The photograph felt like ice in Victor's hand.
It wasn't the black rose. It wasn't the scorched watch.
This was a violation of a different order. They had looked through a window at Lillian. They had invaded a moment of peace.
Victor's rage was a silent, expanding void.
It swallowed the room's warmth. It chilled the air. The bond in his chest didn't just hum. It screamed a single, primal note: Protect.
He was already moving.
His phone was at his ear. Jax answered on the first ring.
"Move her. Now. Code Black protocol," Victor commanded. His voice was stripped of all emotion. It was pure function.
"Understood. Initiating extraction," Jax replied. The line filled with the sound of quick, muffled orders.
"The photographer. I want a name. I want a location. I want them found before sunset."
"We're on it. Tracking the child courier first. There will be a trail."
Victor ended the call. He stared at the crumpled photo. They had escalated. They had crossed the one line he had drawn in the sand.
Targeting Elara was war. Targeting her sick mother was annihilation.
The office door opened. Elara walked in, her expression shifting from curiosity to alarm in an instant. She felt it through the bond—the glacial fury, the lethal focus.
"Victor? What's happened?"
He didn't speak. He held out the photograph.
She took it. Her fingers trembled as she smoothed the paper. She saw her mother. She saw the intrusive angle. She read the scrawl.
No more warnings.
A small, wounded sound escaped her. Then her face shut down. It became a mask of carved stone. Her scent, usually jasmine, turned metallic. Like a blade being unsheathed.
"They touched my mother." Her voice was whisper-quiet. It carried more threat than a shout.
"Jax is moving her. She'll be at the mountain safe house within the hour. No one will find her."
Elara nodded once. Her analytical mind was already churning. "This is Vance. Or someone acting with his blessing. It's too blunt for Davison. He's a snake, not a thug."
"It doesn't matter who gave the order," Victor said. "The Consortium owns the action. They all pay."
He walked to his desk console. He activated a secure, encrypted channel. Marcus's face appeared on the screen.
"Marcus. I need the Valkyrie Protocol. Authorize it now."
On the screen, Marcus's eyes widened. "Victor… that's the scorched-earth option. It'll burn capital. It'll expose—"
"Now, Marcus."
The Beta CFO swallowed hard. He gave a sharp nod. "Activating. It will take twelve hours to be fully live."
"Make it eight."
Victor cut the feed. He turned to Elara. The Valkyrie Protocol was their deadliest contingency. A digital and financial siege engine designed to systematically dismantle a rival's entire economic infrastructure. It was illegal. It was irreversible. It was their doomsday weapon.
"We're not just hitting back," Elara stated, understanding dawning.
"We are erasing them from the board. They wanted a war of attrition. I'm giving them a blitzkrieg."
His personal phone buzzed. An unknown number, again. He answered on speaker.
"A bit dramatic, don't you think, Sterling?" It was Vance. His voice was slick with false amusement. "A simple photograph. A reminder of how… interconnected we all are."
"You made a mistake, Alexander." Victor's tone was conversational. Deadly calm. "You targeted my family."
"Family is such an elastic concept for you, isn't it? A dying Omega from the slums. A contract wife. You dress it up in silk and call it a dynasty. We're just reminding you of the reality."
Elara stepped closer to the phone. Her voice was like polished glass. "Here is our reality, Mr. Vance. You are a ghost living in a museum. Your power is a rumor. Your money is a spreadsheet. By this time tomorrow, you won't even have that."
A beat of stunned silence.
Then Vance chuckled, but it was strained. "Brave words from a little girl playing with her Alpha's toys."
"Check your offshore holdings in the Caymans," Victor said softly. "The account ending in 3481. Refresh it."
A pause. They heard the faint clicking of a keyboard. A sharp intake of breath.
"What have you done?" Vance's voice lost all its polish. It was raw shock.
"That was the first leak. A test of our systems. The Valkyrie Protocol is now active. Every shell company, every hidden trust, every illicit payment you've made for the last thirty years… it's being packaged and prepared for delivery. To the IRS. To the SEC. To Interpol."
"You're bluffing! You can't have that data!"
"My mother kept very good diaries, Alexander. She named names. She recorded account numbers. She kept receipts. Clara Sterling was many things. A meticulous archivist was one of them."
The lie was delivered with perfect conviction. The diaries had hints, not proof. But Vance didn't know that. Fear was the weapon.
"You ruin me, you ruin half the old families in this city! You'll cause a collapse!"
"Then it collapses," Victor said, absolute finality in his voice. "The new foundation will be built on the rubble. Your choice. Stand down the Consortium. Dissolve it. Or burn with it."
He ended the call.
The silence in the office was profound. Elara looked at him. "The Protocol will work on the data we have. But it won't be the total wipe you just promised."
