It started with silence. Not the kind they'd grown accustomed to in the war room of his office, but a vacuum that settled in once the file was uploaded and the domino had been tipped.
Nothing happened at first. No explosion. No alarm. No screaming emails or panicked phone calls.
Just... silence.
"That's it?" Anna asked, crossing her arms as she stared at the monitor.
"That's the trigger," Ethan said, leaning back in his chair. "Now we wait."
She glanced at the time. 10:02 a.m. Her muscles ached. Her stomach reminded her it hadn't been fed properly in three days. And her brain—God, her brain—felt like it had been flayed raw.
"We should get some air," Ethan muttered.
She turned to him slowly. "Excuse me?"
"Air. You remember that? The stuff outside?"
Anna blinked, and for the first time in nearly three weeks, she realized just how long she'd been locked in the echo chamber of his world. Three weeks since she chained him in a warehouse. Three weeks of unrelenting obsession.
She didn't answer. But she didn't say no.
She glanced down at herself—at the rumpled clothes clinging to her like smoke, the faint ink smudges on her wrist, the way her nails had grown unkempt. Her eyes were bloodshot, her face drawn tight with fatigue. She looked like a wolf trying to pass as a woman—starving, taut, and feral beneath a thin veneer of self-control. The hunger gnawed at her—not just for food, but for open space. For oxygen unfiltered by server heat and stale office dust. For a moment outside the war.
She hadn't hunted. Hadn't run. Hadn't moved freely in days. It was unnatural. Her body screamed for release—tightened muscles, wild instincts, that need for movement her kind couldn't ignore forever.
And Ethan? Ethan looked no better. Dark circles rimmed his eyes, and his shirt was so wrinkled it could stand on its own. Yet, like her, there was a restlessness in him. Something primal and quiet. A predator wound too tight in a cage of his own making. They needed air. They needed meat. And neither had the strength to deny it anymore.
They emerged like ghosts. Pale, strained, blinking into the morning haze. Ethan wore the same dress shirt from the night before, sleeves rolled, a jacket thrown over it like an afterthought. Anna looked like a woman who'd survived a fire—hair pinned hastily, eyes hollow but alert.
The street hit them like a slap. It was 10:42 a.m.—the city fully alive. Car horns blared in every direction. Vendors shouted from corners, hawking coffee and bread and cheap watches. A siren wailed two streets over. Delivery trucks reversed with high-pitched beeps. Pedestrians wove around each other like synchronized swimmers in a sea of impatience. Everything moved fast and loud and unapologetically alive.
And for two creatures who'd lived in shadows and silence for weeks, it was overwhelming.
They didn't speak as they walked. Not until the familiar skyline began to fade behind them and Ethan steered them off the main drag.
"Where are we going?"
"Somewhere that doesn't serve food in foil."
He led her to a quiet bistro tucked between a bookstore and a dry cleaner, the kind of place that didn't advertise, didn't try. But Ethan clearly knew it well.
Inside, the lighting was soft. The aroma of espresso and baked butter hung in the air like a welcome mat. No one looked up. The world hadn't ended yet.
They sat in a corner booth. Anna rested her back against the wall, eyes scanning the street as if expecting Kellerman's goons to burst in at any moment.
Ethan noticed. "They don't know it was me. Not yet. The transactions are routed through a chain of burner accounts and old case IDs. It'll take them time."
"Time we don't have," she said flatly.
"Which is why we eat now."
He ordered for both of them without asking, like someone used to taking control. She let him. It didn't matter—she was too exhausted to argue.
Minutes later, two plates arrived. Sausages, piled rations of turkey bacon, eggs, herbed potatoes, and thick slices of toast slathered in local jam. Real food. Not plastic-wrapped calories or energy bars.
Ethan took the first bite like a man remembering how to be alive.
Anna, for once, watched him instead of her surroundings. There was something surreal in the quiet here. The stillness. She sipped the coffee and found it too bitter—but honest.
She tried a semblance of self-control, forcing herself to hold the cup a second longer.
But then the aroma of the food hit her full-force—salt, grease, herbs. Her stomach coiled in protest. The wolf beneath her skin snarled. Coffee was no match for what she truly needed.
She set the cup down, nearly trembling now. The scent of meat made her blood sing. She'd spent weeks repressing instinct, discipline locking down the wild inside her—but now? Now it burst to the surface with frightening urgency.
She didn't speak. Just dug in.
Fork. Knife. Teeth.
The meat was devoured in precise, brutal silence.
Across from her, Ethan didn't react—at least not visibly. But he saw it. The sheen in her eyes. The faint tremble in her hand. The animal control stretched so thin it was practically transparent.
And the worst part?
He felt it too.
It was in the marrow. In the twitching muscles and the unblinking eyes. The blood calling for movement. The gnawing need for adrenaline, for purpose, for bite.
They weren't normal people in a café.
They were wolves, dressed in exhaustion and regret.
Ethan took a slower bite of toast, chewing like it held strategy. His mind was spinning—back at the office, at the chain reaction in motion.
He knew what was coming.
"You always come here?"
"Used to. When I needed to think."
She arched a brow. "You think better around carbs?"
He cracked a smile. "Don't we all?"
She wanted to hate how normal he looked in this light. Less like the defense attorney from hell, more like a man trying to claw his way back to something human.
A few minutes passed in silence. Then, Ethan leaned in slightly. "When this chain starts, it won't stop. The Cayman freeze will initiate red flags. That'll ripple to his Swiss holdings. His board will be notified. Then come the ethics committees. The lawsuits."
"And the vultures."
"Exactly."
He didn't look up when he added, "The vultures eat their own. They'll tear him apart for bringing heat to their doorstep."
Anna stirred her coffee slowly, watching the whirlpool. "You really think this will work?"
"It's already working. He just doesn't know it yet."
She sat back, arms crossed, eyes narrowing with tempered hope.
Outside, the city moved on. Cars passed. People rushed to work. No one noticed the war about to begin.
Inside, two conspirators sat across from each other over half-eaten plates—waiting for the first tremor to reach the surface.
As she set the cup down, their hands reached for the serving spoon at the same time.
Fingers grazed.
The contact jolted them both—quick, electric, unmistakable.
Anna's water glass teetered.
With wolf-like reflexes, Ethan caught it before it hit the table.
She stared at him, startled, breath caught.
He didn't speak. Didn't smile.
But his eyes lingered.
Longer than they should have.
Under the table, his hand gripped the napkin that was on his lap... trying to rein himself in.
Then slowly, deliberately, he set the glass down.
Neither of them mentioned the touch.
But something had shifted.
And the war outside suddenly felt easier to handle than the war brewing between them.