2026-06-05 17:37:03I walked into my office with a deep scowl, my mind a rowdy mess of thoughts. Was Elara really going to send me a wedding invite? It would be the height of stupidity, given how ignorant they were of my new status. But then again, arrogance often blinded people to the truth.
“Bunch of fools,” I muttered, rounding my mahogany desk.
“Yeah, a real bunch of fools,” a sharp, feminine voice cut through the room, startling me.
“Christ, Helen!” I exclaimed, my frown deepening. “When did you walk in, and how the fuck did you even hear that?”
She shrugged, leaning against the doorframe. “I have a sleek way of walking, an incredible sense of hearing, and I doubt you would have heard a bomb go off over that intense brooding.”
I exhaled and sank into my chair.
“What’s the matter, Carter?” Helen asked, sitting opposite me. “Who were those ignorant people?”
I regarded her for a moment. Helen was striking, but she usually carried a mask of formal indifference. This was the first time I saw a flicker of genuine curiosity in her eyes.
“Personal business,” I replied shortly.
“Hmm. Seems like you’re far from handling it. If you have a problem, you can always tell me. Also, don’t disappear like that again without informing me. I’m responsible for the safety of one of the richest men on the continent.” She flashed a rare, quick smile.
I couldn't help but smirk. “Seems like you’re taking your job a bit too seriously.”
“I get paid to make a fuss when you go out of line—which I expect will happen frequently.”
I arched an eyebrow. “Why do you say that?”
She rolled her eyes. “Because you’re the boss. My grandfather told me all about the Van Alen men. You don’t stick to the rules. But why would I blame you? You have the world under your feet. You’re Mr. Van Alen.”
I turned those words over in my mind. A sadistic smirk formed on my face. I was Mr. Fucking Van Alen. Suddenly, I was looking forward to that wedding invitation. The day of the ceremony, they would finally understand exactly what I was capable of.
“You’re right, Helen,” I said. “I guess you have a lot of work ahead of you.”
She laughed softly. “I’m looking forward to it. By the way, you have a flight booked to New York. One of your private jets is fueled and waiting at the mansion. We leave by midnight.”
I blinked. “Hold on. When was this arranged?”
“I read your entire schedule to you this morning, Carter. I’m guessing you weren't listening,” she teased. “It’s a stakeholders' meeting at the global headquarters. It’ll be brief, and you’ll have two days off afterward to enjoy the city.”
“Bloody hell,” I sighed. “And you’ll be there?”
“Of course, sir.”
***
We arrived at the private hangar at thirty minutes to midnight. My eyes were heavy, and the world felt surreal. This was a customized wing of the airport where only the Van Alen fleet was housed. As we walked toward a sleek, shimmering jet, I stopped abruptly.
Encrusted in gold leaf near the boarding stairs were the words: CARTER VAN ALEN.
My jaw dropped. I turned to Helen, who was wearing a look of quiet pride.
“Yup. That’s your baby. Your grandfather had your name imprinted on the flagship of the fleet before he passed.”
I ran a hand over the cold metal, a surge of adrenaline cutting through my fatigue. “This is the fucking life,” I whispered. I had never even been close to a private jet, let alone owned one.
The pilot greeted us with a sharp salute, and the moment we leveled out at thirty thousand feet, I fell into a deep, dreamless sleep. Helen, however, worked throughout the entire trip, sorting documents and legal briefs I would need for the board. By the time we touched down in New York, she looked exhausted, but every paper was in order.
A limousine was already stationed on the tarmac. As the engine roared to life, Helen finally drifted off. I picked up the file beside her and realized she had been working for six hours straight. She was incredible.
We arrived at the New York estate—a breathtaking penthouse mansion—just as the sun began to peek over the skyline. Helen woke up with bags under her eyes but didn't give me a second to admire the view.
“You look like the wrath of God, Helen,” I remarked.
“That’s what happens when I handle the affairs of a titan,” she shot back, already throwing orders at the household staff. “Quick shower, Mr. Van Alen. The maids have your suit ready. Breakfast is served in twenty minutes. The meeting is in two hours.”
I decided to be a bit cocky. “Why the rush? I own the company. We can go whenever I say.”
She stopped and turned, her eyes blazing with a mixture of surprise and begrudging admiration. “Didn't take you long to adapt, did it?”
Two hours later, we walked out of the mansion. I noticed about two dozen guards scattered across the grounds—more than I’d seen in Kingston. They were dressed in sharp suits, but I noticed the subtle weight under their jackets.
“Why do I have an army following me?” I asked as we settled into the limo.
“Protection. As a Van Alen, you are a target 24/7.”
“Because I’m rich?”
“Because you’re powerful. People will want to bring you down just to see if they can. Right now, your enemies are quiet because they don’t know a new heir has taken over. Once you step into that boardroom, they’ll start to surface.”
“That’s fucked up,” I muttered, my heart hammering.
“You’ll get used to it. Here, check this out.”
Helen reached under a hidden cabinet in the limo and pressed a button. A concealed wall slid back, revealing a specialized armory. I gasped. I recognized some from movies, but seeing them in person was different. There were tactical shotguns—a Mossberg 500 and a Benelli M4—and several high-end rifles.
She picked out the Mossberg with terrifying ease.
“Christ, Helen! Be careful!” I exclaimed, flinching.
“Stop whining,” she mocked. “This is my favorite. Easy to handle, high impact.”
“You... you actually know how to use that?”
“My grandfather trained me. The craziest thing he ever did was balance a target on his head and tell me to shoot it off.”
My eyes widened. “You didn't... did you?”
She smiled, a mischievous glint in her eye. “I did. And I missed. I missed the target and his head. We both nearly had a heart attack.” She laughed, and the sound was so contagious I found myself laughing too. “Maybe one day we’ll try it with you.”
