I turned the phone face-down on the seat beside me.
All I could think, was how a small, shameful part of me still felt safer in his arms than anywhere else in the world.
The day disappeared and I tried not to think of the footage again. Even though everyone was talking about it. Even my driver. And the staff at the family estate. A part of me wished he hadn’t made it so public at least then I could live in denial.
Now, I sat on the edge of the bed and opened the Veil feed again, even though I told myself not to. The clip started instantly, glowing on the screen, Vince. The audio caught the ragged sound of someone begging before he swung the bat.
Crow footage hits 48M views.
Public split: Dynasty protection or unchecked violence?
It played immediately. That same brutal, unshaken calm as Vince stood over bodies. I read the comments.
“He’s a fucking god.”
“Dynasty heirs shouldn’t have to fight like that. Where were the Crow overseers?”
“My dynasty would’ve handled it with a conversation.”
“Syndicate wolves with crowns.”
I turned the volume down, but the clip kept running.
That was the same man who had carried me to bed, kissed the inside of my wrist. And now he was on every screen in the city, drenched in blood, making good on promises that only monsters kept.
The screen was still frozen on Vincent when my father stood just inside the doorway, one hand in his pocket, the other swirling amber liquor in a glass he hadn’t finished downstairs.
My father walked toward me slowly and pointed with two fingers to the screen.
“That,” he said, “looks like Tobias.”
I frowned faintly. “Who?”
“That monster’s father.” He took a sip of scotch and waved his hand dismissively. “History. But we remember everyone who ran this region when it mattered.” He finally turned toward me. “Tobias Crow bled the streets red after the South collapsed. Syndicate war, territorial collapse, three factions dying for control. We were weeks from blacklisting them as a dynasty entirely.”
I frowned, never once had I heard my father mention the Crows. In fact it was rare to see an older Crow.
He paused. “And then, one by one, they died. Tobias. His six brothers. His uncles. Damius had no Crows left in this region. For a moment, the problem was over.”
“You celebrated?” I asked quietly.
He shrugged. “Publicly, no. Privately? Absolutely. We thought our quadrant had survived. That the dynasty board would leave the crows to rot in the outer territories.”
“And then?”
“And then less than a month later, I was sitting across a negotiation table from Tobias’s eldest son, Nikolai. And that one—” he nodded to the image of Vincent frozen on screen, “was already on the streets. Dangerous and untouchable.”
I swallowed and pretended not to be bothered when he picked up my phone.
“Every region has Crows,” he said, holding it up. “We just hoped ours had ended when two generations died. But Damius bred more. Point and case—this.”
The screen replayed for a moment. Vince swinging the bat. The sound of bone and blood, crowd gasps, that hollow Crow voice over the footage:
“Fuck the public. You think I care what the city records? All they see is a Crow in his city doing whatever the fuck he wants.”
The video froze again, the dynasty caption still scrolling underneath. I looked down.
“It won’t be long now,” my father watched the footage again. “They’ll start stealing daughters to keep the bloodlines going.”
