Seraphina glides into the room like she owns every inch of air she takes. The door closes behind her with a soft click, but the sound of it seems to snap the whole place into focus. For a second the room feels smaller — the light harsher, the smell of blood and sweat more honest — because she’s there and she doesn’t waste a breath.Her eyes sweep the room the way a surgeon’s hand finds a wound. They land on Darren first. He’s slumped, bound, shirt ruined and dark with blood. The bruise swelling over his eye looks like someone stamped a fist into him. Seraphina’s mouth tightens; the line of her brow is the only thing she allows herself to show. Then her gaze slides to me and, just for a breath, there’s something like calculation and something like pity mixed in that look.I shift my shoulders almost imperceptibly — the tiniest shake of my head. Don’t mention the contract, I say to her without words. She catches it. She knows what that could do to Darren if Lucien twists it into leverag

A slow, mocking clap echoed behind me, thin and deliberate.“Well, well… if it isn’t Kael George.”My body tightened before my brain finished the name. I spun on instinct, fists already curling into readiness. The room seemed to shrink around him. Alistair — immaculate suit, arrogant smirk, the kind of man who could order violence and still not muss a cuff — filled the doorway like he owned the air itself.“Haven’t you learned your lesson?” I spat, voice low.He laughed, something without warmth. “Lesson?” He tilted his head, eyes cold as glass. “Kael, last time… you got lucky.” He let the words sit, then flicked a finger toward the three men in black who’d moved like shadows around the room. “But today? Luck won’t save you.”He pointed them out one by one as if introducing prized hunting dogs. “These men? They aren’t some street-level thugs.” His smirk widened. “They’re professionals — soldiers, killers. And unlike the amateurs you fought before, they won’t go easy on you.”I didn’t

“I’ll handle Alistair myself,” he said. Determination sat in the words, not empty bravado. “I’ll entrust my daughter’s safety to you. I promise — I’ll provide better treatment for Liam as well.”That was it. Short. Heavy. He exchanged a look with Seraphina, a micro-gesture that said more than the words. Then, as if the scene had been closed with a curtain, they both bowed once and left.I let out the breath I didn’t know I’d been holding and turned toward my door. The night had already taken more than it should have. My muscles burned with tiredness, my head felt like a slow drumbeat behind my eyes. I wanted nothing more than a door shut and a few hours of sleep.Before I took another step, Mia grabbed my wrist like a vise.“Not so fast.”Her grip was fierce. Her face was raw with anger and worry at once — a dangerous mix I’d learned to read.“Tell me what you and my father talked about,” she demanded.“It’s between men,” I said, reflexive and flat. A pause, meant to shut the conversa

There’s a taste of metal in my mouth — not blood, just adrenaline — as Jofferey’s words hang in the air like a gauntlet thrown.“There’s no escape for you now, Kael,” he says, every syllable coated in triumph. “You’re surrounded. I hope you didn’t think I’d let you walk away after humiliating me last time.”I breathe out slow, deliberate. My shoulders roll, loosening the tension I don’t have the luxury of wasting. I study the men arrayed around me like a man doing a quick inventory — positions, stance, the little tells of someone who’s been paid to kill for a living. Then I shift my gaze back to Jofferey and, finally, to the four in black standing closest, the ones Jofferey brags about.“So, this is the infamous Dominion Syndicate?” I ask, cracking my knuckles more from habit than nerves. “The most feared mercenary group money can buy? I expected more.”The leader’s lips twitch into a smirk — small, tight, the kind that says he’s used to men folding like paper. The others bristle; you

Jofferey’s face folded in on itself as he went down, but it was the look in my eyes that finally finished him. Pride is a brittle thing—especially when it’s dangling over a cliff—and he understood, in that instant, what the cost of refusal would be.He swallowed, the pride crushed flat, and slowly—terribly slowly—lowered himself to his knees. The whole bar seemed to hold its breath.“I’m sorry,” he croaked, voice rough as gravel. He forced the words toward Dante like they scraped his throat. “I won’t touch your sister again. I swear.”Silence pressed in so tight I could hear the clink of a glass in the corner. Dante stood still, mouth half open, like he’d been waiting his whole life to see vultures turned meek. The mercenaries I’d left on the floor looked at him as if they’d been stripped of a life-long delusion—that their leader was infallible.But the apology didn’t settle anything. Kneeling in the middle of a bar didn’t erase the risk Jofferey posed. Carroways don’t forget humiliat