“Go,” I squeezed her arm.
She wrinkled her nose. “Find me later, okay? Preferably before the speeches depress us both.”
The noise of Sovereign was sharper without Isa beside me to cut it.
Vince stood near one of the central conversation circles now, not with his brothers this time, but among dynasty heads and international officials. The Crows had been pulled into the core orbit—exactly where everyone pretended they didn’t belong and where they always ended up.
He was all sharp lines and control, expression neutral, posture relaxed in a way that meant deliberately calculated. One hand in his pocket, the other around a glass he wasn’t drinking. The Veil drones hovered near him, every lens hungry.
He said something to the man beside him. I couldn’t hear the words, but I saw the reaction, three people in the circle laughed, too quick, like they hadn’t expected him to speak at all and were honoured he had.
A young heiress, someone from a mid-tier house, blush dress, perfect hair—edged closer to him, positioning herself at his side like a photograph being composed. Her shoulder brushed his suit. The cameras loved it.
He didn’t move away. My stomach curled. I reminded myself of his rules. No approaching or acknowledging him. We’d agreed. I’d promised.
Still, it scared me how easy he made it look.
I let myself be pulled into a cluster of greetings—Adams allies, Thorne relations, foreign guests. My handler appeared and disappeared in my periphery like a dark planet, always nearby, never far enough.
“Lady Thorne, a pleasure.”
“Your work with the Caelus hospitals has been impressive.”
“I heard about your father’s latest acquisition—congratulations.”
I smiled where I was meant to smile. Tilted my head at the right angle. Laughed on cue.
Until I couldn’t not.
Vince moved through the room like he’d studied the blueprints. He never lingered anywhere long enough to be cornered, never stayed still long enough for a single crest to claim his orbit. He gave each circle exactly what they wanted: a nod here, a cut-glass comment there, a sliver of attentionrationed out like it was more valuable than the gold in the sovereign vault.
He didn’t come near me.
Not once.
The unreachable Lord of Villain worked the room.
We had spent the weekend with his mouth on me, his hands on my body, his voice coaxing me to let go in ways no one had ever seen. He’d carried me to the bathroom, wrapped me in blankets, whisperedmineinto the dark like a prayer.
Here, he couldn’t even stand beside me.
Then…the confusion.
Because this wasn’t the Vince from Veil streams—the violent, terrifying lord of enforcement I’d watched on screens. It wasn’t the Vince in the penthouse.
This was a third version.
Public Vince. Almost… charming. Yet, still cold.
He said very little, but the room bent around him. People leaned in when he spoke. Daughters angled closer hopeful. Dynasty men tolerated it because they needed the Crows more than they hated them, and the cameras ate up every frame.
I realised, with a small, sharp pressure in my chest, that I didn’t know this version of him at all.
I knew his violence, and his softness side. But this? This polished, perfectly-managed, political Vince? He might as well have been a stranger.
By the time the formal announcements ended, my head throbbed.
Mostly from pretending his absence didn’t hurt.