"He doesn't know that. He'll be scrambling. He'll be calling every member of the Consortium in a panic. Fear is a virus. We just gave it patient zero."
His own phone rang. Jax.
"We have her. Lillian is secure. The move was clean. No tails."
"And the photographer?"
"The child was paid fifty bucks by a man in a grey sedan. Plate was obscured. But we have traffic cam footage of the car entering a private garage beneath the Xenith Tower."
Victor's blood went cold. Xenith Tower. Alexander Vance's corporate headquarters.
"It was him. Directly."
"It gets better," Jax said, his voice grim. "Cross-referencing the garage access log with facial recognition on the driver… it's not a Vance employee. It's private security. Hired through a firm called 'Sable International.'"
"I know that name," Elara whispered. "They testified before my committee. Paramilitary contractors. They do 'executive protection' and 'asset recovery.' They're mercenaries."
The pieces slammed together. The Consortium wasn't just using lawyers and black roses. They had hired guns.
The game had changed completely.
"Jax. Full tactical alert. Assume our security details are now compromised. Rotate all personnel. New protocols. No one gets near Elara or me without a daily-changing code phrase."
"Already done. You're covered."
Victor hung up. He looked at Elara. The world had narrowed to this moment. The opulent office felt like a bunker.
"They've brought in professionals," he said.
"Then we need a professional response." Her eyes were hard. "We can't just hack their banks and scare them. We need to physically secure our world. And we need to dismantle theirs."
A new plan formed. Cold, precise, and utterly ruthless.
"Sable International has a reputation," Victor mused. "They're expensive. They're discreet. And they have a failure clause in their contracts. If a client becomes more liability than asset, they cut ties."
"How do we make Vance a liability?"
Victor's smile was all teeth. "We give Sable a better offer. And we give them proof their current client is about to cause a very public, very messy scandal that will draw heat onto them."
He opened a new line. This call was to a number he had never used. A number provided by a shadowy contact from his darker days.
It was answered after five rings. No greeting.
"I have a business proposition," Victor said. "For the head of Sable International. A retainer. Triple your current highest fee. For exclusive services. And for walking away from a client who is about to be radioactive."
A low, gravelly voice responded. "Name the client."
"Alexander Vance. And the entity known as the Consortium."
A pause. "Proof of radioactivity?"
"You'll have it within the hour. Financial crimes. Conspiracy. Attempted coercion of a federal official. And the unauthorized surveillance of a protected individual."
Another pause, longer this time. "The offer is interesting. The proof will determine the answer. Send it to the usual drop."
The line went dead.
Elara stared at him. "You're going to buy our way out of an assassination?"
"I'm going to buy their loyalty. And turn their guns on our enemies. It's not elegant. But it's effective."
He turned to his computer. For the next hour, he and Elara worked. They compiled the evidence they had on Vance—the leaked tax shelters, the link to the photographer's car, the threatening call logs. They wrapped it in a narrative of imminent, catastrophic exposure.
They sent it into the digital void.
The response came ninety minutes later. A single word text to a burner phone.
"Client terminated. Retainer accepted. Instructions to follow."
Victor showed Elara the screen. A wave of grim relief washed over them. They had just defanged the Consortium's most dangerous weapon by turning it against its owner.
But the victory felt hollow. It was a move made from a position of siege. They were spending capital, burning bridges, and operating in shadows.
The cost of this war was mounting.
Elara's phone rang. It was the private line for her mother's new location.
She answered, putting it on speaker. "Mom? Are you okay?"
Lillian's voice was thin but calm. "I'm fine, darling. A bit confused. These nice young men brought me to a lovely cabin in the mountains. There's a fire going. They said you and Victor thought I needed a vacation."
Elara's eyes filled with tears she refused to shed. "We did. Just for a little while. I'm so sorry, Mom."
"Don't you be sorry. That man on the phone, Jax, he explained. He said my daughter is changing the world. And sometimes, that makes scared people do foolish things." Lillian paused. "You be careful, my fierce girl. And you tell that Alpha of yours… the ones who live in castles are often the most afraid of the dark."
She hung up.
Elara looked at Victor. Her mother's words hung in the air.
The ones who live in castles are often the most afraid of the dark.
Victor understood. The Consortium had shown its true face. It wasn't just about power or money. It was about a desperate, clawing fear of a world they could no longer control.
A world where an Omega from the Warrens could sit in a senator's office.
A world where a trauma-scarred Alpha could choose love over isolation.
They were fighting not to win, but to prevent that future.
"They're afraid," Elara whispered.
"Good," Victor said, pulling her into his arms. His voice was a vow against her hair. "Let them tremble. We're not just building our future in the light."
He held her tight, feeling the bond steady and strengthen between them.
"We own the dark, too."