Chapter 145: He Can’t Mark Her
The pristine doors of the Boren inner sanctum closed behind Damian under the force of his arrival.
Damian didn’t bother stripping off his medical overcoat. The fabric was heavy, weighted down by the small, cylindrical glass vial resting in his breast pocket—the white sedative powder shifting against the glass with every step he took like a mocking pendulum. His lungs burned, the sterile aroma of the hospital emergency ward still clinging to his skin, mixed with the faint, unmistakable scent of winter-frost pheromones that had choked him inside the Grefo estate only an hour prior.
He marched past the drapes, his shoes sinking into the thick plush of the Persian carpet until he reached the threshold of the primary study.
Bellero Boren didn’t look up immediately. The patriarch of the Boren syndicate was reclined against the high back of his tufted leather wing chair, a silk pocket square trailing carelessly from his vest pocket. A single desk lamp cast shadows across his deeply lined face, illuminating the sharp, aquiline curve of his nose and the stark, brilliant white of his swept-back hair. In his right hand, he held a crystal lowball filled with amber bourbon, the ice cubes clinking lazily against the glass as he rotated his wrist.
"Well?" Bellero’s voice rolled across the room. He slowly lifted his eyes, locking them onto Damian’s rigid form. "You return late, my sovereign medical son. Tell me your hands are clean of your hospital charity and stained with what matters. Did you slip the powder into the tycoon’s glass? Is Dorrent Grefo currently tearing his own mansion apart in a primal frenzy?"
Damian stopped exactly three paces from the edge of the desk, his hands buried within his pockets, his knuckles flexing until they turned stark white against his skin.
"I haven’t done anything," Damian delivered flatly, his voice hard, devoid of the usual clinical deference he maintained in this house. "I didn’t find the time. And even if I had, the entire layout has mutated beyond your calculations. Things are falling apart inside the Grefo estate, Father. The game changed while you were sitting here pouring your drinks."
Bellero’s wrist froze. The lazy clinking of the ice cubes ceased instantly. A dangerous, ghostly stillness settled over his shoulders as his eyes narrowed into lethal slits. "You didn’t find the time?" he repeated, his tone dropping into a freezing register. "Explain yourself before I lose my patience with your pathetic morality."
"Dorrent marked her," Damian slammed the words onto the polished wood of the desk, letting them detonate in the quiet space between them. "The scent gland on her neck is claimed. The winter-frost pheromones have completely overridden her biology." Damian explained to him the rest of the story, then:
Clatter!
Bellero’s glass slammed down onto the desktop so violently that the amber bourbon sloshed over the rim, staining a stack of multi-million credit logistics ledgers. The old man surged out of his chair, his frame towering as his face twisted into an expression of monstrous rage.
"You unmitigated fool!" Bellero roared, his voice shaking. The veins against his temples bulged into pulsing cords as he glared at his son. "You pathetic, spineless idiot! All you ever do is stand there, pretending to be a good person! Pretending to be the righteous physician of the gutters while the crown jewels are ripped from your fingers! How did you let that happen?!"
He lunged forward, slamming his palms flat against the desk, leaning across the expanse until his hot, rancid breath scorched the air between them. "I gave you the blueprint! I gave you the access! You were given a direct biological window to mark that unique omega yourself when she was lying vulnerable in that bed under your care, and you failed! You chose to play the fair gentleman! You are an incorrigible, useless fool, Damian!"
"Don’t talk to me about failure when it comes to my biology!" Damian hissed back, his teeth grinding together. He took a step forward, refusing to flinch under his father’s dominant pressure.
"Do you think I am playing a game here?!" Bellero’s shriek cut through his son’s defense. "Do you think I am spending my remaining years running these syndicates for amusement?! I want those Enigma grandkids, Damian! I need that bloodline to cement the Boren empire above the council forever! And I am cursed... so profoundly unfortunate... to have given birth to a weak, hesitant son like you who lets another Alpha claim his prize without a fight!"
Damian let out a short, cynical laugh that sounded hollow, his eyes flashing with a venomous fire that mirrored the old man’s. "My biology can only be blamed on you, Father! How many times do I have to remind you of that reality? You sit there screaming about S-tier dominance, but you gave birth to an A-tier Alpha. I don’t possess the primal energy core that Dorrent Grefo uses to bend reality to his will. If my genes are too weak for your liking, look in the mirror!"
With a swift, aggressive motion, Damian reached into his coat pocket, pulled out the small glass vial filled with the white powder, and slammed it down onto the desk right next to the spilled bourbon.
"It’s over," Damian stated, his voice dropping into a flat line. "I’m giving up on this layout. She is already marked by an S-tier tycoon. The territorial bond is sealed. Trying to extract her now, trying to force her into my bed or my house, is completely useless. The biological rejection alone would kill her system within forty-eight hours. Accept the loss, Bellero. The Grefos won this round."
"Stop it! Shut your foolish mouth!" Bellero barked, waving his hand dismissively as a smirk slowly replaced the rage on his wrinkled features. He straightened his spine, adjusting his cufflinks with clinical precision as he looked down at the vial. "It is not over yet. Not by a long shot."
Damian frowned, his brow furrowing in astonishment as he stared at the older man’s sudden shift in mood. "What do you mean it’s not over? Did you not hear a single word I just said? She has his mark on her neck. They’re mates."
"Dorrent can’t have marked her yet," Bellero delivered smoothly, his voice dropping that made Damian turn over. "Think about the metrics, my brilliant doctor. You told me yourself after your observations that Jannah Nenth detests Dorrent Grefo."
The old Mafia boss took a slow step around the desk, his shoes making no sound against the floor as he approached his son. "An S-tier mark is powerful, yes, but a true biological bond cannot form under mental resistance. The mind must comply first for the body to accept the permanent integration of the pheromones. If her spirit is fighting him, if her heart is filled with detest, her system will treat his marking as nothing more than a foreign biological attack. It won’t stick, Damian. She is probably not marked in the eyes of nature."
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