*****Grace remained stiffened at this moment, Xavier’s words replaying in her mind like a bell chime, each one hitting harder than the last. There was no bravado in them, no bluff. Only the quiet conviction of someone who had already made up his mind.Dominic, stunned by the unexpected shift in tone, also froze for half a heartbeat. Then, as if in denial, he burst out laughing again.“What an arrogant, suicidal little brat!” he bellowed, his voice echoing off the walls like gunfire. “You think you’re scary because you’re talking big in front of a woman?”But Xavier still ignored him. He turned fully toward Grace instead, reached out his hand gently, and… after a moment’s hesitation, patted her shoulder softly.“I’ll be right back before you know it,” he said with a small smile. “Just wait for me. It won’t take more than a moment to deal with the mongrel.”Then, without another word, he strode forward.Grace stared after him, her heart thundering f

*****There was no hesitation. No question. Only finality.The moment the words left Xavier’s lips, a shift occurred. It was as though the temperature in the room dropped by several degrees.A palpable pressure radiated outward from him, crashing down like a suffocating wave. The light overhead flickered.And then Xavier moved.His hand shot out toward Dominic’s throat… not fast, not flashy, just unhurried, deliberate. But the intent behind it was unmistakable. It was the gesture of someone who had decided a verdict and was now carrying out the sentence.Dominic’s eyes widened in abject horror.He tried to react. Tried to move. Anything.But his limbs… once honed, deadly instruments of violence, no longer responded.His energy refused to obey him. His muscles wouldn’t twitch. His instincts, his reflexes… everything was frozen, as though time itself had wrapped around him and sealed him in place.It was suffocating.Dominic, who

*****Right now, Dominic’s chest convulsed violently as he clawed uselessly at Xavier’s unrelenting hand. His throat burned with friction and crushing pressure, and his bulging, bloodshot eyes were streaked with frantic webs of red veins, each pulsing with the desperate rhythm of his racing, terrified heartbeat.“Cough… cough!” he rasped, his throat releasing the brittle sound of a dying animal.It was excruciating… pure, unfiltered torment drawn out with cruel precision.And yet… this precise method of suffocation, this slow, deliberate extinguishing of life… it had been Dominic’s favored method when dealing with an opponent beneath him.It was his signature, his personal ritual, and he had always reserved this manner of execution for others.It was how he expressed his dominance, how he flaunted his superiority: strangling victims while staring coldly into their tear-glazed, desperate, pleading eyes, watching with perverse detachment as the last flick

***** Outside the private dining room, an oppressive silence had long fallen upon everyone gathered there. The air had been thick with tension, laced with a strange blend of lingering fear and paralyzing disbelief, ever since those present had come to a reluctant realization that they had judged the situation utterly wrong. That there had been no affair. No betrayal. No scandalous cheating scandal to gossip about later. Instead, that truth was far more pathetic. This entire humiliating scene had been sparked by nothing more than an overzealous, obsessive suitor… a man driven to madness by unrequited desire, who had forced his way here seeking trouble because the woman he had long coveted had dared to give her heart to another. From the moment they pieced this together, none of them had been able to tear themselves away from the unfolding chaos. Despite being knocked off their feet repeatedly by the suffocating, murder

*****He, Dominic, had been celebrated as one of the youngest individuals in Riverton City’s bloody history to achieve E-rank.His pride had been well-founded. He knew others with similar talents, others who shared that small, elite spotlight. But Xavier? This boy hadn’t been among them. He hadn’t existed on Dominic’s radar. Not once.So, when Dominic had swaggered in with his arrogance fully loaded, his confidence had seemed justified. But now…Now his entire body trembled uncontrollably as the weight of reality crashed down upon him. His mind replayed the humiliating memory on an endless loop… how Xavier had caught his punch with laughable ease, holding it aloft like a giant playing with a child’s toy. The casual way he had done it. The utter disregard in his expression.Xavier hadn’t even considered him a threat worth exertion.He had wanted to kill Dominic. Wanted to strangle the life out of him. And Dominic… Dominic had been utterly powerless to st