2026-01-28 03:28:13Now, Cassian walked out of the hall, straight toward the car waiting outside.
He spotted the man’s PA and lifted a hand casually. “Longest time, man.” They hugged like old friends. “It’s been crazy,” the PA said. “But I’m surviving. You? And Mireya—man, I wish I could see her again. I still can’t thank her enough. My father would’ve been dead ten years ago if she hadn’t noticed he was sick and forced him to get checked. Even now, he still says he doesn't know what made her know he was sick. He was perfectly fine.” Cassian smiled faintly. “My kid sister’s always been good at what she does.” But the smile froze halfway. He saw Lombard walking toward the same car. Cassian’s eyes narrowed. “That man,” he asked quietly, “does your boss know him?” The PA followed his gaze, then waved it off easily. “Nah. Don’t worry about it. Probably someone from the team I sent to get him water. He wants to be alone before the next round.” Cassian scoffed. Oh, Lombard. The biggest disgrace a man could ever be reduced to. And here he was—probably tagged along with security or the catering team—acting all puffed up inside the hall like he mattered. Cassian smirked to himself. Wait. Maybe that was it. Maybe Lombard had been sent to fetch water earlier. Maybe Abigail, in her kindness, had asked him to keep her company out of pity. That had to be it. Yeah. That made perfect sense. Cassian basked in the little fantasy, already enjoying the quiet humiliation he believed Lombard was drowning in. Meanwhile— Lombard walked straight toward the important man’s car. He didn’t even know this was the man everyone inside was whispering about. Important? Sure. But to Lombard, he was just another man he knew. Another name in a very long list. “August?” the man called out in surprise the moment he saw him through the window. The door opened immediately. “I know you hate it when people come to you during breaks like this,” Lombard said calmly, stepping closer. “But I had to say hello.” “You didn’t come to say hello, August,” the man replied, smiling gently. “You came because you needed something.” “Oh, shit,” Lombard chuckled. “You caught me. I was just trying not to be an asshole and skip the pleasantries.” The man laughed softly. “Your kid here?” Lombard smiled—then paused. That one hit closer than expected. “No,” he said. “But he’s a friend’s son.” “Oh,” the man nodded. “So you came with your wife?” Lombard exhaled. “Can we… just not talk about my marital status?” The man raised a brow, amused. “You have no idea how excited I was earlier when I saw your message. Asking me to postpone the school’s presentation until after the break.” “He’s like a kid to me,” Lombard said simply. “I’m his godfather.” The man studied him for a second, then smiled wider. “I really hope I get to meet the lucky woman you’ll marry someday.” He paused, then added casually— “My daughter is still very much available.” “Your daughter?” Lombard asked, genuinely surprised. “I thought she got over me and started dating someone.” The man laughed. “That was my first daughter—the one whose heart you broke.” Ah. “I'm talking about my third daughter,” he continued casually. “She’s twenty-five.” Lombard smiled politely, but the comment scraped against a sore spot he’d been carefully avoiding all evening. Everyone was getting married. And his girlfriend of two years? Drum roll. Fucking drum roll!; she cheated on him. “I wish I could continue this conversation,” the man said, glancing at his watch, “but the break is almost over. What’s the kid’s name?” “Finn,” Lombard replied. Then paused—just enough. The man smiled. He understood. “If he has a truly good innovation, he’s in. If he’s as boring as the rest, he’s out. I’m fair like that.” His tone sharpened slightly. “You already know the rules. Scrap the obvious ideas. You always did better than the rest—remember how you aced my quizzes when everyone else was pulling zeros? Just tell him… whatever tricks you used.” Lombard chuckled. “Alright.” “And I’ll be expecting your invitation letter,” the man added lightly. “I’ve got a long speech prepared for your wedding.” The door opened. Lombard stepped aside as men in suits immediately moved in to escort the man back into the hall. Across the distance— Cassian saw the important man. Perfect. Cassian straightened. He wasn’t some cheap mess like Lombard. He didn’t chase people at their cars—people came to him. He waited, confident, as the man and his escorts approached. Then he stepped directly into their path. They didn’t stop him. They wouldn’t. Because this was Cassian Belmont. And in his mind, the night was still his.
