"Found her. Serena's at the Grand Palace Restaurant.""The Grand Palace Restaurant?"Aaron's expression darkened instantly, his features hardening into something cold and dangerous. Without another word, he was already moving.Inside a private dining room on the upper floor of the Grand Palace Restaurant, an elaborate spread of dishes covered the table, untouched and growing cold. The air was thick with cigarette smoke and the sour tang of expensive cologne.Serena Vale stirred awake, her vision blurring before snapping into horrible clarity. A face loomed over her. Greasy. Leering. Familiar."Bryce Thornton?" She recognized him immediately. The eldest son of the Thornton family, one of the Four Great Houses of Haven City. Her voice came out hoarse, barely above a whisper. "Why am I here? What do you want?"Bryce leaned back in his chair, drawing slowly on his cigarette. Smoke curled from his lips as a predatory smile spread across his face."Relax

Aaron pulled out his phone, his expression utterly cold. "The Grand Restaurant. They've been in bed with Bryce Thornton." He let the silence hang for a beat before continuing. "There's no reason for it to keep operating."He dialed. "Reaper. Five minutes. Bring a crew to The Grand Restaurant."Less than four minutes later, a limited-edition Ferrari pulled up to the entrance, its engine cutting through the quiet street. Reaper stepped out first, followed by several men dressed entirely in black. They filed through the front doors without a word, moving with the precision of people who had done this many times before.The moment they appeared on the second floor, Aaron gave a single command."Tear it apart."Reaper and his men seized chairs and hurled them into walls, swept tables aside like they weighed nothing. Every window on the floor shattered in rapid succession, glass cascading outward into the night air. The polished interior that had once hosted expen

"Aaron Holmes!"Damien Thornton's voice tore through the grand hall like a thunderclap, his face twisted with uncontrollable fury. He threw his head back and howled at the ceiling, the sound reverberating off the marble pillars until the chandeliers trembled overhead."When I find you, I will grind your bones to dust!"Across the city, inside one of the Vale family's private villas, Serena Vale opened her eyes slowly. A dull, throbbing pain pulsed behind her temples, and for a moment she couldn't remember where she was. The silk sheets beneath her felt familiar, though. She was home."Awake?"A woman in heavy makeup sat at the edge of the bed, arms crossed, lips pressed into a thin line of barely contained disgust. Camille Vale thrust a folder toward her daughter without a shred of warmth."Take a look for yourself. I was wondering why you came home so late last night, carried in by strangers. Turns out you were out fooling around."Serena took t

"You guarantee your inspection process is flawless?" Marlon Briggs let out a cold laugh, his voice rising to carry across the growing crowd. "Sounds pretty damn absolute to me."He turned to face the street, arms spread wide. "Everyone, come see this for yourselves! Come look at what this company has done!"His shouting drew more onlookers. Pedestrians paused, shoppers drifted closer, and a knot of bodies steadily thickened around the entrance of Vale Cosmetics. Marlon wanted every eye on him, wanted this scene burned into as many memories as possible."Yesterday I went inside and asked for an explanation," he announced, his pocked face twisted into a mask of righteous fury. "They brushed me off with the same rehearsed lines. Today my condition has gotten worse, and they're still feeding me the exact same script."He jabbed a finger toward the glass doors behind him. "They refuse to admit their product is defective. They keep shoving the blame onto someone else."

The private room at the back of the restaurant buzzed with laughter and clinking glasses. A dozen men crowded around a circular table littered with empty bottles and greasy plates, their faces flushed from alcohol and self-congratulation."That's a wrap, gentlemen!" someone called out, raising his glass.Marlon Briggs drained his whisky in one swallow and slammed the glass down. If anyone had been paying close attention earlier that morning, they would have recognized every face at this table. They were the same crowd who had stormed the lobby of Vale Cosmetics, playing their parts to perfection. Some had blended into the gathering outside, feeding outrage to bystanders. Others had shouted on cue, working the crowd like a Hype Conductor orchestrating a symphony of chaos.Marlon wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and let out a short laugh. "Honestly, some of the complaints I came up with were ridiculous. Allergic reactions from a product I never even opened." He