Behind the Silver Screen
The travel from public coffee spot to office desk consumed the next hour. Headlights cut cold through the gathering dusk.
The amber desk lamp cast a narrow cone of light across Gideon’s office, leaving the corners steeped in shadow. Evangeline sat in the leather chair opposite him, her fingers laced so tightly in her lap that the knuckles had gone white. The silence between them had a weight—thick, adhesive, pressing against the walls until every second felt like held breath.
Gideon watched her. His stillness wasn’t the frozen kind. It was alert, calibrated, the posture of a man who had spent decades learning to read threats before they materialized. The gold in his irises caught the lamplight and held it.
“You think I’m insane,” he said.
“I think you just told me a six-year-old can sense a threat from a mile away, and that my son—our son—has eyes that sometimes look like yours.” Evangeline’s voice was steady, but her gaze kept drifting to the door, as if measuring the distance to an exit. “I’m not sure what label fits yet.”
He reached into his desk drawer. No flourish, no hesitation. He pulled out a leather-bound folder, worn at the edges, and slid it across the polished wood toward her. The movement was deliberate, almost ceremonial.
“Open it.”
She did. Inside were photographs—grainy, taken from surveillance distances. Men in dark suits outside the studio gates. A black sedan idling at the curb. A close-up of a face she didn’t recognize: sharp-jawed, silver-templed, with eyes that held the same unsettling light as Gideon’s.
“Reid Sterling,” Gideon said. “Patriarch of the Sterling pack. They’ve been in Los Angeles longer than the studios have been making pictures. They own land, politicians, and three private security firms that operate under shell corporations. Legitimate on paper. Predatory in practice.”
She turned the page. Another photograph: a younger man, leaner, with a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. His hair was dark, swept back, and he stood beside a white Ferrari with the casual arrogance of someone who had never been told no.
“Dorian Sterling,” Gideon continued. “Reid’s son. Heir to the operation. He runs the day-to-day acquisitions. Real estate, mostly. But his real business is bloodlines.”
Evangeline’s stomach tightened. “Bloodlines.”
“Werewolf packs aren’t just families, Evangeline. They’re hierarchies. Power is genetic. An Alpha’s child inherits the potential to lead—if that child is born right. If the genetics align. If the moon favors them.” He paused, and the quiet in the room sharpened. “Jace is my biological son. That means he carries the blood of an Alpha. And the Sterlings know it.”
She closed the folder. Her hands were shaking now, though she couldn’t pinpoint when that had started. “They want a child. They want our child.”
“They want to control his bloodline. If they take him, they raise him. They shape him. And in fifteen years, they’ll have an Alpha heir who answers to the Sterling name instead of mine.” Gideon’s voice dropped, and the growl that edged it was barely human. “That’s not a threat I can negotiate away.”
The office clock ticked. One second. Two. The sound cut through the silence like a blade.
“You’ve been hiding this from me for six years,” Evangeline said quietly. “You let me think you walked away because of the pressure. Because of Hollywood. Because you weren’t ready.”
“I left to protect you.”
“Don’t.” Her voice cracked, and she forced it steady again. “Don’t make this about noble sacrifice. You didn’t tell me the truth. You let me raise Jace alone, thinking his father just didn’t want him, while you were out there fighting a war I didn’t even know existed.”
Gideon didn’t flinch. He took the accusation and held it, absorbing the weight of it, his jaw set. He stood and moved to the window, his silhouette blocking out the distant glow of the city skyline.
“I was twenty-four when I became Alpha of my pack,” he said, his back to her. “My father was killed in a territorial dispute. Three men. Silver blades. They left his body in a ditch outside Malibu, and I had to identify him by the scars on his hands.” He paused, and in the reflection on the glass, she saw his eyes close. “I swore that would never happen to anyone I loved. So I kept my world separate from yours. I thought distance was the safest thing I could give you.”
“You were wrong.”
He turned. “I know.”
The admission hung in the air, raw and unarmored. The clock ticked again. Evangeline pressed her palms flat against the folder, grounding herself in the texture of worn leather.
“Grant,” she said. “Your security chief. He knows?”
“He’s been with me for twelve years. He knows everything.”
“And June?”
“She can’t know. Not yet.” Gideon’s tone was firm but not unkind. “The fewer civilians with this information, the safer everyone is. June is your friend, but she’s also a liability. If the Sterlings suspect she knows anything, they won’t hesitate to use her.”