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Chapter 310
For the next several hours, Lombard and Barrett went over the plan and over it again, the whole Cataract team funneling in every scrap of intel they had until the shape of the thing was solid. The bones of it were simple, which was the only kind of plan Lombard trusted. The patriarch wanted a confession delivered to Lombard’s living face — that was the one appetite the old man could not talk himself out of, the vanity that had kept Lombard breathing when a smarter enemy would have had him shot in his sleep weeks ago. So the plan would feed that appetite. Lombard would let himself be taken. Quietly, without a struggle, exactly the way a broken man goes. Because the whole arrangement the trio had built their empire on ran on one belief — that grief makes men fold, that a Lombard with his Clara taken would crawl into his shell and stay there. He would give them precisely that man. He would walk into the room they prepared, wearing the defeat they’d ordered off a menu. And every step
Chapter 309
Vivienne genuinely believed she was orchestrating a beautiful reunion.Lombard’s instructions had been vague and urgent, so she’d improvised with her whole heart. She’d called Julian first — told her, half-whispering like it was a delicious secret, that Drake had come by earlier in a state, saying things about not being good enough for her, and that if Julian wanted to catch him while his guard was down and his heart was open, she should come now, this exact morning, before he talked himself back into hiding. It was the kind of story that questioned no logic: it explained why Drake was already there, it flattered Julian’s role as the one who could reach him, and it was urgent enough to override the strangeness of the hour. Julian had been in a car within fifteen minutes.Then Vivienne had called Drake — and, knowing exactly the condition the man was in, she had not led with anything dumb. She’d told him Julian had turned up at her door in tears, frightened after everything at her pa
Chapter 308
Toby had been forced to call her guardian — her uncle — because she could not bring herself to fully trust anyone from the Cataract team. They weren’t people you trusted on sight. And in a night like this one, the devil you knew felt safer than the angel you didn’t.Not that she knew, for certain, that her uncle wasn’t quietly aligned with her grandfather. She didn’t. But he was the one risk she was actually able to take right now, so she took it — and now the two of them were here, at what Barrett kept calling Lombard’s house.“Sir,” Barrett called as he stepped inside — and that, too, was something Toby found herself turning over: that this enormous man knew Lombard’s home well enough to walk into it freely, panel codes and all.“I’m in the bedroom,” Lombard called back, his voice still laced thick with sleep.“I’ve got company. Toby, of the C&R Consortium, and her uncle. You want me to bring them in?”“No, silly. I’ll come out.” A groan, the sound of a man leaving a bed he’d only j
Chapter 307
Back in the car, the rest of the Belmont family had just gotten a clear look at the other man climbing out of Barrett’s vehicle behind Toby — and their blood turned to water.They recognized him immediately. The heir of the C&R Consortium. The same man Riley had tried to lock up and, in a fit of her own temper, tried to kill some days ago — the man she’d assumed was still safely contained, without ever confirming it. And the moment he clocked that Riley was standing free in the open air, casually threatening a member of the Cataract team, it was going to become a disaster for all of them.Riley, of course, had absolutely no idea of any of this. She was still at the gate, still building her charge, still operating under the belief that this was a morning about Mireya and an apology and a doorbell.The C&R heir stepped fully out of the car, saw Riley, and stopped short — genuinely shocked. Wasn’t this the same person who was supposed to be locked away? Who had, in his own home, come at
Chapter 306
It was only five in the morning, but not a single member of the Belmont family had slept a wink.The first problem was that they’d spent half the night trying to pin down Lombard’s location. The other half had gone to drilling Mireya on exactly what she would say — because it was decided now that nearly the whole family would be going with her to deliver the apology.But the biggest problem was the tracking itself. All those hours spent trying to fix Lombard’s position on a screen, and they simply could not hold it. It was the first time any of them had encountered a person who could be somewhere one minute and, the next, be gone off the map entirely — as if he stepped out of the world between refreshes. And there was no point going after a man you couldn’t find. If they couldn’t figure out where he was, there was no operation to run.Then, thirty minutes ago, a new location surfaced. And it had held — no movement for the better part of an hour.Which told them everything they needed.
Chapter 305
“Get my phone. Find out who those bastards are,” Lombard snapped under his breath, threading the car through a corner that had not been designed for this speed.Drake grabbed the phone, took pictures out the back window between bursts, and fired them off to the number Lombard barked at him. In less than two seconds, a name came back in the chat.Drake’s eyes widened.“Who the fuck is it?” Lombard demanded, zigzagging through another sharp turn.“Hearse,” Drake read out. “It says — it’s Hearse.”Lombard slowly brought the car to a halt.“Why the fuck did you stop?!” Drake exploded. “Continue driving!”“He just announced his presence to us,” Lombard said, almost thoughtful. “It’s the dance you do before you take your prey. You have to make a show of it first.”“This is no time for poetic talks!” Drake snapped, trying to shake the man out of whatever trance he’d dropped into.And at the corner of his eye, he watched it happen: the car that had been raining bullets simply drove past them.
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