with such patient, precise efficiency that by the time he’d agreed, it had barely even felt like a choice.

That woman had wanted him at the table and worked for it. And now here she was telling him the table might not exist in a few years.

The contradiction was genuinely interesting.

"You backed me into a corner the first time," he said, and there was something close to appreciation in it. "You were relentless. And now you want to play reluctant."

He sat with it for another beat, and then something in him settled quietly, like a decision that had been properly weighed. "I’ll take the risk. Give me a week to move the funds. And as far as I’m concerned, we’re friends."

"Business partners," Seraphine corrected immediately, with a precision that left exactly zero interpretive room. "That is all this is."

Voren looked at her. "You sure about that?"

"What are you implying?" She asked curious, Voren shook his head.

"Nothing," he said evenly, giving nothing away. "I was going to take you somewhere tonight, but you look tired. Tomorrow," he said with certainty, like it was something she could not escape from.

Seraphine frowned. "I’m not free tomorrow. I have things to go over with Damon." She paused. "And how am I supposed to know anything I’ve told you tonight actually stays between us?"

"We add a clause to the contract when we formalize the increase," he said, with the brisk efficiency of a man who’d already drafted this in his head. "If I disclose anything about your personal situation with Ravyn to him or anyone else, I forfeit every dollar invested in your company. No recovery." 𝓯𝙧𝙚𝒆𝙬𝙚𝒃𝙣𝙤𝒗𝓮𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

The breath Seraphine let out was slow and longer than she meant it to be. "That works." She set her napkin on the table. "There’s nothing else to cover. Take me back to the hotel."

"Of course."

Voren pulled out his wallet, set a thick fold of bills on the table without asking for a check. The waiter appeared almost immediately.

"Alpha Voren, tonight is complimentary. The house insists."

Voren shook his head once. The kind of once that ends a conversation. "Tell the manager that I don’t accept free things." This never happened when he came with Ravyn so why was it happening when he showed up with Seraphine?

He stood, and without any apparent thought, he reached out and took Seraphine’s hand as they moved toward the door. They were three steps in before he felt her pull away, and the awareness of what he’d done arrived with the particular, unwelcome clarity of something obvious landing too late.

He said nothing. She said nothing. They walked out.

At the hotel, Voren stopped at the front desk and spoke quietly to the receptionist, the kind of quiet that makes it clear what’s being said is not a suggestion. "I’ll be in the room next to hers."

After taking the keys, he walked with her as he spoke, "keep your door locked. You hear anything at all, you come to me first."

"I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself," Seraphine said, one step behind him.

"I know." He didn’t turn around. "I’m taking care of my investment."

The sound her teeth grinding together was almost audible. "I genuinely cannot stand you," she said, reaching for her door. "Just so you know."

Voren leaned one shoulder against the frame beside her, unhurried and completely unbothered. "Feeling’s mutual." Something that wasn’t quite a smile moved at the corner of his mouth. "I’ll take you to that place tomorrow. You’ll like it."

"I already told you—"

"Go shower," he cut in. "Get some sleep. We can argue about tomorrow in the morning."

She swallowed whatever she’d been about to say, because honestly, the exhaustion had won. She went inside, and the lock clicked.

Voren stood in the hallway until he heard it, then went to the room next door, pulled out his phone, and dialed.

Ravyn picked up on the second ring.

"Voren, is Seraphine alright?"

Not the hello of a man who’d just been woken up. The hello of a man who’d been waiting for this call without knowing he was waiting for it, which was, in itself, an answer to a question Voren hadn’t quite finished forming yet.

When his own voice came out, it had dropped every layer of the evening’s easier register and arrived somewhere bare and direct, carrying an edge he didn’t usually let people hear.

"How did you already know I was calling about her?" He paused, his voice cold and measured. "Ravyn. If I find out you had any part in sending those assassins after her tonight, you’re going to regret every year we’ve been friends."