POV Zayden

The morning air felt wrong. Too quiet, too sharp, like the universe was holding its breath before delivering another gut punch.

Jocelyn had just finished coaxing Mia through her morning pills—a daily negotiation involving tigers, promises, and enough patience to qualify for sainthood—when my phone buzzed. One ring. Two. Then silence that felt like a fucking death knell.

I stared at the message on the screen, each word landing like a physical blow.

All Wolfe funding has been rescinded. The clinical trial is on indefinite hold.

They didn’t mention Mia by name. Didn’t have to. We all knew exactly which six-year-old girl’s life they were playing games with.

I stood there in the middle of my living room—our living room—letting the weight of it settle into my bones like poison.

Behind me, Mia was coloring another tiger, tongue poking out in concentration, completely oblivious to the fact that my grandfather had just tried to murder her with paperwork.

Harrison fucking Wolfe. Of course.

I was in his office within the hour, because some conversations require looking into the eyes of the person trying to destroy your family.

His secretary opened the door without a word—probably got the memo that today was “watch the heir apparent commit professional suicide” day.

Harrison was already standing, sipping espresso from a cup that probably cost more than most people’s rent, his suit perfect, his expression cleaner than his conscience.

“You didn’t waste time,” he said, like we were discussing the weather instead of my daughter’s survival.

“You pulled the funding.” No preamble. No bullshit pleasantries.

“I redirected resources,” Harrison replied with that smooth corporate doublespeak he’d perfected over decades of screwing people with a smile. “Nothing personal.”

My jaw locked tight enough to crack molars. “You sabotaged a child’s treatment.”

“No,” Harrison said, smile sharp enough to cut glass. “I reminded you what happens when you forget where you come from.”

“I walked away from your deal. Not from my daughter.”

“She’s not a Wolfe.”

I stepped forward, slow and deliberate, like approaching a venomous snake that needed to understand exactly how close it was to getting its head ripped off.

“She’s mine. That’s enough.”

“She’s a scandal,” Harrison hissed, finally dropping the grandfatherly act. “And you tied her to this family with your name, your press, and your impulsive fucking heart. You want to play house with your secretary? Fine. But don’t expect my legacy to bankroll your midlife crisis.”

“This has nothing to do with Jocelyn,” I said, voice cutting through his bullshit like a scalpel. “This is about power. And punishment. You can’t control me anymore, so you’re going after a sick child.”

“It’s about lineage,” Harrison snapped, mask slipping completely now. “It’s about not throwing away four generations of empire for a fling and a child born of silence.”

“She is not a fling.”

“She’s a distraction.”

Silence stretched between us like a loaded gun.

I reached into my coat and pulled out a folder I’d been preparing since the moment I realized exactly what kind of man my grandfather really was.

Blueprints, contracts, capital pledges from partners who owed me favors instead of him.

“I’ll fund the trial myself,” I said, dropping it on his antique desk like a declaration of war. “New trust. New facility. No Wolfe money. No Wolfe name.”

Harrison didn’t even look at the papers. Probably figured they were bluffs or desperate posturing.

“Then you’ll bleed yourself dry before you see results.”

“Then I’ll bleed.”

“Without me, you are nothing,” Harrison said, eyes burning with the kind of fury that comes from losing control. “You are what I made you. Everything you are came from me.”

I leaned in, close enough to smell his expensive cologne and decades of moral rot. “Everything I hate did too.”

The words hung in the air like smoke from a building I’d just burned down.

“For every door you close,” I said, straightening up, “I’ll open ten. And this time, I won’t use your key.”

Harrison’s face went white, then red, then something approaching purple. But he didn’t reply. Couldn’t. Because we both knew I meant every fucking word.

I turned to leave, shoulders high, spine straight, walking away from everything I’d ever known.

But something cracked beneath the surface—maybe the last pieces of the man I used to be, finally breaking apart completely.

At the elevator, my hands trembled. Just once. Then stilled.

I thought about Jocelyn’s voice the night before, shaking through tears that broke something fundamental in my chest:

“They’re going to take everything. Mia’s trial, her chance—it’s slipping, Zayden. I can feel it.”

I’d held her then. Told her I would fix it. Promised her with everything I had left.

Now I had to deliver.

By noon, legal notices were flying. A new medical foundation was formed. First donor: anonymous. Second: me. Third through tenth: favors called in from contacts who remembered what loyalty actually meant.

Jocelyn didn’t ask questions when she saw the paperwork. But when she read the name—The Mia Initiative—she couldn’t stop crying.

I didn’t go home that night. Couldn’t bring myself to be seen vulnerable, stripped of name and inheritance, nothing left but willpower and the kind of anger that could power small cities.

Instead, I sat in an empty office space, staring at blueprints and funding breakdowns, calling doctors who didn’t owe the Wolfe name any favors.

Every “no” only made me colder.

Every silence reminded me of the little girl who needed me to find a “yes.”

At midnight, somewhere across town, Harrison probably poured himself another scotch, wondering if he’d finally pushed too far.

And me? I walked through the city like a man on fire, building something new from the ashes of everything I used to be.

Something clean. Something my daughter would never have to apologize for.

But my eyes were haunted.