2025-09-22 17:49:30
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Caleb stood with the man sleeping at his feet and thought of Richard, calm and measured and still moving chess pieces even as the house burned. The courier’s words hurt in a different way; if true, it meant the conspiracy was not local politics. It meant there were hands on strings he could not reach with blades and bullets.They took what they could from the house: ledgers, the yellow-coated man’s phone, a stretch of cloth with a mark cut into it. They left nothing but a message for the night.When they returned to the mansion, it was almost dawn. The house slept, but for the low, steady watch of men who kept their eyes open for the same ghosts that did. Outside, the city smoked and the lights came alive again, indifferent.Mr. Loo met them at the gate; fatigue shadowed his face. He took the yellow coat’s phone and flipped through the messages with the slow care of a man who had been building patterns for years.“There’s a code here,” he murmured. “Numbers, times. Someone’s mapping o
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The card lay on the desk like a slug of ice, cold and deliberate. Caleb looked at the four words again and again until they blurred into a smear of ink and accusation.THE RIGHTFUL ONE RISES.He did not tear it up. He did not throw it into the fire. He folded it carefully, as if the paper contained something alive that might recoil at violence. Then he slid it into his pocket like a secret that might be used against him later.Diana watched him from the doorway, her face ashen in the late light. Jasper sat at the foot of the desk, trying to be a man who understood grown things; instead, he worried the frayed edge of a wooden soldier between his fingers.“Who brought it?” Diana asked.“No one stayed,” Mr. Loo said. He stood by the doorway, the years of service bowed into the polite, restrained posture of a man who had seen much but revealed little. “The watchman at the north gate found it this morning. No trace of courier. No prints.” He bowed his head. “Nothing but the wind, sir.”Cal
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Richard’s glass of wine barely rippled as the report came in.“Vercetti is dead, sir. His compound… gone. Callahan’s boy lit the sky with fire.”The underling’s voice quivered, his eyes darting to the carpet as though afraid to meet Richard’s gaze.Richard swirled the wine slowly, the liquid catching in the glow of the chandelier above him. “And the others?”“Dozens of men—dead. The survivors scattered.”A soft laugh escaped Richard’s lips. He set the glass down and leaned back in his chair, the leather groaning under his weight. “Good. Let him burn the weeds. It saves us the trouble of trimming the garden ourselves.”He rose, buttoning his suit jacket with deliberate calm, and strode toward the massive oak doors at the end of the chamber. The guards flanking them opened the way without a word.Beyond the doors lay the Table.A vast underground hall, dimly lit, where men and women of power gathered like shadows around a polished stone circle. Their faces were half-hidden, but their vo
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The mansion still smelled of smoke. Even after the flames had been doused and the dead carried out, the scent lingered in the walls, in the halls, in Caleb’s lungs. It was as though the fire refused to die, feeding instead on the ruin inside him.He sat alone in the study, a glass of untouched whiskey trembling in his hand. The bandages around his ribs were still fresh, white cloth already stained red. His sword leaned against the desk, streaked with blood he hadn’t bothered to clean.Diana had begged him to rest. Jasper had cried until sleep finally claimed him. The twins, too young to know the world had cracked open, slept peacefully in their cribs. But Caleb couldn’t close his eyes. Not tonight. Not after him.Richard.The name burned in his skull like poison.Mr. Richard, you… you were all behind this.He had spat the words in rage, but even now they rang hollow in his ears. How could it be true? The man who had served his father faithfully for decades, the man who had guided Cale
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The night air outside the Callahan estate was sharp, cool against Richard’s skin as he stepped into the waiting black car. The screams of battle and the crackle of fire dimmed behind him, swallowed by the heavy door shutting with a muted thud. For a moment, there was only silence—thick, heavy, deliberate.He adjusted his cuffs, not a wrinkle out of place, and gazed out at the mansion silhouetted against the flames. The crest of the Callahan dynasty—those proud banners that had hung for generations—crumbled and fell in the inferno.A faint smile ghosted across his lips.The driver said nothing. He knew better.Richard leaned back, his hands folded neatly in his lap, his mind replaying the evening’s orchestration with surgical precision. Every piece had moved exactly as planned. The assassins had tested Caleb’s strength, pushed him to exhaustion, and left him bleeding. Yet, Richard had ordered them not to kill him. Not yet.“Let the boy live,” he had said, “for the living suffer more th
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The night was still. Too still.Caleb stood by the window of his chambers, staring at the city lights below. The Callahan mansion, perched high like a crown above the skyline, gleamed under the moonlight. Yet unease crawled in his chest, an instinct honed not by privilege but by the battles he’d fought to earn respect.Behind him, Diana slept lightly, Jasper curled against her. The silence should have been comforting. Instead, it felt like a warning.Then it came.The first explosion ripped through the gates, shaking the mansion’s foundations. Glass shattered. Alarms screamed. Screams followed—the guards outside, cut down before they could rally.Caleb was already moving. He snatched the pistol from the bedside drawer, his body taut with fury. Diana jolted awake, Jasper crying in her arms.“Take him,” Caleb ordered, his voice hard. “Stay in the west wing. Do not open the door for anyone but me.”Diana nodded, fear in her eyes but steel in her voice. “Don’t you dare fall, Caleb.”He pr
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