Chapter 1 Shadows Never Blink

Sierra Lane's POV

You can tell a city by the way it breathes.

New York didn't exhale. It hissed through vents, exhaust pipes, cabs, and people too tired to care they were ghosts in overpriced coats. I fit right in, clutching my knockoff tote, sipping dollar coffee, and tailing a ghost in a thousand-dollar suit.

Dominic Thorne.

A billionaire, untouchable, and if the rumors were even half true, one hell of a devil in designer wool.

I hadn't planned on stalking him. I had planned on surviving another unpaid freelance piece and maybe scoring a sandwich that didn't taste like printer paper. But then came the call. An anonymous tip, voicemail only: "Follow Thorne, start tonight and bring your camera."

My instincts said scam. My hunger said do it. And my pride? That had been pawned for rent three weeks ago.

So there I was, thirty-seven percent phone battery and a twenty-dollar lens strapped to a hand-me-down DSLR, crouching on a freezing rooftop across from a crumbling cathedral where Dominic Thorne wall street's silver bullet had just disappeared with two men in dark coats and a suitcase leaking red.

Not metaphorically, actual red, blood-red.

Nobody does midnight meetings in abandoned churches unless you're Catholic or criminal. Or both.

My fingers were stiff as I raised the lens and adjusted the zoom. Inside, the old stained glass barely held back the flickering lights from within. Candles? Torches? It didn't matter. I had him, proof that Dominic wasn't just playing dirty in business, he was neck-deep in something twisted. I had get the shot, write the exposé, and claw my way out of the gutter.

Except that's when things went to hell.

There was a sound, low and wrong. Like a growl filtered through static. The men were shouting now, gesturing wildly. Dominic's back was to me, shoulders squared, like a general before war.

Then he turned and changed.

Not metaphorically, not metaphorically at all.

His skin rippled, tearing itself apart. Bone snapped forward. Muscles swelled like they remembered something primal. What stood under the moonlight wasn't a man anymore. It was a beast, massive, black-furred, and fangs gleaming in candlelight. A wolf, if wolves looked like nightmares that could balance spreadsheets and snap spines with equal ease.

I didn't scream. I couldn't. My lungs had seized. My camera clicked.

Once. Twice.

The lens fogged. My hands shook. I had seen death before, murders, protests gone sideways, but this wasn't that. This wasn't just danger.

This was extinction bait.

And I had it on film.

The beast leapt fast as thought onto one of the men. The other ran, but not far. A second shape exploded from the darkness, tearing into him. Two wolves. Blood sprayed like paint across holy stone.

My legs forgot how to work.

I turned, tripped over my own boot, scrambled backward to the rooftop's edge. My camera swung like a pendulum from my neck, still blinking red. Recording.

"Stop shaking," I muttered. "Get up. Get out."

But then I heard it. A click.

No. A whisper.

From behind.

"I hate being followed," a voice said, deep and low and smooth like good whiskey over black ice.

I spun.

He was standing there, Dominic. Human again. No blood, no cuts, no broken bones. Just pressed charcoal wool, calm eyes, and an expression that could freeze lava.

"Cute camera," he said, stepping closer. "Do you know what happens to people who dig too deep, Miss Lane?"

My heart jackhammered. I backed away, only to hit the ledge. One more step and it was a six-story plunge into traffic and regret.

"I didn't mean-" I started.

He held up a hand. Not threatening, just patient.

"You have a choice now," he said. "One month. You come with me. Learn what this is. Everything. And in return, you keep your silence."

I blinked. "That's not a choice. That's blackmail."

"It's survival," he said, stepping in. His eyes, God, his eyes, weren't human. Gold, deep, and hungry. "Because if you leave now, others will come. Not as polite. Not as merciful."

I swallowed. "And if I say yes?"

"You stay alive. And maybe you understand enough not to hate me for what I am."

I looked past him. The cathedral, the blood and the bodies.

This wasn't a story anymore. It was a reckoning.

I nodded once. "Fine. One month, but I get full access."

He smiled, not kind, not cruel, just knowing.

"I wouldn't offer anything less."

Then he stepped back, nodded to the shadows, and a sleek black car pulled up as if it summoned. I followed him, still shaking, into a world I had no business surviving in.

Not yet.

Not without answers.

Not without armor.

But I had something better than armor.

Curiosity.

And secrets don't survive long under that kind of heat.

The car ride was silent. His estate didn't look like something a human would live in, it looked like a war bunker wearing a tuxedo. Stone walls, Iron gates, windows that watched you back.

Inside was colder than out.

I was led to a room that could've belonged to royalty or prisoners, depending on the angle.

Dominic watched me walk inside but didn't follow.

"One month," he said again. "Ask what you need, record what you want, but understand something, Miss Lane."

He leaned in. Close enough that I could feel the heat beneath that flawless facade.

"You are not in control. Not here."

He turned and walked away.

The door shut.

Locked.

Of course.

I dropped onto the edge of the velvet couch, my heart still doing Olympic-level flips.

One month in his world.

And he had no idea who he just invited in.

I opened my camera, reviewed the footage.

Gone.

Deleted.

Wiped clean.

But one frame remained, blurry, broken but real.

A yellow eye, a mouth full of teeth, and a man in the background watching it all happen, calm, deliberate, and smiling.

That man wasn't Dominic.

I didn't know him.

Yet.

But something about that face made my skin crawl.

I zoomed in.

Printed the frame.

Taped it to the back of my notebook.

And wrote one word under it.

"Why?"