"Go on," Darius said, his voice still calm but with something dangerous lurking beneath."Oh, I'm just getting started!" Wesley's laugh was sharp as broken glass. "Peter and I spent months planning. We brought in other families—the Ashfords, the Montgomerys, the Phillips—anyone who saw the Kane fortune and wanted a piece. It was easy convincing them. 'The Kanes are newcomers,' we said. 'They don't belong here. Their wealth should be redistributed among the true Duskfort elite.' And everyone agreed! Everyone wanted in on the takeover!"She paused, savoring the memory like fine wine. "We hired the best assassins money could buy. Mercenaries who'd worked in war zones, who had body counts in the triple digits. We gave them blueprints of your family compound, schedules of when everyone would be gathered, even the locations of your security cameras and panic rooms. We planned it down to the last detail.""And the night of the attack?" Darius prompted, though his hands had begun to tremble s

"Then tell me again," Darius commanded, his voice never rising but somehow becoming more intense. "Tell me in greater detail. Tell me every little thing you did to my family. Every insult you leveled at them. Every piece of their legacy you destroyed. I want to hear it all. Every. Single. Word."But Darius's patience—already stretched to its absolute limit—was wearing dangerously thin. He was not a man who repeated himself. Not for subordinates, not for enemies, and certainly not for worthless traitors like Wesley Hasley who meant less than nothing to him now.She'd been important once. Years ago, when he'd known her as a friend, as someone he'd trusted. But that woman was long gone, replaced by this pathetic creature lying in the mud, desperately trying to understand why death hadn't come yet."I'm waiting," Darius said, and there was something in his tone that made it clear this was the last warning she would receive.Wesley struggled to focus, her fear-addled brain trying to proces

Wesley's mind raced frantically, searching for information that might buy her more time, more mercy, more life. And then it hit her—the one piece of the puzzle she hadn't revealed yet. The plan that was still in motion even now."The Wesleys!" she blurted out, the words exploding from her mouth like a confession at gunpoint. "The Wesley family! They're planning something! They're going to—""Slower," Darius commanded, his grip loosening just enough to let her speak more clearly. "And with more detail. Start from the beginning. What are the Wesleys planning?"Wesley gulped air desperately, her chest heaving. Lightning flashed overhead, illuminating her face in stark relief—snot running from her nose, tears streaming from her eyes, her carefully maintained complexion now blotchy and flushed with a mixture of terror and shame. She looked nothing like the sophisticated society woman who'd walked into her foyer just an hour ago. She looked broken. Destroyed. Utterly defeated."After—after

He hadn't given it another thought. Wealthy people were constantly trying to leverage military connections for their petty squabbles. It happened so frequently that it had become background noise.But now, standing in the rain with his hands around Wesley Hasley's throat, the pieces clicked together with almost amusing clarity.That invitation had been from Garrick Wesley. The "security matter" was Darius himself. And the foolish man had actually thought he could summon the God of War like some kind of cosmic hitman to eliminate his personal enemy.Without knowing that his personal enemy and the God of War were the same person.The sheer stupidity of it—the cosmic irony—struck Darius so forcefully that he couldn't contain his reaction.He laughed.It started as a low chuckle, barely audible over the storm. But it built quickly, growing into full-throated laughter that echoed across the cemetery like thunder. Darius threw his head back, rain streaming down his face, his grip on Wesley'

Lightning flashed, illuminating the tattoo in stark detail. Wesley could see every line, every shade, every intricate detail of the design. It was unmistakable. Identical to the photographs that had circulated across every news platform in the world."But everyone agreed on one thing," Darius said, his voice dropping lower. "This tattoo—this specific design—belonged to one person and one person only. The God of War. There were no copies, no imitations, no other soldiers with similar markings. This was unique. Singular. Identifying."Wesley's eyes were so wide they looked like they might fall out of her skull. Her mouth opened and closed soundlessly, her mind struggling to reconcile what she was seeing with what she believed to be true."And look closer," Darius instructed, shifting slightly to give her a better view of his torso. "What else do you see?"Wesley's gaze traveled across his exposed chest and she saw them—dozens of scars. Some old and faded to white lines. Others more rece