THREE YEARS FOR NOTHING

The Obsidian Lounge 1

Thaddeus pulled out his phone as he stepped onto the sidewalk outside his ruined home. His thumb moved across the screen with muscle memory, finding Cordelia’s contact. She answered before the second ring.

“Send someone to pick me up,” he said, his voice level despite the rage still simmering beneath his skin. “Now.”

There was barely a pause on the other end. Cordelia Ashworth hadn’t risen to CEO of Vanguard Conglomerate by asking unnecessary questions. “Location?”

He gave her the address.

“Three minutes,” she replied, and the line went dead.

Thaddeus stood on the curb, his eyes fixed on nothing in particular as he waited. The street hummed with its usual afternoon rhythm—cars passing, the bodega owner sweeping his steps, the laundromat’s neon sign flickering to life even though dusk hadn’t arrived yet. Everything normal, everything ordinary. As if the world hadn’t just told him his sister was being sold like livestock to a man with a taste for cruelty.

The sound came first. A deep, thrumming roar that grew louder with each passing second until it drowned out everything else. People on the street looked up, shielding their eyes as the helicopter descended between the buildings like something out of a fever dream. Thaddeus didn’t flinch. He walked toward it as the skids touched down in the middle of Ashford Street, and the pilot, dressed in the crisp black uniform of Vanguard’s private security, opened the door without a word.

Three minutes. Exactly as promised.

Thaddeus climbed inside, and the helicopter lifted off before he’d even fastened his harness. The pilot handed him a headset, but Thaddeus ignored it. He didn’t need communication. He needed speed.

The helicopter angled toward a private landing area two blocks away. The moment the skids touched concrete, Thaddeus was moving.

Inside The Obsidian Lounge, the VIP hall breathed with decadence. Dim amber lights cast everything in sepia tones, and the air hung thick with expensive cologne, cigar smoke, and something darker—the scent of people who believed they owned the world. 

And in the center of it all, spotlit like some grotesque exhibition, was an iron cage.

Elspeth Crane sat inside it, her thin frame curled against the bars. A shackle encircled her ankle, the metal already rubbing her skin raw. Her dress—something simple she’d probably worn that morning without knowing it would be her last day of freedom, was torn at the shoulder, and bruises mottled her arms in shades of purple and yellow. Her feet were bare and bleeding, small cuts from where she’d been dragged across rough surfaces.

Her eyes stared straight ahead, unfocused and beautiful and utterly blind.

In her trembling hands, she clutched a leather pendant, its surface worn smooth by years of anxious fingers. The metal edges had darkened with time and touch. Inside it was a single photograph—brother and sister on her sixteenth birthday, both smiling, before the world had decided to take everything from them. Thaddeus had given it to her the day before he turned himself in. It was the last gift he’d been able to give her, and she’d worn it every day since.

Now it was the only thing keeping her from shattering completely.

Margot Bellamy leaned into Dorian Blackwell’s side, her expression a perfect marriage of disgust and satisfaction as she stared at Elspeth. Her designer dress probably cost more than Thaddeus’s entire house, and she wore it like armor. “This blind thing,” she said, loud enough for the gathering crowd to hear, “after all these years, she’s finally useful for once.”

Dorian’s arm tightened around her waist as they both turned their attention to the man standing closest to the cage. Gregor Ventris, VP of Acquisitions at Vanguard Conglomerate, was a tall man with silver threading through his dark hair and eyes that lingered too long on vulnerable things. 

His gaze swept over Elspeth’s injured ankles, the blood on her feet, the way she flinched at every sound despite her inability to see the danger approaching. A smile twisted his features into something that might have been handsome if not for the rot beneath it. “She’s more interesting than the ones who throw themselves at me,” he said, his voice carrying the cadence of a man used to getting exactly what he wanted.

Margot’s excitement flared visibly. She turned to Dorian, her voice dripping with admiration. “You were so clever, bringing her here. He loves her already.”

Dorian accepted the praise with the casual confidence of someone born into one of Millhaven’s four great families. “I know Gregor’s tastes,” he said simply. “It wasn’t difficult to figure out what would catch his attention.”

Margot addressed Gregor directly now, her tone honeyed and calculated. “The blind girl is completely obedient. Easy to handle. She won’t cause any trouble.” She paused, letting the implication settle. “And all we ask in return is that you put in a good word for us with Vanguard’s new chairman. Just a small mention about our partnership proposal. With your position, it would only take one conversation.”

Gregor’s smile widened. “With my position, I only need to speak once.” He swirled the whiskey in his glass, the ice clinking softly. “Your application will land directly on the chairman’s desk. Consider it done.”

A murmur rippled through the gathered guests. Envy flickered across their faces. To cooperate with Vanguard Conglomerate—the most powerful corporation in the world, spanning three continents, was the kind of opportunity people killed for. Most of them would never get within a hundred feet of that kind of access.

“Did you hear?” someone said from one of the couches. “Vanguard is inaugurating their new chairman today.”

“The CEO herself went to receive him personally,” another guest added, their voice tinged with awe. “Cordelia Ashworth doesn’t do anything personally unless it’s monumentally important.”

“I heard someone spotted her outside Riverbend Correctional this morning,” a third voice chimed in. “The whole convoy was there. Dozens of black cars. But why would a chairman be coming out of a prison?”