She was born from violence.
And she’d helped maintain the system that enabled it. She was complicit—had always been complicit.
Her skills, her intelligence, her gift for narrative—it had all been used as weapons in her father’s arsenal. Her position gave her access toinformation, to communication channels always used for his manipulation.
If she had the power to maintain the system, she had the power to undermine it.
Lira set the teacup down on a nearby table, her hand shaking from the decision she’d already made. She’d waited her whole life for power to be given to her, to be worthy of it, for permission to use the influence she already possessed.
No more waiting.
Lira reached for her tablet, another concession to her status—Heart elite were allowed personal communication devices, while lower rings made do with public terminals and limited access. Her fingers moved over the screen, navigating to a contact she’d never used but never deleted.
The call connected after three rings.
“This is unexpected,” a voice answered, cautious but curious.
Lira glanced to the doorway where Callum’s men stood conversing between themselves, then took a step closer to the window and lowered her voice.
“I have a plan.”
Theheavyirondoorhad been installed thirty years ago, back when Maximus still believed in the possibility of redemption through suffering.
Now he knew better.
Suffering was not the path to enlightenment—it was simply the most efficient tool for maintaining order. His fingers found the lock’sfamiliar grooves, the mechanism clicking open as it registered his prints.
The corridor beyond stretched into shadow, lit only by sparse bulbs that created pools of sickly yellow light. This wing of his residence remained unknown to most—even his children believed it held nothing more than storage for old Serel artifacts. The lie had been necessary. Some aspects of governance were too pure, too essential to be diluted by outside observation.
Maximus reached the end of the hall and descended the stairs it connected to with measured steps. His knuckles ached from the impact of Elara’s lesson. She had created weak heirs, useless children. The thought of Lira, of Greyson’s pathetic attempt at rebellion—at his own table—reignited a flare of anger in his chest.
The boy had always been weak, too influenced by feminine sentimentality. Last night had proven it beyond doubt. Defending that Boundary trash, challenging his father’s authority in front of the women. The corruption ran deeper than Maximus had suspected.
Another lock, another door. This one newer, reinforced with titanium plating. The room beyond had been his father’s design, though Maximus had made improvements over the years. Efficiency was a virtue in all things, particularly in the application of corrective measures.
The scent hit him first—sweat and fear and the metallic tang of blood. Familiar, comforting in its consistency. Some things never changed, no matter how much the world pretended to evolve.
Elara stood in the center of the room, exactly where he’d left her twelve hours ago.
The metal mask encased her entire head, a masterwork of psychological and physical torment. The weight of it forced her neck forward, muscles straining against the burden. The chain connecting it to the ceiling allowed her to stand, but prevented any relief through sittingor lying down. He observed the spasms running through her calves and thighs as her legs trembled with the effort of remaining upright.
Her dress—the elegant cream she’d worn to dinner—hung off her body, ripped and bloody. Green and blue bruises mottled her exposed arms, proof of her betrayal and its consequences. One shoulder had dislocated during her lesson in obedience, he could tell by the unnatural angle, the way she held the arm slightly forward.
Maximus circled her slowly, his footsteps heavy on the concrete floor. Each sound made her flinch, minute movements that sent the chain swaying.
Good. Anticipation was half the lesson.
“My poor wife,” he said, letting false sympathy color his tone. The words were ritual, part of the process that had played out hundreds of times over their marriage. “Look what you’ve made me do.”
A sound emerged from within the mask—not quite a sob, not quite a word. The design muffled everything, reducing communication to its most basic elements. Another efficiency.
He continued his circuit, noting the drying blood in the beds of her nails, at the tips of her fingers where she’d torn at the mask trying to find escape. Such pointless struggle. She knew how this ended. She always knew, yet she persisted in these small rebellions that necessitated correction.
“Thirty-five years,” Maximus mused, stopping directly in front of her. “Thirty-five years of marriage, and you still haven’t learned your place. Do you know how that reflects on me? The President of New Found Haven, patriarch of the family, unable to control his own wife?”
The chain rattled as she swayed again, exhaustion making her movements increasingly erratic. He reached out, steadying her with a hand on her dislocated shoulder. She made a sound that might have been a scream if she hadn’t swallowed it.
“I wish you would stop making me punish you,” he continued, maintaining that same conversational tone while applying subtle pressure to the injured joint. “It’s tedious, frankly. I have more important matters to attend to than repeatedly teaching you the same lessons.”
