2025-10-18 19:07:08The room was still for a heartbeat. Then the men blinked, stunned, unable to comprehend what had happened.
“What… what the hell just happened?” one finally whispered.
“How… how did he—?” another stammered, pointing at the man sprawled on the floor. He lay unconscious, mouth frozen open.
Zarek had hauled him like he weighed nothing and slammed him down so hard the room rang.
The man hadn’t had a chance to react.
“That… that can’t be real,” one muttered, backing up and gripping his baton.
“Who the hell is this guy? He just—picked him up! Slammed him like he was nothing!” another cursed.
The tallest one glared at Zarek. “This is insane. That guy… he’s supposed to be some kid—how strong is he?”
Zarek didn’t answer. He stood calm, eyes like steel, watching them. The echo of the slam still vibrated on the floorboards. The man on the ground lay still. Their bravado was cracking.
“You think we can take him?” one hissed.
Zarek raised his hand and pointed at the man who’d told the story. “You, come here,” he ordered.
The man froze, then took a step. His eyes widened; his legs shook. Slowly, almost mechanically, he walked toward Zarek.
“Stop!” a deep voice barked.
The tallest man stepped forward, towering over the others. Muscles tensed.
“Don’t you dare,” he growled, yanking the smaller man back. “You think you can just walk up to him?”
Zarek’s gaze swept over him like a blade.
“I’m Korran,” the towering man said. He was the leader of the group, put in charge of watching the house in case the escaped son ever returned. Korran’s eyes narrowed. “You think you can stand there and play hero? I’ll teach you a lesson.”
He reached into his coat and pulled out a small bottle of alcohol.
Without hesitation, he tilted it back and drained it, then slammed the empty bottle to the floor.
It rolled toward Zarek and clattered against the wood.
“I’ll pity you,” Korran said, stepping closer. “I’ll count to ten. If you want to walk out of here alive, kneel. Apologize. To them. All of them.”
He spat on the floor.
Sput!
The others shifted nervously, some chuckling, some glaring, none daring to intervene.
The room went deadly quiet as Korran’s challenge hung in the air.
Zarek picked the picture from the table and slid it into his pocket.
Korran lunged forward, chest heaving. “You ignor—” he barked.
Zarek moved like a coiled spring. A sharp snap of his hip—years of training—and his boot connected with Korran’s belly.
Korran doubled over, dropped to his knees, then hit the floor with a wet sound, gasping.
Huff!
Huff.
Zarek stepped forward and placed his boot on Korran’s head, pressing down lightly.
He dragged his foot across the spit on the floor, wiping it away.
“The house might be dirty,” Zarek said coldly, “but that doesn’t mean you can spit on it.”
He snapped his fingers once. From the street, the front door slammed open and several men in uniforms burst in—fast, precise.
They moved to Zarek and dropped to their knees without a sound.
“Should we start rebuilding, sir?” one asked, eyes fixed on Zarek.
Zarek nodded. “Yes. Rebuild it. Now.”
The uniformed men sprang into action, picking up broken wood and sweeping dust as if the house had always belonged to them.
The group that had been trashing the place whispered among themselves.
“What’s going on?” someone hissed.
“Who are those guys?”
Zarek turned back to the intruders.
He walked toward them. “Who sent you?” he asked.
“Why would we answer that?” one spat.
Zarek lashed out. His boot struck the man’s head.
A sick, sharp crack.
Thud!
The body went limp and slumped to the floor.
The remaining men froze; fear finally broke through. After a tense moment, one stammered,
“W-we… we were sent by Darian Veyron… he works with the Ashborne family. P-please… don’t kill us. We’ll tell you where to find the others. Spare our lives!”
Zarek’s lips curled. “Spare your lives?” he said. “How dare you think you can negotiate with me?e.”
They fell to their knees, hands clasped, begging.
“Please… please… We’ll tell you everything!”
“Don’t hurt us!”
Zarek moved—swift, silent. In an instant, the knife in his hand flashed in the dim light.
SHHICK!
He struck.
Heads rolled with precision.
CRUNCH!
SPLAT!
SNAP!
The sound echoed off the rotting walls as screams were cut short and bodies collapsed in a heap.
‘Ahhhhh!’
Some tried to scramble away, stumbling over debris.
Thump! Thump!
Zarek was faster.
When the last of them fell, Zarek wiped the blood from his hand onto the handkerchief in his hand.
He looked at the uniformed men rebuilding the house, then at the corpses.
“The Ashbourne family, huh?” he murmured, voice low, icy.
His eyes darkened with a storm of hatred that had been building for ten years.
