Silas's hand stayed locked around my waist.
It wasn't a hold. It was a claim.
The message was clear: if I tried to run, he would drag me back.
"Everyone," he said, voice low enough to make the air feel heavier, "out. Now."
The command was absolute.
No one argued.
The CFO didn't wait to catch his breath. He crawled for the door on hands and knees, coughing and gagging, leading a frantic exodus of executives who looked less like board members now and more like prey. I stayed pinned against the glass, watching them flee over Silas's broad shoulder. One director glanced back at me, eyes wide with pity and horror, like she was watching a lamb get left in a room with a starving lion.
The private elevator chimed.
Heavy, controlled footsteps crossed the marble. A man rounded the table and stopped at the sight of the wreckage. Beta. Broad shoulders. Sharp eyes. The kind of stillness that belonged to security, not finance. His gaze moved over the broken glass and the ink-stained table before landing on Silas.
Then on me.
His expression went blank in the deliberate way of a man trying not to react. "Sir."
Silas didn't look away from me. "Seal the floor, Bastian. No one enters. No one leaves."
"It's done," the Beta replied, eyes flicking briefly to Silas's hand as it shifted from my waist to the back of my neck.
"Replace every air filter in the building." Silas's voice hardened. "And Bastian—if a single person repeats what they saw here today, remove the problem."
Bastian nodded once, but the confusion was there. He knew Silas Thorne, the man who should have torn this room apart. He did not know the version of him standing here now, holding a forgettable data analyst like she was the only thing keeping him upright.
"Come with me."
Not an invitation.
Silas steered me toward his private elevator. The black mirrored doors sealed behind us, trapping us inside a space that suddenly felt too small. Up close, the heat pouring off him was brutal. I could hear the rough drag of his breathing, still uneven from the chemical attack.
I pushed my glasses up my nose and glanced at our reflection in the mirror. I looked dull and forgettable. He looked like a predator who had just decided what belonged to him.
"You do realize kidnapping payroll staff is usually frowned upon by HR, Mr. Thorne?"
Silas turned his head slowly. The crimson in his eyes had faded back to a cold, dangerous gray, but the intensity hadn't. "Good," he said, voice rough. "You talk."
The elevator opened straight into his private sanctuary.
Charcoal stone. Reinforced glass. Too much silence. The air was cold, sterile, stripped clean by industrial-grade filters.
Silas walked me backward until the backs of my knees hit the edge of his obsidian desk. Then he planted both hands on either side of me and boxed me in.
"What are you?"
"A salaried employee with a low tolerance for workplace violence."
His stare didn't move.
"Why do you have no scent?" he asked. "Not even fear."
I let a beat pass, keeping my face blank. "A rare endocrine disorder. Congenital hormonal suppression. I don't produce pheromones, Mr. Thorne. I'm basically a biological blank slate."
"A blank slate," he repeated.
"It makes me excellent at spreadsheets," I said. "And terrible at dating."
He searched my face for the lie.
Then he tested me.
His Alpha aura rolled out again—not the wild blast from the boardroom, but something controlled and deliberate, a crushing pressure meant to force wolves to submit and humans to panic. The crystal glasses on the sideboard gave a faint tremor.
I blinked. Looked at the glasses.
"Is the HVAC acting up again," I asked, "or is this just an executive power move?"
The pressure vanished instantly.
Silas went very still.
"You don't feel that," he said, more to himself than to me.
"I feel like I'm being interrogated in a very expensive office," I said. "Does that count?"
He stared at me for a long moment.
Then he stepped back.
That was when I saw it.
The flare of his nostrils. The tension cutting through his jaw. The way his body reacted the second more space opened between us. Without my nothingness muting the world around him, his senses were already starting to turn on him again.
He was addicted to silence.
And I had become the only place he could find it.