Ex-Alpha's Regret: Siren's Comeback novel Chapter 116

POV: Damian

The report on the Sterling Pharmaceuticals acquisition landed on my desk not with a thud, but with the silent, damning finality of a death sentence. I stared at the numbers, at the elegant, brutally efficient way she had carved out a piece of my legacy, and a sound escaped my throat—a low, guttural growl of pure, unadulterated fury.

With a sweep of my arm, I cleared my desk. Crystal glasses, data slates, and antique inkwells crashed against the far wall, shattering into a thousand pieces. The noise did nothing to quell the storm raging inside me. My provocation, my clever, emotionally charged gambit with the charity and the magazine cover, had been utterly and completely useless. It hadn't just failed to wound her; it had been an invitation for her to humiliate me. She had treated my emotional outburst like a foolish opening in a chess match and had responded by taking my castle.

The sheer, breathtaking arrogance of it left me reeling. The financial loss was substantial, but it was the blow to my pride that felt fatal. I had tried to play a game of hearts and minds, and she had responded with a game of corporate warfare, a game she was now undeniably better at than me.

Kael stood in the doorway of my ravaged office, his face pale but his expression carefully neutral. He had learned over the past few weeks not to react to my outbursts. "Alpha," he said, his voice steady. "Our counter-intelligence confirms it. The acquisition was funded and executed in under three hours. It was a contingency plan she already had in place."

"A contingency for what?" I snarled, pacing in front of the window like a caged animal. "For me having dinner with my own mate?"

"Perhaps," Kael ventured cautiously, "the strategy itself was flawed. Attacking a non-profit and using public sentiment as a weapon... it is not her language. She speaks in numbers and power, not gossip columns."

"No," I snapped, whirling on him. His logic was a grating, infuriating noise against the singular truth that was solidifying in my mind. "The strategy was not the problem. The weapon was right, but the delivery was flawed."

I stopped pacing, a new, feverish certainty dawning in my eyes. The problem wasn't the jealousy play. The problem was distance. She was insulated on that fortress of an island, surrounded by her sycophants and her new pet Alpha. She could look at a picture in a magazine and feel nothing because it wasn't real to her. The photograph was an abstraction, a story. But me, my presence, the undeniable reality of my power and our shared history—that was something she couldn't dismiss.

There was a tract of mineral-rich land in the so-called "No Man's Land" between three territories, land that both the Blackwood Conglomerate and Vance Capital had been legally circling for years. It was a dormant issue, but a vital one. It was the perfect pretext.

"Kael," I commanded, a cruel, triumphant smile spreading across my face. "Draft a petition. We are invoking Article 7. We are calling for an emergency arbitration hearing on the Azure Vein mining claim. Inform the Alliance council that as this directly impacts the core future assets of both our entities, attendance by the chief strategists of both parties is non-negotiable."

He stared at me, understanding dawning in his eyes. "Alpha... that's forcing her hand."

"Precisely," I hissed, turning to look out at the lands she thought I had lost. "The queen is about to be placed in check."