The passage of time inside the sprawling Grefo estate had dissolved into a cold, transactional monotony. For nearly four weeks following the volatile, suffocating encounter in the car. Dorrent had masterfully weaponized his executive calendar, manufacturing a relentless, impenetrable wall of corporate emergencies, late-night regional summits, and urgent technical auditing sessions for the Hodin Oil merger. He did everything within his immense power to ensure that his path never crossed with the pale, dark-eyed herbalist from the slums.

If his father, Guron, scheduled a mandatory morning diagnostic briefing in the solar, Dorrent was already three sectors away, spearheading a secure field test of a new kinetic generator. If Jannah left her quarters in the East Wing to drop off a freshly boiled tincture of midnight-roots with the house staff, Dorrent would command his personal assistants to incinerate the vials before they could ever reach his master suite. He fled from her presence with the desperate, icy calculation of a man running from his own executioner. He couldn’t bear the thought of looking into her defiant, soul-searching eyes, nor could he risk the terrifying, unbidden arousal that her sweet, toxic omega musk forced upon his broken, dormant biology. 𝘧𝓇𝑒𝑒𝑤ℯ𝑏𝓃𝘰𝑣ℯ𝘭.𝘤ℴ𝘮

But Guron Grefo was thoroughly done watching Dorrent compromise the family’s future out of a stubborn, self-destructive attachment to his pride.

As the final days of the month bled away into the humid evening air of the upper district, Guron decided to strip away the illusion of choice.

---

Dorrent had just returned to his private quarters after a grueling fourteen-hour session at the Gammar Tech central complex. His mind was entirely preoccupied with the final structural clauses of the Hodin merger, his midnight-blue suit jacket already slung carelessly over his forearm as he pushed open the doors of his master bedroom. He expected the usual cold, empty darkness of his sanctuary.

Instead, he walked straight into an ambush.

Standing in the center of the dim, velvet-draped space were four massive, towering Alphas—men recruited from the deepest, most lethal black-operations division of the Grefo family’s private security detail. These were battle-hardened S-tier and A-tier enforcers, their faces completely concealed behind matte-black ballistic masks, their large, heavy frames clad in silent, non-reflective tactical gear.

Dorrent’s apex instincts flared instantly, a dangerous, crimson light flashing behind his eyes as his posture shifted into a lethal, defensive crouch. "What is the meaning of this?" he growled, his deep voice dropping into a rough, jagged resonance that vibrated through the floorboards. "Get the hell out of my quarters before I have your lives terminated."

The enforcers didn’t offer a single word of explanation. They moved with absolute, synchronized precision, rushing him from four distinct angles.

The struggle that followed was a brutal, silent exhibition of raw, masculine violence. Despite his internal biological affliction, Dorrent’s physical framework possessed the staggering, genetic perfection of an elite S-tier Alpha. He fought with a feral, ruthless ferocity, throwing a devastating left hook that shattered the ballistic mask of the first enforcer, sending the massive man crashing into the marble fireplace with a wet, cracking sound. He lunged forward, his hands clamping onto the tactical vest of the second Alpha, intending to use the man’s own weight to clear the room.

But the remaining three enforcers were entirely prepared for his strength. They attacked his lower leverage points, firing high-voltage kinetic suppression patches directly onto the nape of his neck and his lower lumbar spine. The bright, blue-white arcs of electrical current cut straight through Dorrent’s neural pathways, short-circuiting his motor control and forcing his massive, rock-hard muscles to violently seize and contract against his will.

With a heavy, suffocating thud, Dorrent was slammed down onto the thick carpet, his breath exploding from his lungs. Before his mind could recover from the neurological shock, the enforcers pinned his flailing limbs with their combined body weight, working quickly and relentlessly to strip him of his clothing. They tore his tailored shirt from his shoulders, discarded his trousers, and ripped away his undergarments, reducing the untouchable billionaire CEO to a state of complete, unarmored nakedness.

They hoisted his towering, muscular physique onto the bed. Working with thick, heavy-duty leather restraints lined with reinforced steel cores, they clamped his wrists and ankles securely to the posts of the bedframe. The metallic click of the brass buckles locking into place signaled the definitive, absolute end of his freedom.

The enforcers stepped back, their breathing heavy, their uniform gear stained with the sweat of the struggle, before filing out of the master suite in a silent, disciplined line.

The doors swung open, and Guron Grefo stepped into the bedroom. He adjusted the gold cuffs of his tailored charcoal suit, his eyes sweeping over the scene with a cold, calculating satisfaction.

Dorrent lay stark naked on the mattress, his magnificent, sun-bronzed chest heaving with an unbridled, dangerous rage. The thick leather straps dug into his skin, the veins along his powerful forearms and the corded muscles of his neck bulging to their absolute limits as he violently strained against the bindings, the heavy wood of the bedposts creaking loudly under the sheer force of his resistance.

"Father!" Dorrent roared, "Unbind me this instant! Have you completely lost your mind?! If you think I will tolerate this humiliation, I will tear this entire estate to the ground the second these straps break!"

Guron walked slowly to the foot of the bed, entirely unbothered by the terrifying flare of his son’s alpha aura. He looked down at Dorrent’s exposed, muscular physique, his expression flat and unyielding.

"You will stay exactly where you are, Dorrent," Guron said, his tone smooth, deep, and dripping with a paternal authority that brooked no argument. "Running away from your treatment will never help you heal. For the past month, I have watched you use every pathetic, transparent excuse in the corporate handbook to avoid being checked. You have allowed your stubborn pride to compromise your future and the lineage of this family. I am thoroughly done waiting for you to grow a spine."

"This is an outrage!" Dorrent hissed through clenched teeth, sweat dripping down his jawline as he tried to twist his pelvis away from his father’s analytical stare. "I will not be laid bare, tied down like an animal for some gutter-rat from the slums to practice her primitive witchcraft on me! Unloose me!"

"You are my son, and you are currently an incomplete Alpha," Guron countered coldly, stepping closer to the bedside nightstand. "This secret—this affliction of yours—is a vulnerability that only the two of us and that little girl know. Running away from her will not change the reality of your empty throne. I have ensured that you are tied well, and you are completely naked so that there are no more barriers, no more clothes for you to hide behind. You will comply with her diagnostic routine today, Dorrent. You will lie here, you will endure her presence, and you will let her finish the work she began a month ago."

Guron turned toward the door, his hand resting on the brass handle as he looked back one last time, a hard, manipulative glint in his eyes.

"Do not let your vanity destroy the only lifeline you will ever be offered in this world, my boy. Let the girl do her work."

The heavy latch clicked into place.

Dorrent was left entirely alone in the suffocating silence of his sanctuary, his body bound tightly to the four corners of the bed, his eyes glowing with a dangerous, untamed crimson hue as he waited for the door to open once more, his mind fracturing under the weight of the incoming, inevitable exposure.