2025-01-20 14:20:17Dahlia’s hands tightened around her clutch, but she forced her face to remain calm, trying to ignore the fact that Raymond had moved on with someone who looked far more capable and connected than she had imagined.
But so what? He was still trying to rely on women to make a living.
Thinking of that, a hint of disappointment flashed in her eyes.
She snorted, forcing herself to look away, and entered the hall with Caleb.
As they entered the glittering hall, the atmosphere buzzed with excitement. Chandeliers cast a warm glow over the room, and the murmurs of influential voices filled the space.
They knew the kind of connection Caleb, and his family can control.
And they would do anything to be in his favor for any kind of collaboration from them.
Caleb, standing tall beside Dahlia, soaked it all in. His self-assured smirk widened as several guests approached them, eager to greet him.
“Mr. Caleb!” A middle-aged man in a tailored suit extended his hand with a wide smile.
“It’s an honor to see you here. Your family’s reputation precedes you.”
Others quickly followed suit, their voices overlapping as they offered their praise.
“Such a powerful couple you two make,” a woman gushed, glancing at Dahlia with admiration.
“It’s inspiring to see two people with such status together.”
“Yes, a perfect match,” another chimed in, nodding enthusiastically.
Hearing their praise towards her Dahlia managed a polite smile, but her thoughts were elsewhere.
The compliments felt hollow. She glanced again toward Raymond who was still standing quietly with the mysterious woman.
Though he wasn’t surrounded by fawning guests, there was an air of calm about him that seemed... different. For a moment, she wondered if she had really misunderstood him.
However she immediately deleted the thought off her head.
Caleb, meanwhile, basked in the attention.
“Thank you,” he said, his voice carrying a hint of arrogance. “We are indeed a great match. I’m lucky to have Dahlia by my side.”
Upon hearing what Caleb just said, the crowd murmured their agreement, and Caleb’s grin widened.
Just then, another guest, an older gentleman with sharp eyes, stepped forward.
“I heard there’s something special at tonight’s auction,” he said, his voice laced with intrigue. “A rare vintage ring—part of Mr. Drake’s private collection. You all know him, of course, the president of the city’s largest business association.”
The mention of the ring drew a ripple of interest from the crowd. Someone gasped softly.
“They say it’s one of a kind,” the man continued, glancing around. “I also heard the starting price alone is enough to make most people hesitate to even considering it, but for someone with Mr. Caleb’s standing…” He paused, smiling knowingly.
“Well, it might as well already be yours.”
Hearing what the man just said and his sweet words Caleb chuckled, his pride swelling even further. “Like you just said, the ring is as good as mine,” he declared, his voice loud enough to draw even more attention.
“No one else here has what it takes to outbid me.”
“Speaking as if you have everything under control,” Malisa scoffed, rolling her eyes with disdain. She’d had enough of his stupid arrogance, “ If Raymond wanted to, he could buy out this entire auction house without even trying.”
Her voice cut through the room like a blade, sharp and unwavering.
Immediately the room fell into a stunned silence, the boldness of her statement hanging heavy in the air. Then, as if on cue, a ripple of laughter spread among the guests, their disbelief quickly morphing into scornful amusement.
“Buy the auction house?” a woman snickered, covering her mouth as though the very idea was too absurd to say aloud.
“Does she know who she’s talking about?”
“He’s just a washed-up ex-husband,” another that knew Raymond as Dahlia ex chimed in, shaking his head.
“What kind of trick did he pull to get someone like her to back him up?”
“Maybe she feels sorry for him,” someone else added with a smirk.
The room buzzed with ridicule, the mocking voices blending into a chorus of false amusement.
Caleb leaned back, clearly enjoying the spectacle, his smirk widening as he met Raymond’s calm gaze.
Raymond, however, didn’t flinch. Their words were meaningless noise, background static he had no interest in acknowledging.
He took a slow step forward, his hands casually tucked into his pockets.
“I’m not interested in buying the whole auction house,” he said, his tone steady and unbothered. His gaze flicked toward the stage where the ring was displayed under bright lights. “But that ring?” He paused, letting his words sink in.
“That’s mine.”
