At that moment, without waiting for any instruction, without needing to be told what to do, a new group of people appeared seemingly out of nowhere. They moved with practiced efficiency, emerging from the shadows of the station and from behind the parked vans, dressed in plain, nondescript clothing that made them blend into the background as though they were janitorial staff rather than cleaners of a very different sort. They immediately set to work, moving through the scene with methodical precision. Some of them crouched beside the bodies of the fallen Black Dragon enforcers, checking for pulses and then carefully wrapping the corpses in heavy black plastic sheeting before dragging them toward the vans. Others collected the scattered weapons—guns that had been dropped or knocked aside during the fight, blades that had clattered to the ground, even the machete that one of the defeated men had been carrying—and placed them into large duffel bags with practiced ease.One man knelt besi

At that moment, without wasting another second, the two women exchanged glances that spoke volumes—glances filled with disbelief, frustration, and something bordering on indignation. They were utterly surprised that Ethan would make such a demand, that he would place conditions on helping someone who was literally clinging to life by the thinnest of threads. The very idea that he would refuse to come to their family estate, that he would insist on dictating the terms of treatment for a man as important and as fragile as their grandfather, seemed almost incomprehensible to them. This wasn't just any patient. This was the patriarch of their family, a man whose very existence held together alliances, maintained order, and kept rivals at bay. And yet here was this stranger, this wandering doctor who had appeared out of nowhere, acting as though he held all the cards.Victoria, still leaning against the wall but now sitting up slightly straighter, her color slowly returning as her body rec

At that moment, Victoria leaned closer to one of the women beside her, her voice dropping to a barely audible whisper, though the tension in her words was unmistakable. "What the hell is actually going on here?" she hissed, her eyes darting nervously toward the rows of armed men stationed throughout the compound. "Why are there so many guards? This is excessive, even for our family. Could it be that they've already heard about my attempted assassination? Could that be the reason they're all stationed here like this? Is that why there's so much security?" Her voice trembled slightly, not with fear exactly, but with a mixture of confusion and frustration. "This is too much. What the hell is going on, and why are they doing all of this?"The two women exchanged a quick glance, their expressions guarded but unsurprised, as though they had already suspected this might be the case. The calmer one nodded slowly, her voice low and measured as she responded. "That's probably exactly what'

At that moment, upon seeing her grandfather lying lifeless on the bed upon seeing the man who had been her rock, her mentor, her protector, reduced to nothing more than a still, silent form beneath white sheets Victoria's legs gave out completely. Her knees buckled, her body collapsing to the floor with a dull thud as all the strength drained from her limbs in an instant. She didn't try to catch herself. She didn't care. She just fell, her hands hitting the cold marble floor, and then the tears came. Not quiet tears. Not dignified tears. But raw, wrenching sobs that tore through her chest and echoed through the chamber like the cries of someone whose entire world had just shattered into a million irreparable pieces."I did my best," she choked out between sobs, her voice breaking with every word. "I was running around, doing everything I could to make sure nothing happened to you, to make sure you would get better, to bring someone who could save you. Why didn't you wait for me? Why

At that moment, the instant Ethan took his first deliberate step forward—the instant his foot moved across the polished marble floor toward the bed where the old master lay in what everyone believed to be eternal stillness—the atmosphere in the room shattered completely. What had been shocked silence, what had been disbelief mixed with grief, what had been confusion and anger simmering beneath the surface, now exploded into open, undisguised fury.The entire family, every single person standing in that chamber, felt their blood boil at the sheer audacity of this stranger, this nobody who had somehow infiltrated their home during their darkest hour. Even the two women who had accompanied Victoria from the ambush site, the same two who had witnessed with their own eyes the impossible thing Ethan had done when he saved the young miss's life, when he had pressed his hands against a fatal gunshot wound and somehow, inexplicably, sealed it shut and brought her back from the brink of death ev