CILLA POV:

The morning air was a damp, gray shroud over Manhattan, matching the cold numbness that had settled into my bones. I pulled the collar of my trench coat tighter, trying to shield myself from the biting wind as I stepped into a 24-hour pharmacy three blocks away from Rogers Corp. My body still throbbed with a grinding ache—a physical souvenir of Graham's "demolition."

I walked straight to the feminine hygiene aisle, my eyes fixed forward. No browsing. No hesitation. I knew exactly what I was looking for. My hand closed around the small, rectangular box: Plan B. One Step. It felt heavy in my hand, like a talisman.

I paid in cash, my face an emotionless mask as the cashier handed me the receipt. I didn't want a paper trail. As I walked out into the gray light of the city, my fingers instinctively brushed against my flat stomach. A fierce, cold resolve solidified within me.

I would not carry his child. I would not be a vessel for a tyrant, no matter how much his Alpha scent tried to trick my Rogue instincts into submission. I swallowed the bitter pill with a gulp of lukewarm bottled water right there on the sidewalk, amidst the rushing commuters. It tasted like ash and freedom.

I was three minutes late when I burst onto the executive floor of the Rogers building. I barely had time to drop my purse at my desk before the mahogany doors of the inner sanctum were thrown open with a violence that made the glass partitions rattle.

Graham stood there, a literal thundercloud in a charcoal suit. "You're late," he said, his voice dangerously quiet, the kind of quiet that precedes a hurricane.

He stalked toward me, his presence sucking the oxygen out of the room. I scrambled to my feet, my heart hammering against my ribs. "I'm sorry, Mr. Rogers. The subway was—"

"I don't care about the subway," he cut me off, stopping inches from me. The heat radiating from his body was a physical weight, an oppressive force. My sudden movement caused my trench coat to fall open, and the collar of my blouse shifted. There, stark and ugly against my pale skin, was the deep, viciously purple mark on my collarbone. His brand.

His eyes, which had been burning with a cold, professional anger, suddenly froze. They locked onto the bruise with an unnerving, hypnotic intensity. I saw his pupils dilate, a primal, predatory darkness swirling in their gray depths. A low growl, so quiet it was almost a vibration in the floorboards, rumbled in his chest.

He reached out, his thumb surprisingly rough as it traced the edge of the mark. Then, his eyes dropped, and his hand dived into my blazer pocket before I could move.

"What is this?" he rasped, pulling out the crumpled pharmacy receipt I'd forgotten to toss in my haste. His eyes scanned the small slip of paper, and I felt the temperature in the room drop twenty degrees.

"Plan B," he whispered, the words sounding like a death sentence. He looked at me, his jaw clenching so hard I thought I heard bone snap. "You took it already, didn't you?"

"It was a transaction, Graham," I spat, my voice trembling with a volatile mix of fear and defiance. "You bought my time, you bought my labor. You didn't buy my womb."

He grabbed my chin, his fingers like iron bands, forcing my head back so I had to look at him. His mind was clearly replaying the night before—my clumsy, desperate resistance, the single tear that had escaped when he first pushed inside me, and the dark stain of blood he'd seen on the sheets. He had convinced himself I was a practiced Rogue, a player who knew the score. But the realization was hitting him like a physical blow.

"You were a virgin," he accused, his voice raw and torn, sounding more like a wounded animal than a king. "And you took that... that poison to erase me?"

"I erased a mistake," I countered, though my heart was trying to leap out of my chest. "Does knowing I was the first make your ego feel better? Or does it bother you that you can't own what's already gone?"

His Alpha aura exploded. It was a physical wave of power that sent a stack of papers flying. The glass vase on my desk shattered into a thousand glittering shards from the sheer pressure of his fury. He leaned in, his lips brushing my ear, his breath hot and smelling of mint and danger.

"You think a pill can erase what I did to you? You are marked, Cilla. In the blood, in the soul. You will never be clean of me. I will make sure of it."

The sharp ding of the elevator interrupted the suffocating tension. The loud, angry click of high heels echoed on the marble floor.

"I don't care if he's in a meeting!" a shrill, familiar voice snapped.

The glass door to the executive suite was shoved open. Penelope stood there, a vision in a blood-red dress that screamed for attention, her face a mask of practiced arrogance. She froze, her eyes taking in the scene: me, pale and defiant; Graham, his hand still gripping my chin in an intimate, terrifying hold.

Her face contorted into pure, venomous hatred. "You," she spat at me, the word a slur. "What is a worthless piece of trash like you doing in his personal space?"