The high-rise office of Harrison Tech felt like it was shrinking, the walls of glass pressing in on James as he stood paralyzed before the man in the black velvet coat. Smith Volkov didn't just occupy space; he dominated it, his presence a heavy, suffocating blanket that snuffed out the authority James had spent a decade building. James looked at his own hand—the hand that had been seconds away from signing away the Volkov contract—and saw it trembling. It was a physical betrayal he couldn't control. As an Alpha, James was used to being the predator, but in front of Smith, he felt like nothing more than a cornered deer.
"Smith... let go," James managed to grit out, his voice sounding thin even to his own ears. He tried to pull his tie back, to regain some shred of his dignity, but Smith's grip was absolute. The Enigma's fingers were steady, his knuckles scarred from a life James could only imagine.
Beside them, Leo finally found his voice. The Omega was flushed with a mixture of terror and insulted vanity. "Guards!" he shrieked, his voice cracking as he stumbled toward the desk. "Security! Get this lunatic out of here! He's assaulting the CEO of this company!"
Smith didn't even flicker an eye toward the screaming Omega. Instead, a dark, oppressive energy seemed to roll off his shoulders in a visible wave. The air in the room suddenly hummed with a low-frequency vibration that made the fine crystal glasses on the side table shatter. The lights overhead flickered violently before dying out, leaving the office bathed in the eerie, red glow of the emergency lights. Leo fell back into his chair, his breath hitching as the sheer pressure of Smith's aura made it feel like the oxygen had been sucked out of the room.
"Your guards are currently unconscious in the corridor, little Omega," Smith said, his voice a smooth, dangerous silk that vibrated in James's very marrow. He turned his violet gaze back to James, his thumb tracing the sharp line of James's jaw with a possessive touch that felt like a brand. "And your father... he seems to have lost his memory along with his courage. Perhaps he needs a reminder of what happens to those who try to cheat a Volkov."
James's father was indeed silent, his face the color of ash as he slumped against the mahogany bookshelf. He knew. He knew that the boy who had left for Italy as a supposed "weakling" had returned as a god among Alphas. The old man's eyes were wide with a realization that James was only just beginning to grasp: the "debt" wasn't just money. It was a life.
Smith leaned down, his lips brushing against the shell of James's ear. The scent of him was intoxicating—a heady, dark mixture of cold rain, expensive tobacco, and a primitive power that was starting to call to James's own repressed instincts. "You were going to sign that paper, James. You were going to erase twenty years of history with a stroke of a pen. Did you really think I would stay in the shadows while you gave yourself to a creature as hollow as that?" He flicked a disdainful glance toward the cowering Leo.
James's heart hammered against his ribs, a frantic, uneven rhythm. "The contract is ancient, Smith. I am a man, not a piece of property. I have a multibillion-dollar company to run. I have a life here."
"Your life began the moment our fathers shook hands in that blood-soaked basement twenty years ago," Smith whispered, his hand sliding from the tie to the back of James's neck, his fingers tangling in the shorter, styled hair. "And tonight, the interest on that debt is due. You aren't going to a wedding next month, James. You are coming with me to the only place you belong