CHAPTER 15: “The Weight of Names”
1321 Words
The rain hadn’t stopped. It sheeted across the docks, pounding metal roofs and dripping into the bay like a thousand ticking clocks. The warehouse smelled of rust and old salt, the air heavy with the metallic tang of wet steel.
Aria sat at the edge of a crate, her jacket discarded, blood seeping slowly through the bandage on her shoulder. The others hadn’t spoken much since they returned. Grief had its own gravity, pulling them all into silence.
Kellen was the first to break it. He leaned against the wall, arms crossed, eyes sharp but unfocused. “Two gone in less than an hour. That’s not coincidence. Damaris knew exactly where to strike.”
“He always knows,” Vincent muttered, his voice low and bitter. He was stripping down his weapon again, metal clicks echoing in the cavernous space. “The man’s got half the city on his payroll.”
Aries’s voice was even, but hard. “He’s got more than that. He’s got blood on tap. Every wolf line that swore to him believes they’re feeding an Alpha worth dying for.” His gaze shifted to Aria. “You tore that illusion tonight. But illusions don’t die quietly.”
Aria’s hands clenched into fists on her knees. She could still see Jace’s laughing face from the tunnels, Lira’s shy nod when she’d howled for the first time. They had believed in her. And now they were gone.
“They died because of me,” she said.
Dominic’s head snapped toward her, his voice cutting sharp. “No. Don’t twist it. They died because of him. Don’t give Damaris the satisfaction of carrying his sins for him.”
Her eyes lifted, burning gold in the dim light. “I told them I’d keep them safe.”
“And you kept one safe tonight,” he shot back. “That girl is breathing because you wouldn’t let her fall. You want to drown yourself in guilt for the ones you couldn’t save, fine. But don’t you dare forget the ones you did.”
The words hit like a slap. For a moment, she hated him for saying them. For refusing to let her sink.
But that hatred melted into something else — a fire.
Aria rose to her feet, her voice low but steady. “Then we make them pay. Not with whispers. Not with leaks. With blood.”
The silence that followed was heavier than thunder.
---
Aries studied her, arms folded, his shadow stretching long across the concrete. “Do you even understand what you’re saying?”
“Yes,” she said. “I’m done waiting for them to kill us one by one. If Damaris wants a war, I’ll give him one.”
Vincent’s mouth curled into something like a smile. “Now you’re speaking my language.”
Kellen shook his head, pushing off the wall. “A war isn’t just blood and bodies, Aria. It’s resources. Logistics. Timing. You’ve lit the spark, sure — but fire spreads both ways.”
“Then we control where it spreads,” she replied.
Aries slammed his palm on the map, his voice sharp. “Control? You’re still thinking like a girl playing chess on someone else’s board. Damaris owns the board. He’s been playing this game for decades. You think a few howls and one bloody hallway changes that?”
Her voice rose, rough and raw. “No. But it changes the players.”
For a moment, father and daughter stared at each other, silence taut as a wire.
It was Dominic who broke it, his tone quiet but commanding. “Then we stop reacting. We strike where it hurts.”
Aria turned to him. His eyes burned like steel in moonlight, calm and merciless. “Where?” she asked.
He stepped forward, pointing to the map. “ValeCorp.”
---
The room shifted, the name itself pulling everyone tighter.
Aries’s brows drew low. “His crown jewel.”
Dominic nodded. “Every deal, every network, every secret flows through ValeCorp’s servers. You burn that, you cut his veins.”
Vincent’s grin sharpened. “Finally.”
But Kellen was already shaking his head. “You’re not hearing me. That place is a fortress. Corporate-grade security layered over wolf blood wards. It’s not just code and cameras — it’s magic, muscle, and money. You step foot inside, they’ll feel you breathing.”
Aria’s lips curved. “Then we don’t step. We crash through.”
Kellen groaned. “Of course you’d say that.”
---
Aries leaned over the map, eyes narrowing. “ValeCorp’s headquarters isn’t just an office tower. It’s a shrine. Damaris made sure of it. Every Alpha that walks through those doors sees themselves in the glass. You go in there, you’re not just fighting him. You’re fighting every loyalist who wants to prove they belong.”
“Then let them,” Aria said. “Every loyalist that bleeds for him weakens his hold.”
Dominic’s gaze flicked to her, something like pride sparking in the darkness. “It won’t just weaken him. It’ll terrify him. He built that place to be untouchable. You walk out alive, and the city will know he bleeds.”
Her heart thudded with certainty. Yes. That was it.
“We hit ValeCorp,” she said. “We break his shrine.”
---
The plan formed in the next hours, though “plan” was too neat a word for what they built. It was scraps of intelligence, stitched together with instinct and rage.
Kellen laid out the blueprints on a flickering screen, pointing to the choke points. “Top floors are his sanctum — all glass and arrogance. But the real core’s underground. Sub-level four. That’s where the server hub lives. That’s where his bloodlines are archived.”
“Bloodlines?” Aria asked.
Aries’s voice was grim. “Contracts. Oaths. Names bound to him in code and ink. Destroy those, and you cut his leash on half the packs in the city.”
Aria’s chest tightened. Names. Lives, trapped in his grip. It wasn’t just power. It was slavery.
“Then that’s what we take,” she said.
---
But the logistics were a storm.
Vincent wanted a direct assault, guns blazing. “Fear works better than speeches,” he argued.
Kellen countered, tapping his screen hard. “Fear also gets us dead. You need stealth. Infiltration. Ghost work.”
Dominic leaned against the wall, arms folded, his silence heavier than both their arguments. Finally, he said, “You’ll need both. A ghost to get you in. Teeth to get you out.”
Aria nodded. “Then we use everything. No more half-measures.”
---
At dawn, the warehouse was still alive with maps and murmurs. The rain had thinned to mist, pale light sliding through broken windows.
Aria stood alone at the edge of the bay, watching the water move like dark glass. She thought of Jace. Of Lira. Of the girl she’d saved.
The weight of their names pressed heavy in her chest.
She didn’t notice Dominic until he was beside her, his presence as steady as the tide.
“You carry them,” he said quietly.
“Yes.”
“Good.” He looked out at the water with her. “But don’t let them bury you. Names are heavy. But they’re also sharp. Use them like blades.”
Her eyes turned to him. “And if I fall?”
He looked back at her, gaze unwavering. “Then I fall with you.”
For the first time since the tunnels, since the howl, since the blood in the Heights, she let herself believe that wasn’t just words.
---
Behind them, Aries’s voice carried through the warehouse. “We move at nightfall.”
Aria breathed in deep, the mist cool against her skin.
ValeCorp.
Damaris.
Blood for blood.
And this time, she would not stop until the shrine burned.
---
- Writer
