In the security room, Alessandra and Giorgia stared at the monitors as the screens dissolved into static.They had expected to see a floating corpse.Instead, they had just watched their trap wipe out Robert’s elite security team while Zarek remained in the center of the pool, untouched.Zarek uncurled his body and stood in the waist-deep water.The silence that followed was heavier than the noise. He walked toward the steps, his massive frame dripping as steam rose from his heated skin into the cool night air.Stepping over Watts’s convulsing body without a glance, he reached for his towel, wiped his face, and then looked directly into the nearest security camera with a predatory, teeth-baring grin.“You should have used more volts,” he whispered to the hidden lenses. “Because now, it’s my turn to play with the lights.”In the security hub, the air was cold, but Alessandra and Giorgia were drenched in sweat.The bank of monitors that had once shown a clear thermal view of the pool t

Robert looked at the melted console fragment in Zarek’s hand, evidence of a high-voltage surge that should have ended a human life.“They used the pool’s lighting grid,” Robert said tightly.It wasn’t a question. He knew his wives, and he knew their desperation.“I sent Watts to bring you to me,” he continued, “not to provide them with a ground for an execution.”“Then you should keep your dogs on a shorter leash,” Zarek spat, leaning over the desk.He slammed the melted plastic down beside the cracked helmet.“Watts didn’t bring me anywhere. He was rude. He thought his badge and his gun made him the master of the water. I corrected that delusion. And your wives…” His eyes hardened. “They learned I don’t die as easily as they’d hoped.”Robert didn’t reach for the panic button. He didn’t call for more guards.Instead, he leaned back, watching water drip from Zarek’s hair onto his furniture. The silence stretched, thick with the scent of ozone.Then Robert’s lips twitched.The corner

Seeing her hand still tangled in Masha’s hair, Zarek’s eyes darkened even further.He didn’t scream. He didn’t even move. He glared down at her with the eyes of a predator that had finally found its prey.The maid standing by the door, the one holding the rag, turned a ghostly shade of white.Her knees buckled, and she scrambled backward, her hands waving frantically in front of her.“I wasn’t part of it! I swear!” she shrieked, her voice cracking with pure, unadulterated panic. “I told her to stop! I told her you were back, Young Master Grisha! It was all her idea… it’s a mistake, a horrible mistake!”She lunged forward, desperately trying to grab the other maid’s wrist and pull her hand away from Masha’s hair.“Let go! Let go, you idiot! Do you want us both killed?”But the cruel maid was paralyzed by a toxic cocktail of adrenaline and ego.Though her heart hammered against her ribs like a trapped bird, she didn’t let go.To her, admitting fear was a death sentence to her ambitions

Zarek processed her words, his mind stalling on a detail he hadn’t fully grasped until now.He hadn’t known Masha came from a family like that, a bloodline with a name that carried its own gravity, independent of the Sullivan shadow. From the way she spoke, the Ackrigg name wasn’t a footnote. It was a lineage vast and deeply entrenched, with a history Robert clearly envied.He looked around the cramped, neglected room. The peeling wallpaper and the scent of dampness felt even more insulting now.“If the Ackriggs are so significant,” Zarek said quietly, leaning closer, “why are you still here, Mother? Why did you stay as his last wife, rotting in this wing, when you have a family that could’ve pulled you out of this hell years ago?”He studied her face, searching for a glimpse of the woman she must have been before the walls closed in.“Did you love him that much?” he asked. “Was Robert worth all of this… the isolation, the mockery from maids, the constant threat from his other wive

Shaw’s blood turned to ice.The polished leather shoes of the patriarch hovered inches from his face.In a blur of instinct, Shaw didn’t rise to greet Robert.He lunged sideways, rolling with practiced fluidity into the dense, thorny shadows of the overgrown rosebushes.Pressing his back to the damp earth, he ignored the thorns snagging his expensive cashmere.Heart hammering, breath shallow, he waited.Robert Sullivan stepped closer, his shadow stretching like a shroud across the garden path.The older man narrowed his eyes, scanning the darkness of the bush where Shaw had been crouching moments before.“I know I heard something,” Robert muttered, voice low and gravelly.He reached forward, hand parting branches as if to reveal the intruder.Shaw squeezed his eyes shut. His hand brushed the small, concealed blade at his ankle.If he was caught here, after whispering to a cat following a clandestine meeting with Robert, he was a dead man.Or worse, Zarek would find out he’d been slop