Before I could finish the rite, Marco’s hand clamped over my mouth, his grip hard enough to silence not just my words but the entire hall.
“What the hell were you thinking?” he snarled, dragging me a step back from the altar like I was some reckless subordinate instead of the woman he was supposed to bind himself to. “You’d break our alliance over petty jealousy? Why are you always so damn childish?”
The word snapped something clean inside me.
I shoved him with everything I had, heels scraping against polished stone. “Childish?” My voice came out sharp, almost unrecognizable even to me.
The Romano estate wasn’t just a family home—it was neutral ground, a place where contracts between syndicates were sealed under watchful eyes and recorded in blood-ledgers. Breaking a union here wasn’t just personal. It was political sabotage.
And yet he was standing in front of me like I was the one endangering everything.
“I’m not the childish one, Marco,” I said, my chest rising and falling too fast. “It’s you. And your precious Rosanna.”
His eyes darkened instantly. “Sofia.”
That warning in his tone should have made me stop. Instead, it poured fuel straight into the fire.
I paced past the altar table where our signed documents waited half-finished, ink still drying like the entire alliance had paused to watch us fall apart. “You left me at the engagement signing. In front of both families. In front of the council. And now you’re here acting like I’m the problem because I won’t swallow it quietly?”
His jaw flexed. He looked like he was trying to contain an explosion, the kind of violence that didn’t need weapons when a man like him lost control.
“I did what I had to do,” he said coldly. “Rosanna needed me.”
That was it.
That name again. Always her. Always justification.
I laughed once, but there was nothing amused about it. “You would burn down an alliance for her and still call it duty.”
“Watch your tone,” he warned, stepping closer.
Something feral rose in me then—not syndicate-born instinct, not fate, but something far more dangerous in our world. The kind of rage that made people disappear in backrooms and bodies never make it to ledgers.
“Get out,” I said.
He didn’t move.
“I said get out,” my voice cracked louder this time, shaking the expensive glassware on the table. “I don’t care if you’re the heir to the Romano Consortium or the devil himself. Walk out before I forget I’m still playing nice.”
Silence stretched.
Then he exhaled, slow and controlled. “No. We’re not done.”
That arrogance—like he still had authority over me—was the final insult.
I grabbed his arm and twisted, using a strength I didn’t bother to question, and shoved him toward the door. For a second, I saw it—shock. Not fear. Shock that I had pushed back at all.
He moved like he might retaliate.
So I slammed the door in his face before he could decide whether I was still worth restraint.
The house went quiet in a way that felt suffocating.
For a few seconds, I just stood there with my palm pressed against the wood, waiting for the inevitable—guards breaking in, his fist through the door, his voice demanding control again.
Nothing came.
Only silence.
That silence was worse.
I couldn’t stay inside it.
I ran.
Not toward roads or safety or anything rational. I crossed the backyard and shifted mid-stride, bone and skin breaking and reforming as instinct took over. The woods swallowed me whole as I tore through unfamiliar territory, lungs burning, thoughts dissolving into pure movement.
I didn’t stop until even anger had nowhere left to go.
When I finally came back to myself, sunlight was already high and heavy through the trees.
I was lying in a meadow I didn’t recognize, surrounded by wild pansies bending gently in the wind like nothing violent had ever existed in the world.
For a moment, I just stared at the sky.
Then reality hit me all at once.
Wrong territory.
No syndicate scent markers.
No patrol lines.
No backup.
I sat up too fast. “Perfect,” I muttered under my breath. “Now I’m lost and delusional. Great combination.”
The air shifted.
Not loudly. Not dramatically. Just enough for instinct to sharpen.
I turned slowly.
From the trees, a black wolf appeared, calm and controlled, the kind of presence that didn’t announce itself—it ordered the room into silence.
He didn’t rush. Didn’t circle. Didn’t posture like a mercenary testing weakness. His movements were controlled—too controlled for someone without structure. And his eyes, when they met mine, were an impossible, piercing blue that didn’t belong in any common bloodline I knew.
My body reacted before my mind did.
A low warning growl rose in my throat.
But he didn’t respond the way strangers usually did. No aggression. No challenge. He simply stopped at the edge of the meadow and sat, watching me like I was something he had already decided not to destroy.
That unsettled me more than if he had attacked.
Because in our world, silence was never neutral. It was intent waiting for permission.
I didn’t wait to find out what his was.
I shifted back, turned, and ran.
Behind me, I felt his gaze stay fixed long after I disappeared into the trees.
“Note to self,” I muttered as I pushed through the forest, breath still uneven. “Never lose your mind in someone else’s territory.”
By the time I reached home, the sun had shifted and the estate gates came into view like salvation.
Mom was already on the porch.
The moment she saw me—disheveled, exhausted, half-feral from the run—her expression broke with relief so fast it almost hurt to witness. She crossed the yard and pulled me into her arms without hesitation, like she didn’t care what state I was in, only that I was back.
Dad followed right after, draping a blanket over my shoulders as I shifted back into human form.
“You scared us,” Mom said, voice tight. “You’ve been gone nearly a full day.”
“I’m fine,” I said automatically, though my body clearly disagreed.
Dad exchanged a look with her, then hesitated. “We have guests.”
My stomach dropped before I even asked. I already knew who it was without hearing the name.
Marco.
Or worse—Marco and Rosanna together, walking into my home like nothing had been destroyed.
Dad must’ve seen it in my face because he added quickly, “If you don’t want to see them, I’ll send them out.”
Before I could answer, the living room doors opened.
Carmen Romano stepped out first.
Marco’s mother. Always composed. Always strategic. The kind of woman who didn’t enter a room without already knowing the outcome she wanted.
“Sofia,” she greeted gently, and there was something in her voice I couldn’t immediately place—sympathy, maybe, or calculation disguised as it.
Behind her stood Nico Romano.
And he did not look like someone who had come for peace.
His jaw was clenched so tightly I could see the tension in it from across the room. His hands were at his sides, but his posture screamed restraint, like he was holding himself back from saying something that would set the entire estate on fire.
That’s when I knew.
This wasn’t Marco coming to fix things.
This was something worse.
