The Caldwell Estate stood grandly at the end of a private road lined with old trees. From the outside, the tall iron gates always felt like a fortress, cold and formal.But tonight, the fortress was glowing.Lights blazed from inside. Music drifted out, mixed with laughter and the clink of glasses. Sera slowed the car, staring at the house through the windshield.A party?They were throwing a party?!Her jaw tightened.Sera killed the engine, stepped out of the car, and shut the door calmly. Too calmly for someone who had just lost the only person she had left.Who the hell let them into my house to throw a party?!She walked to the front door, took a short breath, then shoved it open hard.BRAKK.The door slammed into the wall. The music stopped. The laughter stopped. The clinking glasses stopped.A dozen pairs of eyes turned toward the door, and the moment they saw who was standing there, the expressions on those faces changed one by one. From happy to shocked.Among them, a young w

Silence fell over the room once again.But not the same silence as before. Not the kind born from shock. This silence had a different texture. Hot, tense, like the air right before lightning strikes.And the one who broke it was Megan.Megan took a step forward, staring at Lein with a look that no longer bothered hiding anything. Her fingers were a little stiff around her wine glass."I don't know where you dug up this trash, Sera." Her voice was sharp and cold. "But are you seriously going to marry him? This man has a big mouth and doesn't know his place. Get him out of here before I throw up just looking at him."Lein didn't answer right away.His eyes dropped, stopping on the necklace around Megan's neck. A white gold chain with a diamond-encrusted cross pendant, sparkling under the room's lights.He studied it for two seconds.Then his lips moved."Trash, you said." His tone was flat, but there was something in it that felt like a knife just drawn from its sheath. "What an interes

BRAKK.Megan's fist slammed down on the table beside her. The untouched glasses rattled, one of them nearly tipping over."This son of a bitch..." Her voice was shaking, not from fear, but from rage that had blown way past its boiling point. "How dare he hit Daniel?! Daniel is a Caldwell! Who the fuck gave you the right to lay a hand on him?!"No one answered.Megan whirled on Sera, her eyes blazing."Sera! Get this bastard out of here before he causes even more trouble! Look at what he's done!""He started it."Lein's voice was calm. Flat. Not defensive, not emotional.Everyone turned to look at Lein."He threw the first punch." Lein glanced at Daniel, still sprawled on the marble floor, then looked back at Megan with an expression that felt like a reminder. "I just responded. So how, by your logic, am I the one in the wrong here?"Megan clenched her teeth.Her mouth opened, ready to fire something back, but she never got the chance."Enough!"One word from Sera.But the way she said

Meanwhile, the Arthur Caldwell residence had never felt like a home.Too big for the few who lived there, too cold to be called comfortable, and tonight, too quiet for a room holding more than a dozen people at once.They sat and stood around the spacious main hall, not a trace of warmth on any of their faces. More than a dozen people from the other branches of the Caldwell family, all gathered for the same purpose, a purpose that had long since stopped needing to be said out loud.The only sound came from the chandelier above their heads, a faint hum that felt far too loud in the middle of that silence.Arthur was the one who broke it."Those ten hitmen..." His voice was low, measured, but something was boiling underneath it. "Ten hitmen I paid a fortune for, that I trusted to finish one simple job. And what did we get?" He looked around the room, one face at a time. "Caden's dead, sure, but Sera's still breathing. Which means all that money went straight down the drain."Megan stood

Ten minutes later, the bathroom door opened.Sera turned from where she lay on the bed, half asleep, the TV remote still in her hand.Lein stood in the bathroom doorway, his hair still wet, and the only thing covering his body was a white towel wrapped low around his waist.Sera stared.And didn't stop staring right away.Because the body in front of her didn't exactly make it easy to look away.Lein's shoulders were broad but not overdone. His chest was wide and solid. His abs were cleanly defined, and not like a bodybuilder's, but like someone whose body hadn't been built in a gym, but by something far harsher than that. Not a single inch felt like too much or too little. Everything was exactly right, and perfect.Absolutely perfect.So... this guy had a body like that?Sera swallowed.Once. Silently. But it felt incredibly loud in her own throat.Her cheeks had been flushed since the very first second, and instead of getting better, they only got worse with every passing moment.Th