Brendan POV:
I kicked the rotting wooden door of the abandoned motel room open. The rusted hinges screamed in protest. I needed the violence of the action to hide the suffocating panic clawing at my throat.
I walked straight into the filthy bathroom and slammed my hand against the faucet. Freezing water blasted into the stained sink. I splashed it over my face, trying to shock my system out of the pathetic defeat I had just swallowed in the alley.
I looked up. The cracked mirror reflected a monster. A thick, dark red scar crawled from my right cheek down to my neck. It was the parting gift from the river rocks. My werewolf healing had closed the flesh, but it couldn't erase the trauma.
I touched the raised skin. My lungs seized. I felt the freezing river water rushing into my mouth, dragging me down into the dark. But the drowning wasn't the worst part. The worst part was the memory that played right before I hit the water. I saw June’s eyes. She had looked at me like I was garbage. Like I was a disease she needed to cut out of her life.
That look was the source of my madness.
I pulled my fist back and smashed it into the mirror. The glass shattered, embedding sharp shards into my knuckles. The physical pain grounded me. It punished me.
The bathroom door creaked. Marcus stood there, holding a thick stack of files and a roll of bandages. He looked at the broken glass on the floor, let out a heavy sigh, and set the bandages on the counter. He was used to my loss of control by now.
I pulled a jagged piece of glass out of my knuckle. The flesh knit back together instantly, leaving a thin white scar behind. My body could heal from anything, but the rot inside my chest was permanent.
Marcus opened the files. His voice was strictly professional. "We have reclaimed all assets in New York. The elders who betrayed you during your absence have been executed."
I didn't react. I grabbed a dirty towel and wiped the blood off my hands. Power and money used to be my entire identity. Now, the thought of my empire just made me sick.
I walked out of the bathroom and stared out the dirty window toward the faint lights of the town. "What did you find about the spell?" My voice was raw. I needed to know why she didn't feel my aura.
Marcus hesitated. His face paled as he handed me a photocopy of an ancient parchment.
I snatched it from him. My eyes scanned the complex Latin text. I had been trained by the best tutors in the world; the translation formed easily in my mind.
I read the words out loud, my voice trembling. "'Tabula Rasa does not merely erase the mind. It rewires the frequency of the soul, rendering the subject completely and permanently immune to all previous supernatural bonds.'"
The parchment crumpled in my shaking hands. Immune. The mate bond was gone. My claim on her soul was gone.
Marcus lowered his head. "Which means... to her, you are just an ordinary stranger."
I spun around, my eyes flashing with violent denial. "She is mine! Even if I am a stranger, I will make her fall in love with me again."
I marched over to the table and grabbed the stack of asset reports. I needed control. I needed to use the only weapons I had left. If magic didn't work, I would use the human world's ultimate power.
I pointed a bloody finger at the massive numbers on the page. "Mobilize the liquid funds from the Blackstone accounts."
Marcus pulled out his tablet, ready to type. "Which corporation are we acquiring, Boss?"
I sneered. My blood was boiling with desperate arrogance. "Buy the street."
Marcus froze. He looked up, blinking. "You mean... the main street where the antique shop is?"
I nodded. "Buy the shop. Buy the school where that bastard teaches. Buy every single property within a five-mile radius of her. I want it all." I would physically force Frankie out of her world.
Marcus swallowed hard. "Boss, this is a human town. A hostile takeover of an entire zip code will draw the attention of City Hall, maybe even the FBI."
I glared at him, my eyes freezing him in place. "Then buy City Hall too. If anyone gets in the way, suffocate them with cash until they shut up."
Marcus knew better than to argue with a desperate Alpha. He nodded stiffly. "I'll get it done." He paused at the door. "But... how do you plan to approach her tomorrow?"
I looked at my ruined reflection in the dark window. I ripped off my expensive, blood-stained suit jacket and threw it in the trash. I picked up a faded, washed-out denim jacket I had bought at a gas station and pulled it on.
"Tomorrow, I am just a miserable bastard named Bren who went bankrupt and came to a small town to heal."