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CHAPTER 76
Seeing Zarek standing there and hearing his words, Giorgia’s face twisted instantly. There was no chance she would listen to him. When her gaze flicked to Gia and caught the understanding dawning in her daughter’s eyes, her frown snapped into pure rage.“Get out!” Giorgia screamed, her voice cracking under the strain of terror.She lunged across the room, planting herself squarely in front of Gia like a living shield.Her face was flushed, the bruise on her cheek standing out in sharp, ugly relief.“Get out of my sight, you animal! My daughter is not going to those docks! You’ll use the first excuse you get to kill her, then you’ll tell Robert she died in the crossfire, so you’ll have one less rival to worry about!”Gia shrank deeper into the velvet cushions, eyes wide as her mother’s chest heaved.“She is nineteen!” Giorgia shrieked, pointing toward the door with trembling hands. “She is a child! She has no business in the shipyard with the Marcones, and she has no business with a
CHAPTER 75
Zarek didn’t want to stay any longer, not with Robert, not with the wives circling like carrion, and certainly not with time bleeding away. But now there was a problem he couldn’t ignore.Gia.If Robert expected her at the docks, then Zarek would have to find a way to make that happen, and quickly.A soft presence slipped into his peripheral vision.Masha stepped in front of him, her small frame making him look like a giant by comparison. Standing on her toes, she forced him to look down into her eyes, red-rimmed, exhausted, yet suddenly filled with a fragile, surprising warmth.“Don’t worry about her, Grisha,” she whispered, reaching up to touch his arm. “Let them hide. It’s better this way. You don’t have to go to the docks. Robert will be angry, yes… but he won’t kill his heir over one missed ledger. Stay. Stay with me. We can find another way out.”Zarek looked down at her, the only person in the estate who had never wanted a piece of his soul.The weight of the black envelope p
CHAPTER 74
The air in the room was thick enough to choke on.The mention of the Selection Trials had transformed the dining hall from a place of cold tension into a sanctuary of raw, unadulterated fear.“The Trials?” Giorgia finally spoke.Her voice, usually so controlled and melodic, cut sharply with a jagged edge of panic. “Robert, you haven’t invoked the Trials since your own father took the seat. You’re talking about open warfare between your own children. This isn’t a test; it’s a purge!”Her gaze swept down the table… Marcello, Lucian, and the others are taking in the tremor in their hands.Unlike Alessandra, who led with fire, Giorgia led with calculation, and every calculation told her the same thing. Her sons were not prepared for the sheer brutality Zarek represented.Even Alessandra looked genuinely shaken.Her eyes darted to Victor, then to Dante.Bandaged, injured, nursing broken pride, there was no way her children could survive a hunt in their current condition. To her, this wa
CHAPTER 73
Robert didn’t even look at her.Not a blink. Not an acknowledgment.Her voice was treated like background noise, a faint static in the air beneath his notice.“I’m not mad, Masha,” Robert said, though he spoke to the room, not to her.His voice was unsettlingly calm.“Strength is always messy when it’s first bottled. It takes time to refine the vintage.”A casual gesture summoned a nearby maid, his finger pointing at the empty plate where the toast had been.“Another,” he commanded.The maid scrambled forward, her hands shaking so violently the silver tongs clattered against the china. She placed a fresh, golden-brown piece of toast onto Robert’s plate, then stepped back as if she expected a blow.Before Robert could reach for his silver knife, Zarek’s hand shot out.The movement was a blur.The toast vanished from Robert’s plate.No napkin. No fork.Just warm bread held in his bare hand as Zarek took a slow, deliberate bite, his eyes never leaving Robert’s.The sound of chewing wa
CHAPTER 72
Robert didn’t look at his wives.He kept his eyes locked on Zarek at the far end of the table. A dark, jagged smile crossed the patriarch’s face, the look of a man who had finally lost patience with a disobedient hound.“You think this is a choice, Grisha?” Robert whispered, the softness of his voice more terrifying than a shout. “You think you can just decide where you belong in my house?”Robert snapped his fingers. The sound was sharp, a signal rehearsed a thousand times.From the shadows behind the heavy velvet curtains, three men stepped out. They weren’t the standard house guards. These were Robert’s personal Enforcers, men built like stone blocks, dressed in tactical black, their faces void of emotion.“Bring him,” Robert commanded, gesturing to the empty chair at his right hand. “Put the heir where he belongs. If he wants to act like a beast, treat him like one.”The three men moved in perfect, lethal unison, closing the distance toward the foot of the table where Zarek sa
CHAPTER 71
The command echoed through the vaulted ceiling of the dining hall, cold and absolute.Robert didn’t turn his head.He didn’t need to. He knew exactly where Zarek was perched like a gargoyle above the display of Sullivan opulence.Zarek didn’t move.Perched on the high windowsill, one boot pulled up and an arm resting casually on his knee, he looked down at the table below. The other eleven siblings, Victor, Marcello, and the rest, were already sliding into their assigned places with the practiced grace of well-trained hounds.“I said,” Robert repeated, his voice dropping an octave, a low vibration of threat that made the head chef in the corner visibly pale, “sit, Grisha.”Zarek leaned his head back against the stone frame of the window.“I like the view from here, Robert. I can see the fear in the kitchen and the poison in the East Wing all at once. It’s a better perspective.”A collective gasp rippled through the siblings.To ignore Robert was a sin; to call him by his first name i
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