The shield, it turned out, was made of paper.
The groundbreaking's applause had barely faded when the first subpoena arrived. It was delivered by a stern-faced process server to Sterling Tower at 8:05 AM.
Victor read it at his desk. The U.S. Senate Committee on Financial Oversight. They were commanding his appearance. And Elara's.
"They're moving fast," Marcus said, standing before the desk. "Vance's lawyers are whispering in every ear on the Hill. The narrative is 'unchecked corporate power and spousal collusion.'"
Elara entered the office, still in her coat. She'd seen the news. Her scent was sharp lemon and worry. "It's not just the Senate. My own department's Office of Inspector General has opened a preliminary inquiry. They've suspended my clearance for any projects involving corporate partnerships."
The blow was precise. It cut her off from her own work. From her purpose.
Victor felt the bond tighten like a vise. This was the retaliation. Not with guns or black roses. With procedure and politics.
"Beatrice Croft's shield," Elara said, her voice cold. "It bought us a good news cycle. It didn't buy us the law."
"Then we play their game," Victor said. He tossed the subpoena onto the desk. "We give the committee a show. A masterclass in transparency."
"Victor, they'll be looking for blood. They'll ask about Zurich. About the fund transfers."
"And we will give them answers. Approved ones." He looked at Marcus. "Pull every internal audit for the last five years. Highlight every charitable donation. Prepare a timeline of the Consortium's harassment, culminating in the photograph of Lillian. We go on the offensive. We frame this as a targeted smear campaign by convicted criminals."
"It's a risk," Marcus cautioned. "If they trip you up on a detail…"
"They won't." Victor's gaze shifted to Elara. "Because we will be perfect."
The next week was a brutal drill. Lawyers filled the penthouse. They role-played questions. They crafted soundbites. They built a fortress of benign facts around the dark truth of the vault.
Elara was a quick study. She learned to pivot from a dangerous question about international transfers to a passionate defense of the Sterling-Whitethorn Initiative. She learned to smile sadly when asked about Vance's claims, framing them as the ravings of a broken man.
But at night, the mask cracked.
"I feel like a fraud," she whispered in the dark. They were in bed, not touching, both staring at the ceiling. "We're constructing this pristine narrative. And I can still smell the sterile cold of that vault."
Victor didn't have comfort to offer. Only truth. "We did what we had to do. Now we do what we must to survive. There's no morality in this phase. Only tactics."
"When does it end?" Her voice was small.
"When we've won so completely that no one dares question the story."
The day of the hearing arrived. They dressed for a funeral. Victor in a conservative navy suit. Elara in a charcoal grey dress, her hair in a severe knot. No jewelry except her mating mark, visible above her collar.
The Senate hearing room was all dark wood, blinding lights, and the low murmur of power. Cameras lined the back. The committee, a mix of stern Alphas and shrewd Betas, sat on a raised dais, looking down.
They were sworn in. They sat side-by-side at the witness table, a single microphone between them.
The Chairman, an Alpha from a mining state with cold eyes, began. "Mr. Sterling. Ms. Whitethorn. This committee is concerned with the integrity of our financial systems. Recent events, involving vast, rapid transfers of capital originating from entities now charged with serious crimes, demand explanation."
And so it began.
For two hours, they parried. Victor was a glacier—calm, precise, citing figures and regulations. Elara was the heart—eloquent about community investment, wounded by the personal attacks.
It was going to script.
Then the junior senator from the opposing party, a Beta woman with a razor's smile, leaned into her mic. "Ms. Whitethorn. Let's talk about the photograph."
The room stilled.
"The photograph of your mother, taken without her knowledge. A deeply disturbing invasion. You claim it was orchestrated by Mr. Vance."
"The evidence suggests that," Elara said, her voice steady.
"The evidence is a car in a garage. A tenuous link. But let's accept it for a moment." The senator steepled her fingers. "Your response to this intimate threat was… what? A series of aggressive financial maneuvers culminating in the bankruptcy of Mr. Vance's holdings and his arrest overseas. A rather… disproportionate… corporate retaliation for a personal crime, wouldn't you say?"
It was a trap. To admit it was personal was to show emotional motive. To claim it was just business was sociopathic.
Elara didn't flinch. "Senator, I am an Omega. I am also a federal employee. The attack was both personal and professional. It was designed to intimidate me out of public service. Our response was measured, legal, and targeted the financial infrastructure enabling his harassment. We did not make it personal. He did."
A murmur of approval rippled through the press section.
The senator smiled, unperturbed. "Of course. A very neat line. Let's explore the infrastructure." She turned to Victor. "Mr. Sterling. The 'Peregrine Holdings' account in Zurich. How did you first learn of its existence?"
Victor kept his face neutral. "Through our financial intelligence units, which monitor threats to our corporate ecosystem."
"And these units identified this secret account before or after Mr. Vance allegedly threatened your mate's family?"
"The timeline is detailed in our submitted report."
"I'm asking you." Her voice hardened.
"After," Victor stated.
"So, your discovery of this illicit fund coincided precisely with a personal grievance. And shortly after this discovery, you traveled to Zurich. As did Mr. Vance. And there, in a remarkable coincidence, he voluntarily drained this account—worth nearly two billion dollars—into your foundation's coffers, just before his arrest."
She let the absurdity hang in the air.
"He didn't drain it voluntarily," Victor said, his tone icy. "He was attempting to move assets to avoid seizure. Our foundation was the legitimate recipient as part of a pre-existing settlement agreement related to his fraudulent interference with our projects."
