"Zarek!" Elara snapped, her frame bouncing slightly on the screen as she tore through the dark city streets. "What the hell is going on? Shaw told me the elite vanguard units completely locked down the sector, and now I’m tracking your flight path straight to the central medical district. Why is Tinny at the hospital? Is he breathing?"Zarek closed his eyes for a heartbeat, his massive shoulders tense. "He’s alive, Elara. But Vance’s enforcers used a neurotoxic poison disguised as a sedative. The medical team is running a cellular flush.""Those bastards," she hissed, the low roar of her engine revving in the background. "I knew they’d play dirty. Listen, I’m already on my way to your coordinates. And I didn’t come alone—I brought Beatrice Vance. If anything happens to our brother, the Vance family isn’t going to have an heiress anymore."Zarek’s eyes snapped open, locking onto his sister’s holographic image."Beatrice? Why did you drag her out?""Because she was available, and she’s

The words died in her throat. A bitter, hollow realization settled over her as the sheer futility of her explanation took hold. It didn't make sense; it couldn't.To a man like Zarek, who commanded armies with clinical precision and demanded absolute results, "trying and failing" to stop a rogue operation was a pathetic, empty excuse.If she truly possessed the conviction to defy them, why was Tinny lying on a surgical table even now, a neurotoxin actively unspooling his nervous system? Her frantic justifications were powerless against the cold, biological reality of the poison. She knew that to a military commander, her words were not a defense; they were an admission of total impotence."It doesn't make sense, does it?" she whispered, her voice fracturing. She stared at the floor, utterly defeated."Saying I tried to stop them changes nothing. It doesn't fix what they did to your brother."Zarek looked up from the tiles, his piercing gaze locking onto her trembling shoulders.

"Look at her! Look at her ears!" Elara roared, her face flushing a deep purple as she yanked at her own hair in sheer frustration. "There is absolutely no way! Over my dead body! There is no universe where a Vance unites with this family! I’ll burn the entire corporate sector to ash before I let one of those vipers crawl into our bloodline!"Elara glared at Vivienne’s crimson ears, stunned by the absurdity of the reaction. She stopped shouting for a fraction of a second, her jaw slack as she stared at the high-society heiress, the woman who was supposed to be a calculating, cold-blooded machine. To see the legendary, composed Vivienne Vance turning bright red in a military trauma wing left Elara speechless, her mind racing to connect the dots.Zarek watched his sister, his dark eyebrows knitting together. Behind his stoic mask, he was genuinely wondering why Elara was this unhinged. He knew she hated the Vances for what they had done to Tinny, rightfully so, but this explosive, te

Vivienne looked down at her hands, which were shaking slightly. A small, sad smile touched her lips, but her eyes remained clear when she looked back at Elara."I don't feel bad about betraying them," Vivienne said softly. "The main branch stopped being my family a long time ago. They are just criminals who happen to share my last name. You can't betray people who would gladly kill you the moment you cease to be useful."Elara kept her arms crossed, watching Vivienne carefully. She didn't say anything, but she didn't yell, either. She was listening."But if you’re asking if it hurts to watch everything burn... yes," Vivienne admitted, her voice dropping to a whisper. "I spent my whole life in that district. Not everyone in the secondary branch was evil. Some were just scared, normal people trying to survive under Director Vance's thumb. But tonight, because of the main branch's greed, our whole house is finished. There is nothing left to go back to."Zarek didn't look up from his wr

"I didn't do it alone," Vivienne said, her gaze softening as she thought of her accomplice. "A close friend of mine works in the estate's central monitoring hub. He helped me with the camera system.""The moment the trap triggered, he looped a ten-minute feed of an empty hallway over the monitors. By the time the guards arrived, I had already crawled out, and he had wiped the sensor logs clean."She tapped the marker against the thick paper, pointing to the start of the maze. "He is still inside tonight. He’s waiting for my signal. If we act now, he can blind those cameras again, but we have to strike before the main branch initiates a full lockdown."Elara tapped her fingers against the edge of the paper, her mind calculating the timeline. "How soon does the estate trigger a maximum lockdown? Zarek has your uncle’s communications cut off. If the branch is leaderless, how long do we have before the security system seals itself?"Vivienne offered a faint, knowing smile. Despite her