“Tonight you forgot your place.”
The final gunshot rang out as Nikolai finished the line.
I stayed where I was, looking into the vice-head’s eyes with the same calm I used on a child right before I corrected him.
“We’re a dynasty. We don’t negotiate through fear. We collect it.”
He swallowed so hard I heard it.
I straightened, voice rising just enough to carry. “Step forward. All vice-heads.”
They shuffled into a line. Some stumbled, all of them careful not to step on the bodies at their feet.
“Look down.”
They looked.
At their captains. Men who’d been shouting minutes ago. Now meat on concrete.
“This is what happens when your families forget themselves.”
Nik came to stand at my shoulder, blood spatter freckling his sleeves.
“These are the new terms.” His gaze moved slowly along the line. “From tonight, every one of your families operates under Crow oversight. You follow Crow protocol. You sign all deals through us. No independent routes.”
Some men swallowed. Some stared at the corpses like they’d never seen death up close before.
“Failure to comply results in public execution.”
My attention slid back to the captain I’d dropped. His body lay twisted where I’d left it.
“Bring him here.”
Two Crow soldiers moved instantly, dragging the dead man across the concrete. They laid him at my feet. I pulled my knife out as I crouched, took his wrist in my hand, and in one sharp, practiced motion cut through the joint. The blade slid between bones.
His hand came away cleanly.
Always did, if you cut right.
I stood and walked the severed hand over to the vice-head of his family. The man’s eyes fixed on it. I pressed the hand into his chest until he took it.
“You’re going to take this to his father.”
His throat worked.
“You’ll tell him,” I went on, voice softening in the way that made men shake harder, “to cut off his own hand and send it to us. For failing to teach his son to respect Crow law.”
The vice-head’s eyes snapped up to mine, like maybe I was joking.
I wasn’t.
“If I don’t get his hand,” I added, “I’ll come and take both of his. And his wives’.” My head tipped, just slightly. “I don’t make threats. I give consequences. That is me being generous.”
He nodded, because there was nothing else he could do with a dead man’s hand pressed to his chest.
I turned back to the line of survivors, blood tracking lazily down my wrist.
“You’ll go home and erase the word rebellion from your men’s vocabulary. You’ll remind them that Crow law is the reason they’re rich enough to buy these cars, guns, suits.” I gestured to the bodies, “And if you don’t?—”
