Chapter 1: Introduction
Tye .Prison walked with s swagger —a man who believed the world owed him compliance, a man who had spent too many years bending people to his will to remember what it felt like when someone refused to bend.
His office was a kingdom of cold arrogance: walls of smoked glass that trapped the city’s hum until it became white noise, a desk so polished it looked like liquid night, and a goddamn throne of black leather where he sat, legs spread, fingers steepled under his chin like some kind of corporate overlord casting judgment on the mortals around him.
And then she walked in.
Wren Ashby.
The blue-haired employee. Tye hadn’t bothered with her name—why would he? Interns were interchangeable, like office supplies or disposable cups: useful for a moment, forgotten the next. But this one had edges. Sharp little edges.
He watched as she crossed the marble floor, heels clicking like a metronome counting down to his next dismissal. Her hair wasn’t just blue—it was cobalt in the morning light, electric against the sterile beige of the office.
She handed him his coffee the coffee without a word, her fingers lingering just a second too long on the rim of the cup. The way her knuckles whitened around it made Tye’s smirk falter for half a breath.
Then she sat across from him, adjusted her skirt with surgical precision, and crossed her legs.
Tye’s eyes flicked down like a heat-seeking missile. Not bad. Not bad at all.
"Ashby, isn’t it?" he said, already tapping at his keyboard like she was beneath notice.
"Wren," she corrected, voice smooth as a razor blade wrapped in silk.
She left and Tye went avkut hid work. A breat desl of seemed ti be flirting with evwry woman the edge of his vision. He rubbed bis throat, feeling the faintest tightening. Then he dismissed it. Stress. Too many bourbons last night. He turned back to the monitor, keyed in his password, and tried to focus on the quarterly projections.
By eleven, the dizziness had sharpened into a needle behind his left eyebrow. He leaned back, exhaled through gritted teeth, and rubbed his temples. When he looked up, he caught Wren watching him—lips pressed together like she was suppressing a smile. Her gaze flicked away too quickly for plausibility.
She had ti be patient.
That nkght he went home and immediatkey went about aggressively fucking a busty Russian blonde from HR who wasnt even in town for work—just in town for him. He fucked her in his apartment, the one he shared with a series of rotating arm candy, and when he finished he rolled off her sweaty body and said “Thanks, kid, think I’ll hit the hay—big day tomorrow.” She said “My name’s Olga” and he said “Right, right.”
The next morning, Tye woke with his head pounding, his mouth tasting like he’d gargled with a copper coin. He showered, dressed in another sharp suit—this one charcoal gray, the fabric clinging to him like a second skin—and arrived at the office with a scowl already etched into his face.