2026-09-15 07:38:13His voice was quiet but it cut through the room like a blade, and all four of them went still.
Madison's face flushed red, her hands moving to pull the slip higher, to cover herself, but she stopped halfway and looked at him with something raw and desperate in her eyes. "Is it that we are not beautiful enough for you? Is that it? Are we not good enough?"
Brooklyn's voice cracked when she spoke. "All this time, Derek. All this time we have been here with you. Side by side, every single day. And you just keep pushing us away like we are nothing. Like we mean nothing."
Savannah's jaw tightened, her arms dropping to her sides, and when she spoke her voice was the quietest of the four but somehow it carried the furthest. "What are we missing? Tell us. Just tell us so we know."
Derek looked at each of them in turn, really looked at them, and for a moment the room was quiet except for the sound of their breathing, uneven and shallow. "You are beautiful," he said finally. "All four of you. Anyone with eyes can see that."
"Then why—"
"Because I do not have time for this." His voice was quiet but it cut through the room like a blade. "I have spent fifteen years on this mountain. Fifteen years learning, training, waiting. And now I am finally leaving, and when I do, I have things I need to accomplish. People I need to find. Questions I need answered. And women—" He stopped himself, exhaled slowly, and met each of their eyes in turn. "Women are not part of that plan. Not yet. Maybe not ever. I do not know. But right now, today, this is not something I can carry."
The silence that followed was heavy and thick, the kind of silence that pressed down on a room until someone broke under the weight of it.
Sophia's hands trembled as she pulled her robe closed and tied the sash tight around her waist. Madison tugged the slip down and crossed her arms over her chest. Brooklyn fumbled with the top of her dress, her fingers shaking as she fastened the buttons one by one. Savannah stood there for a moment longer, completely still, completely exposed, and then she turned away and picked up the shirt she had left by the door.
Brooklyn's jaw tightened, her eyes went glassy, and when she spoke her voice trembled just slightly at the edges. "Fine. Fine, Derek. If that is how you feel, then we will wait."
"Wait?" he repeated.
"Yes. Wait." Sophia stepped forward again, fully dressed now, and this time there was no softness in her expression at all, just cold determination. "However long it takes. Months. Years. We do not care. But the moment you leave this mountain, we are coming with you. All four of us. And if you ever...ever get close to another woman, if you so much as look at someone else the way you refuse to look at us, that woman is going to regret the day she was born. Do you understand me?"
Madison nodded sharply. "We will make sure of it."
Savannah's smile was thin and dangerous. "She will not even see us coming."
Derek opened his mouth to respond, to tell them how insane that sounded, to argue, to do something, but before he could get a single word out the sound of footsteps echoed from the corridor outside heavy footsteps, fast and purposeful, the kind that belonged to someone who had traveled a long distance without rest.
The door opened again.
A man stood there, broad-shouldered and dusty from the road, his cloak marked with the seal of the supreme massager guard, and in his hands he carried two scrolls, one sealed with red wax and the other with black.
And that was when the scroll arrived.