It was the lie they had crafted. Flimsy, but legal.
"A settlement agreement signed in a Swiss vault while the bank was evacuated for a gas leak?" The senator's eyebrows rose. "How dramatic."
She was circling the truth. She couldn't prove it, but she could smell it.
The Chairman cleared his throat, trying to regain control. "The committee's concern is the appearance of vigilante justice, Mr. Sterling. You are not a law enforcement agency."
"No, Mr. Chairman," Victor agreed. "We are a law-abiding corporation and family who found ourselves under attack by criminals who believed themselves above the law. We used every legal tool at our disposal to defend ourselves and see justice done. If that appears vigilant, it is only because the traditional protections failed."
It was a good answer. A winning answer.
But the Beta senator wasn't finished. Her final question was for Elara.
"Ms. Whitethorn. You are bonded to one of the most powerful Alphas in the country. You are shaping federal policy. And you are, effectively, the co-CEO of the entity that just orchestrated the financial ruin of a rival. Do you believe there is any conflict of interest so vast it cannot be managed by your… personal bond?"
The question was the whole fight. It reduced their partnership to a biological loophole. A conflict of interest in flesh and blood.
Elara looked at the senator. Then she slowly, deliberately, looked at the cameras.
"Senator, my bond with Victor is not a tool for managing conflicts. It is the reason we seek to resolve them. We have seen what unchecked power and old hatreds do. Our shared goal is to build systems that are fair, transparent, and protective of the vulnerable."
She leaned slightly into the microphone, her voice dropping, becoming more intimate.
"You ask if the power is too concentrated. I ask you to look at what we're building with it. A community center in the Riverfront. Grants for Omega entrepreneurs. That is our answer. Judge us by our works, not by the fears of a dying old guard."
She stopped. The room was utterly silent.
It was not the defensive answer they had rehearsed. It was a declaration. A challenge.
The gavel banged. "The committee will recess for one hour."
In a private anteroom, their lead lawyer was pale. "Elara, that last answer… it was brilliant. Or it was a disaster. You basically told them to stuff it."
"They were going to condemn us no matter what," she said, her hands trembling now that the adrenaline was fading. "I'd rather be condemned for what we are than acquitted for a lie."
Victor stood beside her. He put a hand on her back. Through the bond, he felt her fierce, terrified pride. He agreed with the lawyer. It was a monumental risk.
But it was also the first truly honest thing said in that room all day.
The hearing reconvened. The questions continued, but the wind had gone out of the opposition. Elara's words were already flashing across news tickers: "JUDGE US BY OUR WORKS."
In the final minutes, an ally, a senator from their home state, was recognized.
"My colleagues have focused on the mechanics of power," he said, his voice grandfatherly. "I'd like to focus on the product. Mr. Sterling, the Sterling-Whitethorn Initiative. How many jobs will it create in its first phase?"
It was a softball. A gift.
Victor took it, citing numbers, talking about apprenticeships, local hiring. He saw the committee's attention wane. They had moved on. The spectacle was over.
The gavel fell for the final time. They were dismissed.
Outside, on the Capitol steps, a mob of reporters awaited.
"Mr. Sterling! Does this mean you're under investigation?"
"Ms.Whitethorn! Will you resign your federal post?"
"Is it true you're expecting a child?"
The last question hit the air like a gunshot. Elara froze. Victor's arm tightened around her.
It was a rumor. A vicious, timing-perfect rumor planted to undermine her credibility further. An Omega distracted by biology.
Before Victor could react, Elara stepped toward the cameras. Her face was calm, but her eyes were blazing.
"My body and my family planning are not matters for public hearing," she said, her voice cutting through the noise. "My work, and the work of the Sterling-Whitethorn Foundation, is. Ask about that."
She turned and walked toward their waiting car, head high. Victor followed, a wall of silent fury at her back.
Inside the car, the silence was thick.
"A child," Elara finally said, staring out the window. "They're using that now. As a weapon."
"It was inevitable," Victor said, his jaw tight. "Our bond is public. Biology is the one weapon they all understand."
She looked at him, her expression unreadable. "Is it something you want?"
The question, here, now, in the back of a car after a public evisceration, felt more intimate than anything in the vault.
Victor didn't hesitate. "I want a future. With you. Whatever that holds."
It wasn't a yes. It wasn't a no. It was a promise of alignment.
Elara nodded slowly. "Then we need to make a world where that question isn't a weapon. Where it's just… a question."
The car pulled into their hotel. The hearing was over. They had survived.
But as Victor helped Elara out, he saw the fatigue in her bones. The political war was just beginning. It was slower, dirtier, and more invasive than any corporate battle.
They had won the vault. But the committee room might yet break them.
Up in their suite, Elara sank onto a couch, kicking off her heels. "We need a different strategy. We can't just fight every fire. We have to change the climate."
Victor stood at the window, looking out at the Capitol dome, lit against the night sky.
"How?" he asked.
Elara's voice was quiet, determined. "We stop being defendants. We become sponsors. We find the next generation of politicians, the ones who believe in the world we're building. And we back them. Not with hidden money. Openly. We build a movement, not just a company."
It was a larger vision. A longer game. It meant stepping even further into the light, and inviting others to stand in it with them.
Victor turned to her. The bond hummed with the rightness of it. The exhaustion of the day was still there, but beneath it, a new current.
The fight for their story wasn't about defending the past. It was about funding the future.
"Then we start tomorrow," he said.
They had faced down the Senate. They had faced down a rumor designed to cage her.
They were still standing.
And they were starting to learn how to fight the right war.