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Chapter 462
For a moment, even the cemetery seemed to go quieter around them.There were still murmurs nearby, still movement from mourners repositioning themselves around the grave, still the distant sound of shoes on gravel and low prayer from the front of the gathering, but within the small circle of tension that now existed between the three of them, everything had sharpened.Damian simply stared.He had not expected resistance. That much was plain. He had expected awkwardness, perhaps embarrassment, perhaps defensive politeness from a man dragged into some social arrangement above his station. What he had received instead was the kind of flat, clean dismantling that men like him never saw coming because they spent their lives being surrounded by people who measured every word around them carefully.Raymond had not merely answered him. He had stripped the scene of its social costume and left Damian standing there in the full, unflattering truth of his own pettiness.The effect of it showed.F
Chapter 461
The man on the rooftop did not move again, not immediately, and for a long, suspended stretch of seconds, Raymond simply held that distant gaze, refusing to be the one who looked away first, refusing to grant even that small concession to whatever silent test the moment seemed to represent. The pressure of the stranger's presence remained constant throughout, vast and unhurried, settling over the warehouse lot like weather rather than threat, and Raymond found himself cataloguing it carefully, memorizing its particular quality the way he might memorize the shape of a blade before deciding how best to counter it.Then, without warning, without any visible gesture or shift in posture that might have explained it, the man was simply gone.Not retreated. Not descended. Gone, in the way that candle flame is gone the instant breath passes over it, leaving the rooftop as empty and unremarkable as if no one had ever stood there at all.Raymond exhaled slowly, the tension in his shoulders easi
Chapter 461
The man on the rooftop did not move again, not immediately, and for a long, suspended stretch of seconds, Raymond simply held that distant gaze, refusing to be the one who looked away first, refusing to grant even that small concession to whatever silent test the moment seemed to represent. The pressure of the stranger's presence remained constant throughout, vast and unhurried, settling over the warehouse lot like weather rather than threat, and Raymond found himself cataloguing it carefully, memorizing its particular quality the way he might memorize the shape of a blade before deciding how best to counter it.Then, without warning, without any visible gesture or shift in posture that might have explained it, the man was simply gone.Not retreated. Not descended. Gone, in the way that candle flame is gone the instant breath passes over it, leaving the rooftop as empty and unremarkable as if no one had ever stood there at all.Raymond exhaled slowly, the tension in his shoulders easi
Chapter 460
His phone rang. He answered it without looking away from the two broken operatives at his feet. "Raymond," Melissa's voice said, steady, deliberate. "I'm just calling to let you know. My grandfather's brother is being buried today. Given everything we discussed, I'm fairly certain his old associates will be there. You'll likely see some of them yourself. Are you coming?" Something in Raymond's expression sharpened at the question, the strategic weight of it settling into place immediately. "I'll come," he said. "We've already decided to take the war to them. You have nothing to worry about. I'll be there." Melissa did not respond with anything beyond a quiet acknowledgment, and a moment later, the call ended. Raymond lowered the phone slowly, looking down again at Tobias and Ren, turning over the full weight of what their presence here actually meant. Black had been strong. Melissa's grandfather's brother had been strong as well, strong enough to warrant real caution before
Chapter 459
Raymond saw the attack coming straight at him. He just smiled. It was not the smile of a man confident in some clever trick, nor the smile of someone taunting an opponent for theatrical effect. It was quieter than that, almost private, the smile of a man who had spent so long calculating exactly how much of himself he needed to reveal in any given fight that the rare moment of simply letting go, of answering overwhelming force with the full, unguarded truth of his own strength, had become its own small pleasure, separate from the violence surrounding it. He caught the attack with one hand. Tobias's strike, rebuilt from whatever reserves he had managed to claw back after being driven to the floor minutes earlier, carried behind it the full, concentrated weight of a technique meant to end fights outright, a technique that had, by his own account, succeeded four times before against opponents who had no answer for it. It met Raymond's open palm and simply stopped, arrested mid-motion a
Chapter 458
The shockwave from the collision rolled outward through the warehouse in a visible ripple, dust and loose debris thrown outward from the point of impact like water displaced by a dropped stone, and for a moment, both Raymond and Tobias stood locked against each other, neither yielding, the air between them still humming with the aftershock of forces neither ordinary steel nor ordinary flesh had been designed to withstand.Raymond felt it first in his forearms, a deep, bone-level ache where he had intercepted Tobias's strike, followed almost immediately by a colder, more unsettling sensation spreading outward from the point of contact, as though whatever technique Tobias had gathered carried with it something beyond simple kinetic force, something that sought to settle into the body and disrupt it from within.He broke the lock deliberately, stepping back and exhaling sharply, forcing the strange, creeping cold outward through controlled breath, a technique of his own cultivated across
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