AIDEN FROST (POV)
Outside Diamant Reed's Residence - Night
Aiden Frost watched the warm lights glowing inside Diamant Reed's mansion from the backseat of his car.
The street was quiet, lined with trimmed hedges and expensive pavement stones, but Aiden's heartbeat pulsed like a war drum.
He leaned closer to the slightly open window, eyes narrowed with something sharp and poisonous.
"When Diamant leaves the city..."
his voice dropped, barely audible,
"...Noah will be mine again."
His driver swallowed, not daring to respond.
Aiden continued watching the house-specifically the window on the second floor that Noah had once leaned out of two weeks ago, stretching his arms toward the sun with sleepy innocence. Aiden's jaw tightened at the memory.
It should have been his second floor.
His house.
His omega.
Not some other alpha's-especially not a dominant one.
Aiden's gaze darkened.
He had learned two crucial things over the past week:
1. Diamant was leaving for City B soon as planned.
2. Noah was staying behind, under Evan Leigh's supervision.
But Evan, like most domineering alphas, worked long hours. Aiden knew the security rotations, knew when Evan would leave Noah's side, knew when Noah walked out for groceries or stepped out to take short walks.
He had observed everything.
Patiently.
Obessively.
He rested his fingers on the small silver case beside him-a prototype syringe nestled inside. The liquid shimmered faintly under the dim car light.
Claim Reductant.
The drug the world believed impossible.
A drug designed to erase even a dominant alpha's mark.
The ultimate violation... or restoration, depending on who you asked.
To Aiden, it was liberation.
Liberation for Noah.
Liberation from Diamant.
Liberation from the mark that taunted Aiden every time he remembered the curve of Noah's neck.
He exhaled slowly, steadying himself.
He had marked Noah first.
He had claimed Noah first.
He had every right to correct the injustice done to him.
At least, that was the lie he had convinced himself to believe.
Aiden pulled out his phone and looked at the message chain with Noah-long dead, untouched for years. A blank conversation, except for the last five messages from Noah:
"Aiden where are you?"
"Please answer."
"It hurts."
"Aiden?"
"...I'll wait."
Aiden shut the screen quickly, bitterness crawling under his skin.
He didn't want to remember that part.
That guilt.
That abandonment.
He preferred the fantasy where Noah belonged to him.
"Sir," the driver said cautiously, "should we leave? Someone may see-"
Aiden raised a hand.
Silence.
He watched as Diamant stepped out of the front door, speaking with Evan Leigh. They looked serious-Dominant aura meeting dominant aura-planning whatever business emergency awaited.
Aiden smirked.
Soon.
Soon, Noah would be alone.
Soon, the opportunity he had been waiting for would arrive.
Soon, he would reclaim what was his.
He whispered again, softer this time, like a promise only he understood:
"Noah... you won't escape me a second time."
The car quietly pulled away from the curb.
And inside the mansion Noah lived in, completely unaware, Diamant Reed was running out of time.