Evangeline’s throat tightened. She thought of June’s laugh, the way she always brought coffee without asking, the easy warmth that had been her only anchor in the months after Gideon left. The thought of that warmth being weaponized made her stomach turn.
“What do we do?”
Gideon moved back to the desk. He didn’t sit. He stood across from her, hands braced on the edge of the wood, close enough that she could see the faint lines of tension at the corners of his eyes.
“We leave,” he said. “Tonight. I have a safe house in San Luis Obispo. It’s off-grid, warded, and the perimeter is monitored by people I trust. Grant will drive Jace separately—different route, different car. We’ll rendezvous there.”
“Jace is at school.”
“He’s being picked up in twenty minutes. Grant is already en route.”
Evangeline’s breath caught. “You planned this. Before you even told me.”
“I’ve been planning it for six years.” His voice was quiet, almost gentle, but the urgency beneath it was unmistakable. “I hoped I’d never need the plan. But this morning, one of my contacts flagged a Sterling operative at a coffee shop three blocks from the studio. They’re circling, Evangeline. They’re waiting for an opening. We can’t give them one.”
She looked down at the folder, at the faces of the men who wanted her son. The photographs seemed darker now, the shadows deeper.
“What if they find us anyway?”
Gideon’s eyes flickered. For a moment—just a moment—the gold in them flared, bright and molten, and she felt something brush against the edges of her awareness. Not words. Not sound. A presence, vast and ancient and deeply, terrifyingly protective.
“They won’t,” he said. And the growl in his voice had teeth now. “I’ve spent ten years building the resources to make sure of that. The safe house is only the first step. I have contacts in the Pacific Northwest. A pack in Oregon that owes me a blood debt. If we need to disappear completely, we can.”
Evangeline pressed her fingers to her temples. The room felt smaller than it had a moment ago, the walls pressing in. “I need a minute.”
“We don’t have—”
“I need a minute,” she repeated, and this time her voice carried the kind of steel that had made her a producer who could stare down studio heads. “You just told me that werewolves are real, that my son is one of them, and that a rival pack wants to kidnap him. You don’t get to rush me through that.”
Gideon held her gaze. Then he nodded once and stepped back, giving her space.
She stood, walked to the window, and looked out at the Hollywood sign in the distance. It glowed white against the hills, a monument to dreams and illusions. She had spent her entire professional life building stories out of nothing—script pages, lighting rigs, the careful alchemy of performance. But this wasn’t a story. This was real, and the stakes were measured in a six-year-old boy who still slept with a stuffed dinosaur under his arm.
“I never wanted this life for him,” she said, her reflection ghosting against the glass.
“I know.”
“I wanted him to be normal. To grow up without secrets. Without fear.”
“I wanted that too.” Gideon’s voice was low, rough. “But normal isn’t what he is. And hiding it won’t keep him safe. The only thing that will keep him safe is power—and the willingness to use it.”
She turned. “Promise me something.”
“Anything.”
“If we do this—if we run, if we hide, if we fight—promise me you won’t keep secrets from me again. Not about Jace. Not about the pack. Not about anything.”
The silence stretched. Gideon met her eyes, and the weight of the promise settled in the space between them.
“I promise.”
A knock at the door cut through the moment. Grant entered without waiting for a response—a tall man in a charcoal suit, his face carrying the tight expression of someone who had news and didn’t want to deliver it.
“We have a problem,” Grant said.
Gideon straightened. “Report.”
“Sterling’s people are at the elementary school. Two cars, positioned at the north and south exits. They’re not moving in yet, but they’re waiting. I’ve got eyes on Jace from the front office. He’s safe. For now.”
Evangeline’s heart seized. “He’s alone?”
“He’s with a teacher,” Grant said. “I’ve already pulled two of our people into position. We can extract him in under ninety seconds if needed. But if the Sterlings see us move first, they’ll escalate. We need a decision.”
Gideon’s phone buzzed on the desk. He picked it up, and his expression went cold—the kind of cold that had nothing to do with temperature and everything to do with the moment before violence.
He turned the screen toward them.
A text message. A photograph of Jace at his school desk, the red crayon in his hand, a smear of gold on his tongue as he blew a bubble—and beneath the image, a single line of text.
*He’s ours now. See you at dusk.*