Shadron’s hands slowly slipped from Dorrent’s shoulders, his fingers losing their strength as his arms dropped limply to his sides. His jaw remained wide open, his mind trying to process the unbelievable piece of data his best friend had just thrown into the air. He blinked his eyes, staring at the towering, wet-haired billionaire as if a complete stranger had just materialized inside the grand hallway.

"What... what the hell do you mean by that, Dorrent?!" Shadron asked, his voice cracking into a stunned, breathless whisper . "The only woman who can get you hard? Are you telling me that...while the entire high district was calling you the untouchable king of the corporate world... you’ve been dealing with—"

"I don’t have a single second of time to sit down and talk about my medical history right now, Shadron!" Dorrent roared back, his voice cutting through his friend’s question . He buttoned two loose loops of his dark shirt with his left hand, his face a tight mask of execution. "We are going to talk about this disaster later, after I have solved the main problem at hand, getting Jannah treated and bringing her system back from the brink of collapse! Move out of my way!"

Just as Shadron’s expression shifted from shock back into a protective line of defense, preparing to lunge forward and grab Dorrent’s arm to stop him from running out into a death trap, a loud sound echoed from the grand driveway outside.

The crunch of high-end tires slamming to a sudden halt directly in front of the main entrance doors made both Alphas instantly freeze.

Through the reinforced glass panels of the foyer doors, the sleek, customized crimson chassis of a luxury sedan pulled into view. A split second later, the driver-side door clicked open, and a statuesque, exceptionally beautiful woman stepped out onto the stone driveway. It was Joanne Moscow, the elite beauty queen. She was wearing a perfectly tailored designer trench coat, her long golden hair falling across her shoulders in immaculate waves, but her stunning features were tight with an unusual layer of stress. In her right hand, she was tightly clutching the handle of a large leather suitcase.

The front doors were thrown open, and Joanne stepped into the grand foyer, her high heels clicking against the polished marble floorboards.

"Dorrent, thank goodness you are actually home," Joanne began, her voice a smooth, elegant melody that immediately cut through the toxic cloud of Alpha pheromones lingering in the air. She stopped dead in her tracks, her beautiful eyes widening in surprise as she evaluated the disorganized scene before her. Dorrent was standing there with his chest half-bare, his hair dripping wet from a rushed shower, his silver eyes swamped with a dangerous crimson light, while Shadron looked completely pale and disheveled in his clean robe. "What on earth is going on here? Why do the two of you look like you are preparing to fight a literal war at this hour of the morning?"

Shadron slowly turned his head away from Dorrent, his brow furrowing into confusion as he looked at the suitcase resting against the beauty queen’s leg. "Joanne... what a total surprise to see you here. Dorrent, were you actually expecting your girlfriend to arrive at the estate today?"

Dorrent shook his head , his silver eyes narrowing as he stared at the woman he had secretly recorded in a hotel room just weeks prior. "No, I wasn’t," Dorrent growled, his voice dropping into a flat rasp that carried absolutely no warmth. "What the hell are you doing here with a suitcase, Joanne?"

Joanne let out a long sigh, her tall, golden-tan shoulders slumping slightly as she set the suitcase down on the floor. A look of slight embarrassment touched her beautiful face, and she crossed her arms over her chest defensively. "Honestly, Dorrent... I was completely against the entire idea of forcing this layout on your schedule, but my parents didn’t give me a single drop of choice in the matter. The Moscow family board held an emergency meeting last night, and my parents told me to move in with you immediately. They believe that by doing this, by having me live under your roof every single day, it will finally force you to speed up our formal marriage plans instead of continuously delaying them with your excuses."

Joanne stepped an inch closer to Dorrent, her eyes searching his cold, unresponsive face. "I know how intensely you value your private space, and I am truly sorry for arriving like this without telling you... but I had no choice. But more importantly, look at yourself. Where on earth were you running to in such a hurry just now?"

Shadron let out a bitter chuckle, stepping between them as his mind anchored back onto the ticking clock at the hospital. "It’s about Jannah, Joanne," Shadron stated flatly, his voice serious. " She was shot on the lower sector road two days ago, and apparently, the hospital just discovered that the bullet had been coated in a slow-acting synthetic poison. Her tissue is actively degrading, and she is currently at the terminal fighting for her dear life. She has less than twenty-four hours to breathe."

Joanne let out gasp, her small hand flying up to her mouth in horror as she processed the basic point of the disaster. "Oh, my god... shot? That poor, sweet girl... how on earth did she manage to get targeted by a bullet on a common road? That is absolutely terrifying."

"And the only person on this planet who holds the antidote to save her is the Notorious Bellero Boren," Shadron continued, his eyes flicking back to Dorrent’s rigid frame with a warning intensity. "The Mafia God himself just called Dorrent’s phone line a few minutes ago. He demanded that Dorrent goes to him. It is a total execution trap, and this stubborn idiot is actually preparing to walk right into it."

Joanne’s face went pale, her skin losing its warmth as she turned her head to lock her gaze onto Dorrent’s chest plates. "No... Dorrent, you cannot go to see that dangerous person! Are you completely losing your mind?! Bellero Boren is a cold-blooded killer who rules the entire criminal underworld in blood! If you walk through his gates alone, you will never walk out alive! There should be other means, other structural ways for a man of your wealth to get that antidote from the Mafia without sacrificing your own life!"

Joanne stepped forward, her fingers weakly reaching out to touch the fabric of his shirt, her voice trembling with an intense plea. "I feel so sorry for the poor Jannah, and I want her to get better soon, truly... but you cannot destroy your entire existence, your empire, and our future marriage for a servant! We can deploy the Grefo Group’s assets, we can hire a massive network of black-market brokers to hunt down a duplicate formula, or we can...There have to be other ways, Dorrent!"

Dorrent yanked his arm back from her touch, his silver eyes flashing with a sudden crimson fire that made the supermodel instinctively recoil in terror. The suffocating wave of his winter-frost pheromones exploded through the grand foyer, dropping the temperature of the room into a freezing, sub-zero static that made it nearly impossible for anyone to take a comfortable breath.

"Shut your mouth, Joanne! We don’t have a single drop of time for these pathetic stories and bureaucratic council audits!" Dorrent roared at the top of his lungs, his voice a deafening boom. He took a predatory stride toward the front doors, his jaw clenching so tightly as he glared back at them through the dark mass of his hair. "Her organs are melting inside her chest right now! What other actual, immediate ways are there on this earth to get that antidote into her veins before her heart goes flat?!"