The Virellian mansion's grand hall glowed with cold light from the massive wall monitor. Family portraits loomed from the marble walls, eyes frozen in oil and gilt, watching as history shifted in real time.
On screen, the Nexus conference streamed live. Rowen had insisted they all gather for it—claimed it would "clarify the battlefield."
He wasn't wrong.
A figure appeared at the podium. Calm. Commanding. The hall went deathly still.
Riven.
Alive. Public. And no longer buried in shame, but reborn as Nexus's new CEO.
A murmur rippled through the room—shock breaking against the mansion's silence.
"Is that… Riven?" Ronan's voice cracked, disbelief sharpening into a sneer. He turned on Auren, eyes flashing. "You knew. Didn't you?"
Auren didn't move. His gaze was locked on the screen, on the son he'd exiled, the heir who refused to stay dead.
"How would I know?" he said at last, voice low, raw. "We all lost him the moment he walked away."
"You're his father," Ronan spat. "Don't insult us. If anyone could have kept track—"
"Don't," Auren snapped, his voice cracking like a whip through the hall. He turned, glare pinning Ronan where he stood. "Do not lay that at my feet. You think I wouldn't have ripped him back here if I'd known? That I'd let him stand there—parading himself as the face of the company that gutted Paragon?"
The fury in his voice made even the portraits seem to shrink.
"He's not just back," Ronan hissed. "He's leading the enemy."
Auren's jaw clenched. The screen's light carved shadows across his face, and for a moment, he looked less like a patriarch than a predator. Riven's poise—his quiet dominance—was a blade turned inward, cutting deep.
He was supposed to be a stain on their bloodline. The Omega's bastard. A humiliation best forgotten.
And yet, on that stage, Riven looked like he carried the Virellian name better than any of them ever had.
Lucien's old words echoed, unwanted: He's more than you'll ever be.
Auren's fists curled tight at his sides. He would not let this stand.
Not again.
"He should've stayed gone," Auren whispered, though the words rang hollow even to him. Riven was never meant to disappear. He was meant to rise.
The air trembled before the voice came.
"Bring him here."
Lucien Virellian's command split the silence like a blade, thunder rolling in its wake.
Every head turned as the old Alpha entered the hall. His body might have weathered age, but his presence was undiminished—feral, suffocating. Dominant pheromone flooded the room in crushing waves. Even the proudest A-Class Alphas staggered under it, chests tight, breath caught in their throats. Submission radiated like instinct.
If an Omega had been present, they'd have collapsed.
Lucien didn't look at them. His gaze was fixed on the great screen dominating the far wall—on the figure that should have remained a ghost.
Riven. Alive. Unbroken. Standing before the world not as shame, but as CEO of Nexus Technologies.
The enemy.
Lucien's jaw flexed. His words fell like a decree of execution.
"Bring him here."
No one dared speak. No one dared refuse. In this family, to defy Lucien was to vanish.
Across the city, in the Nexus Tower, Rowen stood frozen as the broadcast flared to life.
There—on the stage—was the brother he'd buried in memory, dressed in black, composed, radiant. No hesitation. No apology. Just presence.
Rowen's lip curled, bitterness spilling like venom. "Look at him. Standing there as if he didn't drag our name through the mud. As if he belongs."
His hands trembled against the stem of his glass, jaw locking until his teeth ached.
Robin, at his side, didn't look away from the screen. His voice was quieter, steadier—but edged like glass.
"Don't tell me… all this time, he was the one building Nexus."
He turned slightly, eyes narrowing, calculation already moving behind them.
"Which means he's been planning this."
Rowen exhaled through his nose, rage barely contained. "Then let him plan. I'll tear it all down with him."
The brothers stared at the screen, one seething with fury, the other sharpening into intent—both knowing the Virellians would never let Riven's return go unanswered.
And far above them all, Lucien had already issued the only order that mattered.
Bring him home.
Or break him.
Rowen's pheromones surged like a whipcrack. The air snapped. Thayer staggered back, and a wave of gasps rippled through the hall as the pressure rolled outward, invisible and violent.
Riven felt it instantly—the spike, the challenge.
She did not bow. Did not break. She simply turned her head, eyes locking on Rowen across the sea of startled faces.
And smiled.
Not mockery. Not bravado. Just a quiet curve of lips that said everything:
You tried to erase me. I built something stronger.
Rowen's aura pulsed harder, dominant and uncontrolled, but it didn't crash against weakness. It met resistance. Riven's own pheromones—measured, precise—rose like a shield, a counterpoint of control against his chaos. She didn't need to drown him. She only needed to stand.
Then the second current hit. Robin. Colder. Sharper. His pheromones slid through the air like a blade instead of a hammer—testing, dissecting, daring her to flinch.
The crowd shivered under the twin assault. Breath hitched. A pen clattered to the floor. The silence grew so taut it threatened to snap.
Riven held her ground. Shoulders squared. Jaw set. The weight pressing on her chest was familiar—too familiar. The same force that had once suffocated her in her own home, reduced her to silence, and shoved her into exile.
Not this time.
I'm not the one who disappeared, she thought, steady as stone. I'm the one you failed to erase.
And there she stood, center stage. Not as their brother. Not as their shame. But as CEO of the empire, they had tried—and failed—to crush.
From the quiet of his private suite, Nyxen—known to most as Eli—watched the broadcast unfold on his phone. His gaze wasn't on the crowd or the chaos sparking in the air. It was locked on Riven.
Right on cue, Rowen lost control. His pheromones thundered through the hall like a feral beast, loud and reckless, and the audience buckled beneath it. Robin followed—a scalpel to Rowen's hammer, colder but no less lethal.
Nyxen's lips curved faintly. "Idiots," he murmured, tapping the phone's edge with one finger. "Trying to start a war in the middle of a broadcast."
But his voice held no real surprise. He had counted on this. On their inability to restrain themselves.
And through it all, there she was. Riven. Still. Silent. Smiling that unshakable smile that said he had been waiting for this moment.
Nyxen leaned back in his chair, eyes narrowing. His patience was sharp, edged with something darker. If Rowen pushed too far, if Robin cut too deep—he would intervene.
Not because he doubted him.
Because Riven was his.