“Turn it up, Marcus. And don’t you dare tell me it’s just the acoustics of the room.”

The corner office of the Aldridge Tower was a fortress of glass and brushed steel, overlooking a Manhattan that looked like a motherboard of neon and ambition. Two years had stripped the “Beast” of his fur, but in its place was something far more clinical and dangerous. Lucian Aldridge sat behind a desk of black obsidian, his face a landscape of sharp angles and cold, piercing clarity. He no longer wore the blindfold, but he still lived in a world of echoes.

Marcus stood by the integrated sound system, his hand hovering over...