Chapter 69 Seraphine is up against me
Damon stood there for a moment after Ravyn’s voice settled into silence, staring at the wall as though the paint itself might rearrange into answers.
He could not remember the last time Ravyn had dropped the formal tone and asked for something that sounded even remotely like a favor.
The weight alone was enough to unsettle him, because men like Ravyn did not bend unless something was cracking beneath their feet.
“What kind of favor?” Damon finally asked, keeping his voice neutral even though his instincts were already sharpening.
On the other end of the line, Ravyn exhaled heavily, and that single breath carried more strain than any words could have.
“Seraphine is up against me,” he said bluntly, no pride cushioning the admission. “She’s backing the Stone Group and their stocks keep climbing while mine won’t stabilize. Ever since she pulled out her investment, it’s been rough. I was thinking… if you could invest more. I’m looking at fifty billion.”
For a split second, Damon thought he had misheard him. Fifty billion?
His expression hardened instantly, his jaw tightening as heat surged through his chest. The audacity alone made his wolf bristle beneath his skin.
Help Ravyn? After everything he had done to Seraphine? After the humiliation, the betrayal, the quiet destruction he had left in his wake? The irony would have been laughable if it were not so insulting.
If only Ravyn knew the only reason Damon was even in that pack, breathing that air, tolerating Daisy’s proximity, was because of Seraphine.
Still, outright refusal would be reckless. Damon was not here to act on emotion. He was here to play the long game.
“Let me check my stock performance,” Damon replied carefully, forcing steadiness into his tone. “I haven’t reviewed it since I—”
“You don’t need to,” Ravyn cut in quickly, almost eagerly. “Your stocks are doing extremely well. Yesterday you were number ten. Today you’re number seven. You pushed the Jasons off the list.”
Damon froze where he stood, as if the world was spinning around him. There was only one person in the world capable of orchestrating something like that without him even noticing.
Seraphine. A slow realization settled over him, equal parts awe and ache. She had kept her word.
She had been managing his portfolio quietly, lifting him higher without ever drawing attention to herself. While he was out here pretending, maneuvering through pack politics and Daisy’s deceptions, she had been holding his financial empire steady, strengthening it from the shadows.
“You’re joking, right?” Damon said, though the question was nothing more than an attempt to buy time, to steady the surge of emotion rising in him.
“No, no,” Ravyn insisted immediately. “Check it yourself and get back to me.”
The call ended, but Damon remained still for several seconds, his mind racing faster than his pulse. Fifty billion. Ravyn was desperate, and desperate men made dangerous decisions.
He needed Seraphine, and he needed to be sure no one was listening.
Damon moved quickly, stepping into the washroom and locking the door behind him.
The faint scent of air fresheners mixed with the cool echo of tiled walls, the enclosed space amplifying the tension pressing against his ribs. He lowered his voice before dialing her number.
She answered quickly. “Hello.”
“Sera, I have news,” Damon said urgently, the response was prompt.
“Say it,” Seraphine replied, her tone low and firm, the kind of calm that carried authority without effort.
“One, Daisy is siphoning money to a man called Zane. I didn’t catch a surname.”
On the other end of the line, Seraphine leaned back in her chair, the faint creak of leather barely audible through the connection. Her mind was already moving, analyzing, sorting through possibilities.
“There are too many Zanes,” she said evenly. “I need a surname if I’m going to identify him.”
Damon knew she was right, and frustration prickled at the back of his neck. He replayed the overheard conversation in his head, every word Daisy had whispered, every pause, every tremor.
Then an idea struck. “Can you hack her phone?” he asked, lowering his voice even further. “Check who she was talking to. It hasn’t been ten minutes. Bright told me she withdrew five million in tranches over three days.”
He paused, inhaling slowly as if trying to steady his thoughts.
“She mentioned sending more. I’m almost certain every transfer went to this Zane.”
There was a brief silence on the line, not empty but heavy with calculation.
“Good idea,” Seraphine replied. “There’s been a lot on my mind lately. I’ll look into it and call you back.”
She was about to end the call, and Damon felt a flicker of urgency flare in his chest.
“There’s more.”
She did not speak, but the quiet on the other end settled, signaling she was listening fully now.
“Sera,” he continued, running a hand through his hair as tension coiled through him, “Ravyn saw the spike in my stocks. He wants me to increase my investment. From five to fifty billion.”
For a second, there was absolute stillness on the line.
He could almost picture her freezing, her fingers tightening against her desk, her eyes sharpening.
“So what did you tell him?” she asked finally.
“I told him I’d check,” Damon admitted. “That’s why I called you. What do I do, Sera?”
The helplessness in his voice was real, unfiltered. It slipped out before he could mask it, and he knew she heard it. For all his control, for all his strategy, this was the one place he did not pretend.
He trusted her, and right now, he needed her judgment more than his own in this moment.
Because fifty billion was not just money. It was leverage, a move that could either tighten the net around Ravyn or shatter everything Damon had carefully built.
And somewhere in the space between strategy and emotion, between revenge and restraint, Damon waited for Seraphine to decide which way they would tip the board.