The sky outside had deepened to indigo by the time Kira wandered back into the beach house, relaxed and pleasantly tired from her walk along the shore. Derek, on the other hand, had been pulled into an urgent business call.

A merger contract with one of the strongest northern Lycan packs had landed in his inbox overnight. His lawyer had reviewed the draft days ago, but the final version had arrived with an urgent request for signature before morning. He had been trying to reach Ryan for clarification, but his lawyer wasn’t picking up.

Kira heard his low, clipped voice drifting from the study as he spoke to Declan. Feeling the long day catch up with her, she went upstairs to freshen up. When she came back down, he was still at it, rubbing his temples. He looked stressed. She decided to give him some space and wandered into the kitchen. She found Flora’s note stuck to the fridge with a little magnet shaped like a seashell.

’Dinner is plated and kept warm in the oven. Help yourselves. Fx’

She opened the oven door. Three generous plates waited: grilled sea bass with lemon and herbs, roasted vegetables, a side of herbed rice. One plate was Derek’s lunch, but it sat untouched.

She frowned and glanced towards the kitchen door. "Why hasn’t he eaten?" she muttered to herself.

She ate her own meal in silence, but the thought of him starving in the study began to gnaw at her. She put together a tray with his dinner and a few muffins Flora had left earlier.

"Hey, you," she said, nudging the study door open.

Derek didn’t bother looking up from his tablet. He was rubbing his temples, the glow of the desk lamp making the sharp lines of his face look even harsher. "What are you doing here?"

"I noticed you haven’t touched lunch or dinner." She set the tray carefully on the low table in front of the sofa, then placed the little plate of muffins directly on his desk beside his tablet. "Flora made these. Thought you might be hungry."

His eyes flicked briefly to the muffins, then back to the screen.

"Is that the Volkov Merger?" she asked, tilting her head to read the heading of the documents on Derek’s tablet. "Kai mentioned they’d been circling for months."

"It’s private business. Go to bed," came Derek’s dismissive reply.

Kira didn’t move. Instead, she leaned over the desk, squinting at the digital page he was studying. "You’re about to sign Article 12.4? The Mutual Defence and Resource Allocation clause?"

Derek looked up, his gaze icy. "I don’t remember hiring a sophomore to audit my contracts."

"You should," she retorted, pulling the tablet towards her before he could stop her. "Look at the wording in the third paragraph. Under Inter-Pack Governance Law, the term ’Residual Sovereignty’ in this context is a trap. Since the Volkovs are technically a ’Vassal Pack’ to the Northern Throne, signing this gives their High Alpha the right to audit your private treasuries every time there’s a border dispute."

Derek paused, his stylus hovering over the signature line. He looked at the paragraph again. He had read it five times, but he had read it as a warrior, focused on the defence terms. He hadn’t read it as a lawyer. He had been distracted by her cheeky video on that particular day when this contract was discussed in the boardroom after all.

"They’re framing it as ’transparency’ for the alliance," Kira continued, her finger tapping the screen. "But if you sign this, you aren’t just making a deal. You’re giving them a backdoor into your pack’s financial secrets. In two years, they’ll have enough leverage to challenge your seat on the High Council."

The silence in the room became heavy. Derek studied the text, then looked up at Kira. For the first time, he didn’t see a distraction. He saw a sharp, tactical mind that had just saved him from a catastrophic mistake.

Still, he had to run this through a proper lawyer. He picked up his phone without saying anything and dialled Kai’s elder brother, Tan.

"Hey, Tan," he said when the call connected. "I can’t reach Ryan. I need something looked at urgently."

"What is it?" Tan’s voice came through, easy.

"I need your lawyer to review one clause of a contract. I’m not... entirely clear on it."

"You’re in luck. Benny’s right here. Send it over."

"Done. Emailing now. I need an answer tonight."

He hung up, forwarded the file, and leaned back in the chair. Kira let out a long breath and dropped into the armchair opposite him, arms folded, as they stared at each other. Less than sixty seconds later, the phone rang again. Derek answered without taking his eyes off her. 𝑓𝘳𝘦𝑒𝑤𝑒𝘣𝘯ℴ𝘷𝘦𝓁.𝑐𝑜𝑚

"Your Grace," came the calm, precise voice of Benny. "Please do not sign this contract. This is a trap."

Derek exhaled slowly. "Thank you, Benny." He ended the call, then looked at Kira again. "How did you catch that?"

"Because while you were busy learning how to break bones, I was learning how to break systems," she replied with a small, confident smirk. "You’re lucky I’m a nerd, Derek."

She stood, brushing imaginary lint from her shorts. "Enjoy your dinner. Good night."

She winked at him and walked out without another word, leaving him staring after her, stunned, silent, and for the first time in a very long time, quietly impressed.

Who was this woman? And why was she being so kind to him?

*

Derek stood alone in the study, hands fixed into his trouser pockets, staring out at the black wall of clouds that had swallowed the horizon. Lightning forked silently across the sky, illuminating the sea for split seconds before plunging everything back into darkness. Deep, bone-rattling thunder followed as he inhaled deeply and grunted. Rain drummed heavily on the roof and surfaces.

It had been over an hour since Kira had left him, yet he still couldn’t wrap his head around the fact that she had saved him. Has he been wrong about her all along?

He paced back to his desk and picked up the tablet again. When Volkov had presented this contract a few days ago, that trap of a clause hadn’t been there. And why the bloody hell was his lawyer, Ryan unreachable?

Another thunderclap shook the glass panes, startling him. Then a sound cut through the roar of the rain, a piercing, blood-curdling scream from upstairs.

Derek froze.