2026-09-13 22:43:19
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CHAPTER 237
Vivienne leaned against the car. The afternoon sun hit her golden hair and turned it into something that belonged in a painting. Her white sundress glowed. Her eyes were bright and playful and locked onto Ethan with an intensity that had nothing to do with shopping bags.“You owe me a kiss for that bet.” Her voice dropped to something softer.“You owe ME a kiss.” Ethan leaned against the car beside her. “I won.”“Fine.” The word came out like a dare.She grabbed his collar with both hands and pulled him into the back seat. The door closed behind them. The parking garage was empty and quiet and the windows of the Bentley were tinted dark enough to hide anything.What started as a playful peck landed on his lips and stayed there. Her mouth was warm and tasted like the raspberry sorbet she had eaten at the Galleria cafe. Her fingers tightened on his collar. His hands found her waist.The playful peck became something else. Something slower. Something deeper. Her hands moved from his coll
CHAPTER 236
Vivienne laughed. It was a full, warm, genuine laugh, the kind that came from deep in her chest and filled the entire store. She was doing this on purpose and they both knew it. She bought the lingerie, three more sets she didn’t show him, and walked out looking extremely pleased with herself.Outside the store, Ethan’s arms were screaming for mercy. Forty bags. Two hours. His shoulders felt like they were being pulled out of their sockets by gravity and designer fashion working together.When Vivienne turned her back to check her phone, Ethan activated the Dragon Soul Void Cauldron. The artifact was sealed inside his body, invisible to the outside world, a spatial pocket that could store objects in a dimension outside normal space. He sent a pulse of qi through his palms.Every shopping bag vanished. All forty of them. Gone in a blink, sucked into the spatial pocket like water down a drain.His arms dropped to his sides. The relief was so immediate and so complete that he almost groa
CHAPTER 235
After the lunch with Brett Calloway, Vivienne did not go back to her office. She did not go back to her villa. She did not do any of the sensible things that a woman who runs a billion dollar empire should do on a Wednesday afternoon.She grabbed Ethan’s arm and dragged him toward the Crestwood Galleria like a woman on a mission that had nothing to do with business and everything to do with revenge shopping.“Vivienne, I need to go home.” Ethan looked at the enormous glass building with the expression of a man being led to his execution.“No you don’t.” Vivienne pulled him through the revolving doors. “You need to carry my bags. That’s what fake boyfriends do. It’s in the contract.”“There’s no contract.”“There is now. I just wrote it in my head. Article one: carry bags. Article two: don’t complain about article one.” She grinned and disappeared into the first store before he could argue.You’re doomed, the Spirit said cheerfully. I’ve seen armies fall faster than men fall to shoppin
CHAPTER 234
Brett pocketed his phone. Whatever was happening with Vivienne and her fake boyfriend would wait. A Dark List assassination on his turf was the kind of career defining moment that either made you a legend or got you buried in a report nobody would ever read.“Gear up.” Webb stood. “We move in thirty.”Meanwhile, across town, the Park family manor was glowing like a lantern in the autumn evening. The manor was old Crestwood aristocracy, a stone and wood estate surrounded by cypress trees and iron fencing that had been there since before the city had a name.Lawrence Griffin sat at the head of the dinner table in a charcoal suit, his silver hair combed back, his wine glass half full, and his posture carrying the relaxed authority of a man who had survived two assassination attempts this year and wasn’t particularly worried about a third.Trevor Park sat to his right. Twenty six years old, sharp featured, with the quiet confidence of a young man who had earned his Grandmaster title throu
CHAPTER 233
Brett Calloway walked into the Special Division’s temporary headquarters with the kind of energy that made people press themselves against walls to let him pass. The headquarters was located inside the Crestwood Police Department’s restricted wing, a concrete corridor behind three locked doors that didn’t appear on any public blueprint.He was in a foul mood. The kind of mood that makes subordinates avoid eye contact and suddenly remember urgent tasks in rooms that are very far away.His team was waiting in the briefing room. Captain Marcus Webb sat at the head of the table, a grizzled forty five year old with a salt and pepper beard and the combat instincts of a wolf who had survived too many winters to be surprised by anything. His eyes tracked Brett the moment he walked through the door and read his mood in half a second.Beside Webb sat Hank “Bear” Rollins, a six foot six mountain of muscle with a shaved head and hands that looked like they had been borrowed from a construction ve
CHAPTER 232
“It means I can make people disappear. Legally.” Brett’s eyes were cold and flat, the eyes of a man who had said this to other men before and watched them fold. “Vivienne Ashford is not a woman for a penniless live in husband from a nobody family. She deserves someone with power, status, and purpose. Not a stray dog who got lucky.”Oh, he called you a stray dog, the Spirit said. How original. Your father called you a cockroach. Derek called you a worm. This guy’s going with dog. At least the insults are diversifying.What Brett didn’t know was that Ethan’s master was the senior brother of the Special Division’s commander. Technically, Ethan outranked every agent in the division by several tiers. Brett’s threats were like a mailroom clerk threatening the CEO’s son.“Are you done?” Ethan set his fork down and looked at Brett with the patient boredom of a man watching a child throw a tantrum in a grocery store.Brett’s jaw twitched. A vein in his temple pulsed. His hands gripped the tabl
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