Silence fell over the living room.Cedric opened his mouth, but nothing came out. The question left no room to answer without bringing himself down in the process.Two seconds passed.Then Augustus's voice broke it from his main chair."Wait."Low but heavy. The tone of a man who had just connected dots he didn't want to connect.Every head turned toward him.Augustus looked at Cedric with eyes that had lost all their warmth."You sent Lein to buy meat at Ironwood Carve. And there, he was attacked by a group of thugs working for Adrian."Not a question. A statement waiting to be challenged."Does this mean..." his voice dropped one level lower, more dangerous than when he shouted, "that you and Adrian were working together to kill Lein, Cedric?"The room seemed to lose its air.Celine raised her head with an expression that had completely changed. Her eyes moved between her father and Lein, then back to her father.Cedric stood in the middle of the room with a locked jaw, not making a

Lein closed his bedroom door and stood there for a moment, back against the wood, eyes shut.One long breath.Just to have Celine, just to be able to stand at one woman's side and prove that he was worthy, the price he had to pay was this. Being treated as an enemy, being plotted against, and being blamed for everything that was never his fault to begin with.A challenge that was anything but light.He pushed himself away from the door and walked to the small desk in the corner of the room. A empty cup and a water heater sat there waiting.At this point, Lein needed a cup of coffee, a seat at the edge of the window, and a moment to let the fullness in his head come down a little.His hand had just reached for the coffee tin when his phone vibrated.One vibration. An incoming message.Lein picked it up with a casual motion and opened the screen.The name of the sender made his hand stop.It was from one of the government agents he had placed to keep watch over Lily and their mother. Th

Lein stood in front of his luxury home, worth a hundred million, under a sky that had gone completely dark. The exterior lights were on as usual, but something was different from normal. No ordinary movement behind the windows.He went inside.Inside, six people were already waiting. All of them in suits, but not one of those suits was still presentable. Torn collars, wrinkled sleeves, ties that had ended up somewhere unknown. Those faces greeted his arrival with the same expression, a mix of relief and shame they couldn't hide.A bruise on the right cheek. Stitches on the left temple. And one man in the corner of the room sitting with his right arm propped up in an improvised sling, the bone not where it should have been.Lein swept them all with one look, then one of them, a large man who usually stood the straightest among all of them, stepped forward with a body that leaned slightly to one side because his right side couldn't move normally."Mr. Ashford." His voice was quiet. "Bef

But then, something on Ryoken's face changed.His wide eyes slowly narrowed, and at the corner of his bleeding lip, a smile formed. Not a forced one. It came from a genuine place, from a part of him that hadn't been touched in a long time.He got up.Not like someone in pain trying to hold on, but like someone who had just found what they had been searching for."Just as the Supreme Leader said." His voice came out heavy from breath that hadn't fully returned, but there was a life in it that hadn't been there before. "You really are strong."His feet took position. Right foot slightly back, knees bent at the right angle, weight distributed with a precision that only came from thousands of hours of training. His left hand came up in front of him, fingers straight and together. His right hand pulled back to his side, a fist ready to go.A solid stance.Back straight. Shoulders down. Chest facing forward with a calm that was different from before. This wasn't the posture of someone who w

Ryoken opened his mouth.The words that came out were not the kind that usually came out of his mouth. Not threats, not insults, not the name of a technique ready to be launched."Wait." His voice broke in the middle. "Please. I... I give up. Let me live."Lein looked down at him. Nothing changed on his face. Still cold and without mercy."This is for Lily."Then his right fist came down with a terrifying force.CRACK.Ryoken's nose, already broken before, was completely destroyed this time, the cartilage collapsing inward, blood spraying forward and sideways at once. Four front teeth were knocked clean from their roots, scattered across the ground of the crater around him. His lower jaw shifted from where it should have been, his left cheek swelling within seconds until the eye on that side was nearly shut.Ryoken Daz's face no longer looked the same as it had moments before.Lein raised his hand again."This is for my mother."SLAM.The second punch hit the same point with undiminis