The elevator doors hadn't even fully closed before Silas moved.
It wasn't a tactical strike. It was a landslide. Silas roared, a sound that was less human and more like the earth itself cracking open, and launched himself across the marble. He caught Julian by the throat, the sheer mass of the older man slamming the billionaire back against the floor-to-ceiling glass.
The window shuddered. Forty floors below, the city was a blur of white, but inside, Silas was a blur of vengeance.
"You drugged her?" Silas's voice was a jagged rasp, his fingers digging into Julian's neck. "You took a girl who had nothing and you used a chemical to steal the last thing she owned? I'm going to kill you, Julian. I'm going to tear the life out of you right here."
Julian's face went purple, but for the first time in his life, he didn't reach for a phone or a lawyer. He reached for Silas's face. Julian clawed at Silas's eyes, his legs thrashing, until he managed to plant a boot in Silas's gut and shove.
Silas staggered back, and Julian scrambled up, gasping for air, his charcoal suit jacket torn at the shoulder. He didn't fix his hair. He didn't straighten his tie.
"You want to talk about stealing?" Julian screamed, his voice cracking with a frantic, raw edge. He lunged back at Silas, throwing a desperate, unrefined punch that caught Silas on the jaw. "I loved her! I worshipped her while you were busy being a 'gentleman' and ignoring her! I gave her everything!"
Silas caught Julian's next swing and threw him into the wet bar. Glass shattered, the expensive scotch, the crystal decanters, turning the floor into a literal minefield. Silas hovered over him, his fist raised, ready to end it.
But he stopped.
He looked down at Julian, who was sprawled among the shards of his own luxury. Julian wasn't trying to get up anymore. He was shaking. His eyes were wide, bloodshot, and filled with a terrifying, hollow despair. He looked at the red welts on his neck where Silas had nearly crushed his windpipe, and then he looked at the door Alina had just run through.
"I'm a monster, Silas," Julian whispered, the words coming out in a broken, high-pitched wheeze. "I know what I am. I know what I did. I thought... I thought if I could just make her see how much I needed her, she'd forgive the way I took her. I'm sick. I'm fucking sick."
Silas lowered his fist. The rage didn't leave him, it couldn't, but it was joined by a sickening realization. He saw the way Julian was looking at the empty room. It wasn't the look of a businessman who had lost an asset.
It was the look of a man who had realized his soul was a hollow shell and had tried to fill it with someone.
Julian had fallen further than Silas could have imagined. He hadn't just broken a rule; he had broken his mind.
"She's out there in a blizzard," Silas said, his voice dropping to a low, urgent rumble. "No coat. No keys. And she's in a state of mind where she might not care if she freezes."
Julian looked up, the shark-like composure gone, replaced by a frantic, child-like terror.
"The storm... it's a whiteout. She won't be able to see the street signs."
Silas reached down, not to strike, but to grab Julian by the lapel and haul him to his feet. He shoved Julian toward the closet. "Get your coat. Now."
"You... you're not going to kill me?" Julian asked, his voice steadying.
"Maybe later," Silas growled, his eyes hard as flint. "But right now, you're the only one who knows the city, and I'm the only one who knows how to find a trail in the snow. If she dies out there, we both deserve to go with her."
Julian didn't argue. He moved with a jerky, frantic speed, grabbing a heavy coat and his keys. He looked at Silas, the man he had betrayed, the man who had almost killed him, and for a split second, the two former friends saw the truth in each other's eyes.
They were both monsters. One had failed her by doing nothing, and one had destroyed her by doing everything.
"I have the SUV in the garage," Julian said, his voice regaining a shred of utility. "It has the GPS trackers for the city cameras. If she's on a main road, I can find her."
"Then move," Silas ordered.
The mountain and the shark stepped into the elevator together. The air between them was thick with a mutual, begrudging hatred, but it was anchored by a singular, desperate goal.
They hit the lobby and sprinted for the garage, two broken men heading into a blinding white hell to find the woman they had both loved.