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Chapters 100
Inside, Derek washed his face. The water was cold, and it woke him up a little, and he changed his shoes — the ones still wet from the dew — and he stood there for a moment in the quiet room, looking at nothing, thinking about what she had said."Be careful."The first kind thing she had ever said to him. And now he had a choice to make, and he knew it, and he made it anyway.Kane's house. Nine o'clock. The book. The name. Vic, who had days and not weeks. Or the old man. Who had asked for him. Who had said, tell him I remember. He couldn't do both. He'd told himself all afternoon that he could — go to the old man first, be quick, be back by nine — but standing there in the quiet room, he knew that was a lie he was telling himself. Visits to dying men were never quick.Derek walked to the West mansion. He didn't run. He didn't hurry. He passed the market on the way, the stalls coming down, and he checked the clock above the square. Past eight. He still had time, if he was quick. If fiv
chapter 99
Derek left the old quarter with the sun going down.He'd told Samuel to leave tonight, and Samuel had nodded, slow, like a man agreeing to something he didn't want to agree to, and Harold had put a hand on his shoulder, and that was that. There wasn't anything else to say. Derek walked back through the lane, past the baskets and the cooking fires, and the smoke hung low, and it got in his eyes, and he didn't bother rubbing it out.The market was closing. The stalls were coming down, the traders packing up, and a woman was shouting at a boy who'd knocked over a basket of oranges, and the boy was laughing, and the woman was trying not to laugh, and Derek walked past all of it and thought about what he'd say to Kane at nine o'clock. He'd ask about the house on the hill first. See what he said. If he knew it, then the name in his book — the one that was scratched out — it lived in that house. And if he didn't know it — Derek didn't finish the thought. He never finished that thought. He ju
chapter 98
Derek hadn't slept. He hadn't eaten since yesterday, either, and his stomach knew it. His shoes were wet with dew from the walk, his coat smelled of the room under the house — dust and old herbs — and his eyes burned every time he blinked. He stood at the estate gate and waited for Harold, and the waiting was the worst part, because there was nothing to do but think, and thinking kept coming back to the same thing.The footsteps. In the house. Above him.He kept hearing them. Even now, in the quiet morning, with nothing around him but the gate and the road and the first smoke rising from the market. He kept hearing them.A car stopped at the corner. Harold got out, out of breath, carrying a paper bag."Young Master." Harold held the bag out. "Bread. Still warm. I didn't know if you'd eaten, and you never eat when you're —""I haven't," Derek said. He took the bread. It was warm. He tore off a piece and ate it standing there at the gate, and it was the best thing he'd tasted in days, w
Chapter 97
Derek walked to the estate in the dark.He did not go home. He did not call Harold. He walked through the quiet streets, past the closed shops and the shuttered stalls, and the key sat heavy in his pocket with every step. The city was asleep. The only sound was his own footsteps, and once, far away, a dog barking. He passed the market, its stalls covered and dark, and the river, black and still under the night sky. A night watchman stood at a corner, half asleep, and did not see him pass.He thought about the key, and about the room under the house, and about Vic, who had days and not weeks. The key had waited fifteen years. Vic could not wait. That was why Derek was walking now, and not tomorrow.The estate gates stood open. Derek walked through them and across the courtyard, and the house rose up in front of him, dark and silent. He had been here before, in the daylight, with Harold waiting at the gate. Now there was no one. The windows were dark. The front door was shut.Derek push
Chapter 96
In the morning, Derek went to the old quarter to see Samuel.The old quarter sat behind the market, down a narrow lane where the houses leaned close together and the air smelled of smoke and cooking oil. Derek had been there once before, in the dark, three nights ago. Now he came in daylight, and the lane was full of people carrying baskets and buckets, and children running between the stalls.Samuel's room was at the end of the lane, a small room with a wooden door and a window covered by a piece of cloth. Derek knocked. The door opened, and Samuel stood there, blinking in the daylight, his grey hair uncombed, his worn jacket hanging loose on his shoulders."You came back," Samuel said."Yes," Derek said.Samuel stepped aside and let him in. The room was small and bare — a bed, a wooden chair, a lantern by the door, a clay cup on the floor. Samuel sat down on the edge of the bed, and Derek sat on the chair across from him."I have been thinking since you came," Samuel said. "About th
Chapter 95
At nine o'clock, Derek stood outside the tall iron gate.He had walked the last three streets alone. Harold had driven him as far as the corner and waited there, the way Derek had told him to, and Derek had walked the rest on foot. He had stopped twice, once at a shop window and once at a street corner, and listened for footsteps behind him. There were none. The street was quiet.He passed the warehouse district on the way. Warehouse 7 stood dark and quiet by the river, and the smell of diesel and fish hung in the air. The ledger was still in the office drawer. The wage note was still folded in his pocket. Derek kept walking.The gate did not open. Derek stood outside it and waited. A full minute passed. Then another. The house was dark and quiet behind the iron bars, and no one came. Derek did not knock. He did not call out. He stood still, and he waited, and he thought about the book sitting on Kane's desk, and about the trap he had walked into — or the deal.Then the gate opened, a
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