I slipped out of bed and took the executive tablet Silas had given me.
The penthouse was dark and silent, the kind of silence that felt engineered rather than natural. I sat in the living room, the cold light of the screen washing over my face, and logged into Thorne Group's secure intranet.
The biometric locks had already been cleared for my profile.
Convenient.
Dangerous.
I started with the obvious.
Search: Silver Coven.
No results.
Not even a dead-end legal reference. Nothing public, nothing archived, nothing that should have existed and been buried badly.
So I switched parameters.
Restricted historical records. Private legal archives. Legacy security indexing.
Then I tried again.
Search: Vance massacre.
The system stalled for half a second.
Not enough for most people to notice.
Enough for me.
Then a black folder surfaced on the screen. No preview. No metadata. No visible owner. Just a locked shell sitting under the highest executive encryption tier.
My pulse kicked once.
I split the screen and opened decryption tools, starting with the outer architecture instead of the folder itself. The build was ugly—old security protocols layered over newer ones, patched together by someone paranoid and expensive.
I started cutting.
One layer. Then another.
Fragments surfaced in the code.
Vermont incident...
Private archive...
Target confirmed...
With every piece I pulled loose, the blood in my veins ran colder.
A floorboard didn't creak.
The air didn't shift.
There was no warning at all.
But the temperature behind me dropped anyway.
I didn't freeze.
I already knew he was there.
Silas appeared first in the dark reflection of the window. Barefoot. Bare chest. Low-slung black sleep pants. His hair was rough from sleep, his face stripped of the hard polish he wore in daylight.
He looked more dangerous like this.
Not calmer.
Less restrained.
A beast operating on instinct, half-awake and already aware that whatever kept him sane had moved too far away.
"Couldn't sleep?" I asked, keeping my tone flat.
He didn't answer.
He crossed the room without a sound.
Then he stepped into my space, and the heat of his body rolled over my skin like a wave. One hand braced on the back of my chair. The other landed on the armrest. In one movement, he boxed me in completely.
He still wasn't looking at the tablet.
That should have reassured me.
It didn't.
His head dipped.
His face pressed straight into the curve of my neck.
Every muscle in my body locked under the silk.
He took one deep, rough inhale against my skin.
Not a kiss.
Not tenderness.
Pure survival.
The tension in his frame eased the second he breathed in my nothingness. His forehead dropped briefly against my collarbone, and I felt the full weight of his body trying not to unravel.
"Most CEOs send passive-aggressive emails when they need something at two in the morning," I said quietly.
His hand slid from the chair to my throat.
Not squeezing.
Just there.
Heavy. Possessive. Controlled.
Two fingers settled against my pulse, feeling the steady beat beneath my skin.
Then he lifted his head just enough for his mouth to brush my ear.
"For a terrified human," Silas said, voice rough with sleep, "your heart rate is remarkably slow."
My breath caught.
His thumb moved once over my pulse point.
Curious.
Calculating.
Lethal.
"What exactly are you hiding from me, Elara?" he murmured against my skin.
I opened my mouth, already building a lie.
Before I could say it, the tablet on my lap flashed bright red.
The sudden light flooded the dark room.
ACCESS DENIED. ALERT SENT TO ADMIN.
For one brutal second, neither of us moved.
The screen glowed between us like fresh blood.
Silas still hadn't looked down.
His fingers stayed at my throat.
His body stayed wrapped around the chair, caging me in with heat and quiet force.
And somehow that was worse than if he had lunged for the tablet.
Because it meant he was still focused on me.
Not the breach.
Not the alert.
Me.
My grip tightened around the edge of the device.
My mind was already moving—possible explanations, likely consequences, which lie would sound cleanest at this hour, at this distance, with his mouth still close enough to my skin to make the air feel too thin.
Silas finally lifted his head.
Slowly.
His gaze dropped to the screen.
Then back to my face.
No anger yet.
No explosion.
Just that terrible stillness he wore right before something dangerous happened.
The tablet pulsed red again in my lap.
ACCESS DENIED. ALERT SENT TO ADMIN.
Silas's eyes narrowed.
I could feel the exact moment his half-sleep slipped away.
Now he was awake.
Fully.
And I was trapped in the dark with a barefoot Alpha King, a live security alert, and a locked file tied to the massacre that had buried my family.
His thumb pressed once against my pulse.
Deliberate.
"You," he said, voice low and deadly calm, "had better have a very good reason for this."