2025-09-22 14:39:00
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Chapter 11
The rooftop was still. Only the night wind moved, tugging at Clarissa's dress, scattering strands of her hair across her damp cheeks. She clutched herself as though her body might splinter apart under the weight of everything she had seen. Her sobs came ragged, broken, clawing at the silence."You knew, mother!" Her voice cracked into the air, jagged and raw. She looked at her mother with wide, red-rimmed eyes that carried nothing but betrayal. "You knew what he was. You knew--and you let him near me."Her mother stood firm, though her hands trembled against her gown. For once her poise slipped, not enough to crumble but enough for the cracks to show. "Clarissa, you exaggerate. You think Ryan's little performance tonight erases what he has always been? He soiled everything. He humiliated you, humiliated us all. And still--still you cry for him?"Clarissa flinched as though struck. "He saved me!" she shouted, her voice breaking. "If he hadn't--if he hadn't--" The words died, choked by
Chapter 10
The hall shimmered with chandeliers and hushed anticipation. Cameras flashed outside the hall as limousines lined the red carpet. Society's most powerful men and women gathered for the night, the great unveiling of Grotech’s elusive owner. Clarissa stood beside her mother, her gown glittering with self-importance, her lips painted in smug satisfaction. At last, she thought, at last they would meet the man she had been chasing after for years through endless proposals. Whoever he was, tonight he would finally take her family seriously.Her mother whispered with pride, "This partnership will restore us, Clarissa. All of them will see."Clarissa smiled, already imagining herself shaking hands with a faceless titan. Then the announcement came. The host's voice rang across the ballroom."Ladies and gentlemen, Grotech’s founder and chief executive officer--Ryan Ardyn."The room stilled.Clarissa’s heart stopped.Across the hall, striding with calm authority, was no faceless titan. It was R
Chapter 9
Ryan sat alone in the quiet study of the mansion, the heavy tome spread across the desk before him. The Book of Contracts breathed with a life of its own. Its blackened leather cover pulsed faintly under his fingertips, as though it recognised the blood running in his veins. He had fought a demon now, looked into its hollow eyes, felt the terror of facing something not of this world, and since then, the book had changed.Pages that once lay dormant now stirred. Ink bled across parchment, words appearing where none had been before. Ryan leaned closer, and the script shifted, rearranging itself until it settled into something legible.Names. Old names. Prominent families threaded into the city's history. Families who held political sway, corporate empires, and generational power. Contracts written in their blood. Bargains sealed with something darker than law or finance.His pulse quickened when one name burned brighter than the rest--Whintrop.Ryan's jaw tightened. So that was why the
Chapter 8
The days that followed were brutal. The gentleman assigned Ryan mentors--fighters who pushed his body to the brink, scholars who buried him in texts about demons, and advisers who spoke to him about Grotech. The company was massive, sprawling across industries he had never even touched. He had to learn, quickly, how to command not only his body, but also businessmen.His nights belonged to combat. His mornings, to company boardrooms. Every hour in between, to study.Ryan had thought he knew exhaustion from working for the Whintrops, but this was worse. Yet, strangely, he felt alive for the first time. Each bruise, each scar, each decision in the boardroom chipped away at the man who had been mocked and cast aside.Still, shadows clung to his thoughts. Clarissa. The humiliation she inflicted on him. The way she’d spat in his face, the contempt in her eyes. And Matthias, always Matthias, smirking like he owned the world.Ryan swore he’d never have anything to do with them. But fate had
Chapter 7
Training had begun.Ryan stood in the centre of the chamber, sweat already dampening his palms though he hadn't moved yet. Across from him, shackled to a circle of iron sigils, waited the thing the Gentleman had called a lesser demon.Not that Ryan got a closer view of it. It looked wrong. It wasn't monstrous in size, not some slavering beast of fire and fangs as Ryan might have imagined from myths, but a gaunt figure with a human frame. Its skin was pale, almost waxen, stretched too thin over its bones. The eyes were pits, black, hollow, and yet filled with a terrible evil. Something that had once been human and had rotted away into emptiness.Ryan's throat tightened as he stared at it. The thing did not blink. It did not breathe. It only watched."This," the Gentleman said from behind him, his voice smooth as silk over steel, "was once a man. You see it now hollowed out. The soul long devoured, replaced by hunger. They were fathers, mothers, soldiers, thieves--anyone can fall, given
Chapter 6
The mansion was vast enough to swallow Ryan whole, every corridor humming with quiet wealth and authority, but when the gentleman led him down a winding staircase, Ryan realised he had only glimpsed the surface. Torches flickered along stone walls, casting shadows that moved like living things. At the bottom, the air was colder, denser, carrying the faint metallic tang of iron and something stranger, something that raised the hair on Ryan’s neck.They stepped into an underground hall. Ryan stopped short.It wasn't like anything he had seen before. Rows of weapons gleamed under pale light: blades etched with runes, spears tipped with blackened steel, guns modified with sigils scratched across the barrels. On one wall hung armours of different eras--knights’ breastplates, trench coats stitched with silver threads, even sleek tactical suits. And in the far corner, behind bars reinforced with glowing chains, something shifted. Its form was half-shadow, half-flesh, its eyes burning faintl
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