Levi Brooks was the last of the Bears. Said he was nineteen, working the register at a McDonald's in Austin, Texas, United States.
But that accent wasn't Texan. That was Vermont. Northeastern. Polished. And nineteen? That was cute. He was twenty-five, minimum. Twenty-six, maybe, and shaving twice a day to keep the baby face. The name? Utter fabrication. Something pulled off a character sheet. Generic enough to vanish in a crowd. Cashier? The Wolf didn't even dignify that with a second thought. Levi had the bearing of someone who lived in back-end systems, not burger lines. Software developer was the most likely answer. Maybe cybersecurity, but the Wolf leaned developer—there was a builder's logic in the way he listened, watched, waited.
At last came Alessandro's team—the Eagles.
The final four competitors in the trials. And unlike the Sharks, who couldn't spell the word truth if it was tattooed on their foreheads, the Eagles wore theirs on their sleeves. The Wolf didn't trust easily, but even they had to admit: this group was… different. The most honest team of the five.
And that was exactly what made them suspicious in a whole other way.
Larisa Bibescu, the Romanian. Twenty-eight years old. Born in Constanța, moved to Bucharest at twenty-three. Claimed she was a biomedical researcher.
And she was. No hesitations. No twitches. No inconsistencies.
Her story had the dull steadiness of someone used to writing it out in grants and academic bios. The kind of truth that wasn't flashy—just functional. Even her posture spoke of long hours hunched over microscopes, not mirrors. There was something deeply grounding about her. The Wolf didn't like it.
Tezcatlipoca Izel, the Mexican. Called himself Tez. Twenty-four, mechanical engineer, born and raised in Mexico City.
All true, too.
And what a name. Aztec. The Wolf appreciated that he didn't run from it—wore it like armor instead of a burden. He spoke with the precision of a man used to parts fitting exactly where they should. Efficient. Grounded. And beneath that? A wild spark. One that hadn't been smothered by disappointment yet. Tez was the kind of honest that came from deep self-assurance, not innocence.
Andries Du Plessis, the South African. Twenty-two. Worked in biotechnology, based in Cape Town, born in Johannesburg, raised in Durban.
Again, everything lined up.
His cadence, the casual pride in his country's three names, the gentle pauses when he mentioned his work. All real. He had the vibe of someone who still called his grandmother every week. The kind of guy who brought reusable bags to the grocery store. The Wolf didn't know what to do with that kind of person. Too normal to dismiss. Too grounded to manipulate. Too good, probably, for where they all were now.
And then came the anomaly.
Li Meilin. Asked everyone to call her Mei-Mei. Said she was twenty-one. From Guangzhou. A failed teen pop star turned marketing professional.
And that's where the truths of the Eagles ended.
Yes—she was Chinese. But the accent wasn't Guangzhou. It was Shanghai, clean and clipped with the undertones of someone who'd lived abroad for a while. And twenty-one? Sure. If this was a beauty filter and a soft-lit livestream. But in real life, the baby face was a trick of genetics and good skincare. She was older. Late thirties, maybe early forties if you looked closely enough. And yes, she had been a pop star—a long time ago. The kind of fame that burns bright and fast before leaving a crater.
But marketing? No. That was her cover. Everything about her screamed litigation. The way she measured every sentence, the surgical precision in her smile, the way her eyes flicked between speakers like she was building a case in her head. She was a lawyer. Criminal defense, probably. The Wolf knew the type. Mei-Mei had claws. She just was smart enough to hide them.
The Wolf cataloged each one of them with mechanical ease. It wasn't just habit—it was instinct by now. Trained, honed, lethal. Like a predator committing the shape of its prey to memory, they dissected everything: inflections, posture, inconsistencies, tells.
Name. Face. Age. Accent. Region. Probable lie. Probable truth. Behavioral baseline. Purpose. Usefulness. Threat level.
They could do this with their eyes closed.
And that was a good thing—because in this house, blindness meant death. Maybe not literally. Not yet.
But metaphorically? In this twisted game of masks and motives, the blind didn't just get eaten—they got puppeted first. You couldn't afford to play paranoid. That only made you loud. You had to be precise. And nothing was more precise than profiling.
And tonight, the Wolf needed clarity more than ever.
All they wanted—craved—was to survive dinner without raising too many eyebrows, get through the introductions without accidentally braining someone with a champagne flute, and finally disappear into the suite. Their suite. Sanctuary, at last.
They would close the door, lock it—twice. Check the windows. Sweep for cameras. And then they'd decipher the lock and open the vault. The damn vault. Inside lay the answer to the question that had haunted them since they'd stepped into this game:
Had the bastard billionaire cursed them with the role of secret millionaire in Stage One? Or had he picked someone else—some fool who now had a target burned into their back without even knowing it?
The former would be a nightmare. The Wolf had no interest in being hunted. But the latter? Now that would be a gift. The Wolf liked hunting. They liked it a lot.
After confirming their status, they planned to retire to the study, the one that's probably beside the bedroom, behind another door. There, they'd pull out a notebook. Page by page, they'd begin the real work—documenting everything they had observed tonight. Every slip of the tongue, every twitch, every faked laugh, every too-smooth detail in a backstory. The surface reads were done. Now came the deep dive. The hunt beneath the hunt.
But before that, dinner.
"Anyone else hungry?" Thalia's voice pierced through the gathering, her bottom lip pushed forward into a cartoonish pout. She knew exactly what she was doing. It wasn't just a question—it was a prompt, a test balloon for social rhythm. Classic tactic. Build cohesion through shared complaint.
"I'm starving," Ren groaned dramatically, tossing his head back like a stage actor.
"Me neither," came a chorus of groans and nods, as if someone had pressed 'sync' on a group script. They all glanced at one another, some with exhaustion, others with playfulness.
"That damned billionaire," Elijah muttered. "He probably did this on purpose."
"He said it'd be two hours before dinner." Thalia clutched her stomach like a Shakespearean heroine in distress. "I could eat a gorilla right now."
That earned a ripple of laughter—tired, genuine, and slightly delirious.
And the Wolf grinned inwardly. Not the kind of grin that showed on the face—oh no. Their exterior remained calm, passive, mildly amused at best.
But inside?
Inside, it was all teeth.
Because this—this moment of shared weakness, shared hunger, shared humor—was exactly what the Wolf had anticipated. They didn't need to manipulate anything. Not yet. All they had to do was stand still and let the game unfold in their direction. People who laughed together trusted each other faster. People who were hungry got sloppy. People who felt comfortable dropped their guard.
It was all happening. Just like a chess grand-master watching an opening they'd studied a hundred times— Everything was unfolding exactly the way they wanted.
And the Wolf had every intention of being three moves ahead.