[Ava's POV]
The aftermath of the bond-flash in the penthouse was not stillness, but a charged, humming silence, like the air in the wake of a thunderclap. The three men hovered around Ava, a living cage of conflicting energies and shared, breathless revelation. The academic debate, the strategic arguments over rotation or dominance, lay in ashes at their feet.
Ava, trembling and pale on the floor between them, was the undeniable, terrifying proof of a bond that operated on a logic far more primal than any of their plans. She wasn't a problem to be solved; she was a fundamental shift in their reality, and she was vibrating like a plucked string wound too tight.
Rhett was the first to move from thought to action. His was a mind built for kinetics, for redirecting force. He looked from Lu
