I looked at him, waiting to see his grin or a laugh. I thought he was joking it was clear by his expression, he wasn’t.
“Dynasties don’t merge with them willingly,” he added. “No one wants to trade blood with a family built on enforcement. They don’t marry. They blackmail. And if they don’t take brides, their blood will vanish.”
He set my phone on the desk and looked at me hard.
“And that terrifies us.”
“You think they’d actually?—”
“Yes,” he finished his drink. “I think Damius will demand it. And when he does, it won’t be quiet. You’ll see entire quadrants swallowed. Girls with dynasty titles, married off like bargaining chips to keep peace between war councils.”
He was serious right now and that shocked me.
“Because that’s what the Crows do best. They don’t merge, they absorb. And that’s what terrifies every dynasty father across the map.”
It wasn’t what he said next, it was what he didn’t. That was what made my whole stomach clench. “But not you.” I asked.
“You’re too smart for that. I didn’t raise a girl that would fall into orbit with something like that. You see it for what it is. And I stay far away from them so they have no leverage.”
The shame hit instantly. Because I had fallen for it. I had let Vincent Crow lift me in his arms, kiss me slow. And that made it worse.
“I know your friends fantasize,” my father went on. “Crows are alluring in theory. All that power, danger. But they ruin what they touch.”
He gestured his glass at my phone.
“Three heirs with unmarked blood on the ground, syndicate enforcers executed like animals, and a Crow smiling through it all. This is why their blood should have been extinguished centuries ago.”
Apart of me wanted to stop him. Tell him there was another side to Vince. But I knew when not to share my opinion and this was one of those moments.
“They call themselves a dynasty,” he went on, “but they’re a collection of violent thugs wearing a crest.”
He set his glass on my desk. And smiles at me.
“Your mother’s in one of her moods. One of her friends just announced their daughter’s marriage, apparently the match was perfect. So, for everyone’s sake, stay out of her way tonight. The last thing she needs is to be reminded that I haven’t secured a merger for our daughter.”
The words weren’t cruel. They were factual. In our world, that made them worse.
He finished his drink and looked at me once more, eyes landing on the phone beside me. “Turn that off,” he pointed at my phone. “You don’t need to see what barbarism looks like. You already live in the opposite of it.”
Then he left. The door shut with the same quiet precision he expected from everything else in this house.
I picked the phone back up and pressed play again. The feed resumed mid-sentence. Vince stood in the alley, blood spattered across his throat, eyes steady. He looked like something built for ruin.
13
Nikolai
Two Weeks Later
I was making Vince’s bad mood my problem before it became a regional problem. Because once again, my brother’s temper was causing waves.
Not like last time splashed across Veil feeds with a blood-soaked quote playing on loop. This time, it was behind closed doors. Quieter. Which was worse.
I found him in a field an hour outside Villain, climbing out of what was clearly a half-dug grave, like that was just how he ended his meetings now.
There were three men on the ground, and none of them intact.
A hand cleanly severed lay at the edge of the shovel like some grotesque calling card.