“I’ll kill you first,” I said, staring at the gun like it was a time bomb.
“No, silly. I meant you hold the target. I wouldn't let you touch a weapon yet, not with the way you’re shaking.”
I smirked, leaning back into the leather seat. “What if I offered you a million dollars to be the target?”
“At your service, Mr. Van Alen,” she replied instantly.
The power of money, I thought. It could buy loyalty, it could buy silence, and apparently, it could buy a person’s life. I was starting to like being a Van Alen.
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CHAPTER 123
The air inside the abandoned maintenance shed smelled of damp earth, rusted iron, and decades of forgotten dust. Outside, the morning sun climbed higher, casting thin, golden bars of light through the cracked wooden slats of the walls, striping the dark interior like a tiger's cage.I sat on an upturned wooden crate near the front of the shed, keeping a low profile while the burner phone rested on an old workbench in front of me. The screen was dark, the encrypted ping I had sent to Zurich echoing silently into the void of the digital underworld.Helen stood near the half-open sliding door, peering through a narrow gap at the empty dirt road that wound past our hiding place. She hadn't spoken in twenty minutes, her silence not a sign of fear, but of a mind calculating every possible angle of our survival."The ping went through," I said, breaking the quiet. My voice sounded flat, stripped of the cadence of a corporate executive. "Routed through three ghost proxies in Zurich and bounce
CHAPTER 122
The gray light of dawn bled across the abandoned fields, turning the frost on the weeds into a shimmering carpet of glass. The fire we had started was nothing more now than a thin ribbon of gray smoke curling lazily into the morning air, swallowed up by the immense, indifferent sky. Beside me, the sleek black curves of the V12 looked entirely out of place—a predator resting in a graveyard of iron and rust."They'll have the satellite feeds by noon," Helen said, her voice cutting through the quiet hum of the cooling engine. She was leaning against the passenger door, her arms crossed over her chest, watching the smoke dissolve. The tattered silk of her gown fluttered slightly in the cold wind, a stark reminder of the glittering, blood-soaked world we had left behind just hours ago. "Julian isn't the type to lick his wounds in private. He’s going to weaponize every asset the twelve families have left.""Let him try," I said, pulling the silver lighter from my pocket and turning it over
CHAPTER 121
The highway was a ribbon of black glass reflecting the scattered, uncaring stars. We were miles away from the ranch now, the gilded cage of Memphis shrinking in the rearview mirror until it was nothing more than a faint, sickly orange glow on the horizon.I drove with a ferocity that bordered on reckless, the V12 engine a constant, rhythmic growl that matched the turbulence in my chest. Beside me, Helen was still, her eyes fixed on the darkness ahead. She hadn't spoken since we crossed the county line, and I didn't press her. The silence wasn't empty; it was heavy, filled with the wreckage of everything we had just burned to the ground.My phone, a burner I’d pulled from the glove box, chimed. A single message. No sender, just a set of coordinates and a string of encrypted digits.I glanced at it, then tossed it into the passenger seat floorboard."They're tracking the car," Helen said, her voice cutting through the hum of the tires. She didn't look at the phone. She knew what it was.
CHAPTER 120
The air outside the stables felt unnervingly clean, a sharp, biting contrast to the thick, stagnant scent of blood, cordite, and wet hay that clung to my clothes like a shroud. The night was vast, indifferent, and deafeningly silent, save for the distant, muffled cadence of the gala music—a jaunty, hollow sound that drifted across the pastures, blissfully unaware that its foundations had been vaporized.I stopped in the middle of the gravel drive, my chest heaving, my lungs burning as if I’d been inhaling embers. The adrenaline that had sustained me through the final confrontation—the surge of pure, concentrated survival—was rapidly retreating, leaving behind a cold, hollow space where my drive used to be. It was replaced by a bone-deep, marrow-aching exhaustion that made my limbs feel like they were cast in lead. I looked down at my hands. They were steady, yes, but they felt irrevocably stained. Not by the blood of the man in the stable, but by the jagged, jagged legacy he had etche
CHAPTER 119
The air in the stable was stagnant, thick with the smell of damp hay and the metallic tang of fear. The silver flame of Arthur’s lighter continued to dance, casting long, grotesque shadows against the polished wood of the stalls. It was a small, fragile thing, yet it seemed to hold the weight of our entire history, a burning testament to the arsonist who had dictated every step of my ascent."You speak of freedom, Carter," Arthur said, his voice a low, melodic purr that scraped against my nerves. He didn't look at the barrel of my gun, nor at Helen’s. He looked through us, his gaze fixed on some distant horizon only he could see. "But you are a creature of architecture. You were built to fill the void I left behind. You cannot be free of the machine when the machine is written into your DNA.""The machine is burning, Arthur," I said. My voice was steady, the tremors of the last few minutes having been cauterized by the sheer, cold finality of the decision. I looked at Helen. Her grip
CHAPTER 118
The stables were a sprawling expanse of polished mahogany and high-vaulted ceilings, smelling of expensive leather, hay, and the sharp, nervous sweat of thoroughbreds. We moved through the shadows of the corridor like specters, the dim amber lighting casting long, jagged shapes that seemed to dance against the walls. My hand rested on the grip of my firearm, the familiar cold steel a grounding force against the surreal vertigo currently unraveling my sanity.Helen walked beside me, her presence a silent, lethal promise. The woman I had known—the woman who had been afraid of the fallout at the restaurant, the woman who had hesitated when the stakes were merely professional—was gone. In her place was someone sharpened to a razor's edge. She didn't look at the doors; she looked through them, her eyes scanning the darkness for movement, her body coiled like a spring."Sloane," I hissed, my voice a jagged edge in the silence. "Position.""I'm at the secondary entrance, north side," Sloane’
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