All Chapters of The Shadow God Of War Returns: Chapter 61
- Chapter 70
79 chapters
CHAPTER 60
The blatant words sent shockwaves through the men.They hadn’t expected such open defiance, certainly not from him. Robert Sullivan was terrifying, a man no one refused. His children never ignored a summons. They never told him to come to them.It was an honor to be called before their father. If they went uninvited, it could take weeks before he agreed to see them.And now Robert was home because of Grisha, and Grisha was choosing to ignore him.Watts was shaking, the veins in his neck bulging.“You think you’re untouchable because of who your mother is?” he snarled. “You’re a stray, boy. A stray we’re about to put in a cage!”Zarek let out a low, dark chuckle that sent a chill through the younger guards.“Then come and get me,” he said softly. “Come into the water. Let’s see how well your tactical gear works when you’re drowning.”“You’re a fool!” Watts roared, pacing the slick marble like a caged animal. “You think surviving a little poison makes you king of this estate?”He too
CHAPTER 61
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
CHAPTER 62
The water in the room didn’t explode; it hummed.A pale blue glow flickered beneath the surface.Alessandra and Giorgia shrieked as the current hit them.It wasn’t lethal, Zarek had rigged the breaker to trip if the amperage reached a fatal level, but it was agonizing. Their muscles seized, their skin prickled with a thousand needles, and they were forced to stagger and dance in the rising water just to keep their balance.He was giving them a controlled dose of their own medicine.He was making them feel the terror of being trapped in a conductive cage, waiting for the surge that might never come or the one that would end it all.“Please!” Giorgia sobbed, the vibrations rattling her teeth. “Turn it off! We’ll tell Robert it was an accident! We’ll do anything!”Zarek watched the water level through the narrow gap. He saw the prideful Sullivans reduced to shaking, weeping wrecks.“Tell Robert?” Zarek laughed, the sound stripped of warmth. “Oh, you’re going to tell him everything. But
CHAPTER 63
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
CHAPTER 64
Zarek had always wanted to be alone in Robert’s study to find information, or at least access something that might lead him to it.His gaze swept the room. This was the opportunity he had been waiting for: a chance to uncover the threads that led to his family’s death. If he searched thoroughly, surely something would surface.He stepped toward the massive desk, hand reaching for the top drawer, hoping to find the ledger or perhaps a backup drive.His hand froze mid-air.Zarek didn’t look up immediately. Instead, he let his senses expand, feeling the familiar prickle of eyes on his skin. Slowly, his gaze darted from the corners of the ceiling to the molding of the bookshelves, then to the eyes of the painted portraits on the walls.In the shadows of the ornate crown molding, he spotted the dull glass glint of a high-definition lens. Then another, hidden behind a book spine. Then a third was embedded in the base of a desk lamp.Not just one or two dozen. Every square inch of the
CHAPTER 65
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
CHAPTER 66
His skin still prickled with residual electricity. His lungs burned from the pool water.And now he had to deal with this.“Clean it,” he said flatly. “And if I hear another scream, another word, or even a heavy breath from you, I won’t use my hand next time. I’ll use the wall.”The maid didn’t look up. She scrubbed with her bare hands, her sobs muffled as she tried to erase the water, the blood, and what little dignity she had left.Zarek turned to Masha, who stared at him in stunned silence. He didn’t feel like a hero. He felt irritated, trapped in a circus full of idiots.“You,” he said to the other maid, the one still frozen in place. “Go to the kitchen. Bring food. Real food. If I see a tray of ‘crazy person’ mush, I’m coming for you next.”The maid bolted without a word.Zarek exhaled sharply and glanced toward the corner of the ceiling. The cameras were there, too. He was certain the sick freak Robert would be watching soon. A large frown crossed his face.“This is exhausti
CHAPTER 67
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
CHAPTER 68
The night air was a sharp contrast to the stifling, ozone-heavy atmosphere of the North Wing.Zarek didn’t return to his room to change. He didn’t seek out a medic.Instead, he walked into the estate’s sprawling rear gardens, his bare chest glistening under the moonlight, faint steam still rising from his skin.The stone bench sat buried in shadow, beyond the floodlights’ reach. Zarek leaned forward, elbows on his knees, wet hair darkening the gravel.It looked like rest.It wasn’t.His senses were dialed to their absolute limit. He hadn’t been alone since the moment he stepped out of Masha’s room.Ten minutes passed in silence, broken only by the distant hum of the estate’s generator.“How long were you planning on staying back there, Shaw?” Zarek’s voice was a low rasp that cut cleanly through the stillness. “I expected you in my room. But I suppose the garden’s better for a private chat. Fewer cameras near the rosebushes.”For a long moment, there was no reply.Then gravel crunche
CHAPTER 69
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