Chosen.
Loved.
CHAPTER 17
AEBON REXX
The war drums in my veins start low—like distant thunder—but each breath tightens the snare. By the time I walk into the Sanctum Hall, the deep black marble of Centauri Sect’s inner sanctum gleaming like oil in low light, I’m already past the point of deliberation.
I don’t pace. I sit. Chair carved from fused bones and obsidian. It sings beneath my weight.
The room hushes.
My lieutenants—Haarvik, Bruna, Ellex—file in like bloodied dogs sniffing the leash. They see what I’ve become. Not the smile, not the suit. The thing behind my red eyes.
Bruna’s the first to speak, rough voice still marinated in the spice of last night’s kill. “Boss. The girl?”
“She lives,” I say.
I don’t say more. I don’t mention the mangled hovercar or the gaping wound on the chest of the man paid to protect her. I don’t say I smelled her blood before I saw her. I don’t describe the sound she made—small and shattered—when I pulled her from the wreckage.
I don’t mention I haven’t slept. Not because of fear. But because the part of me I keep caged is howling.
“Ellex,” I say, voice like steel dipped in velvet. “Inventory.”
He stands, pale skin glowing under the room’s shifting lumens. “Nar’Vosk logistics confirmed. They’re running stim through the Mekar shipping port under false registry. Five containers daily.”
I nod.
“Haarvik. Bribe chain?”
The brute smirks. “Got three judges and a Minister’s cousin on their payroll. We flipped one last night. Fed him his own contract.”
“Public assets?”
“Three casinos, six brothels, two chains. All marked.”
Bruna leans forward, sharp eyes like broken glass. “You want ‘em sanctioned?”
My smile is a whisper of teeth.
“No,” I say, each syllable heavy with promise. “I want themerased.”
Silence.
I press my palms together, feeling the bones shift. The rage curling in me isn’t wild. It’sdisciplined.The kind that waits. The kind that cuts through noise like a scalpel through flesh.
“We gave them time,” I continue, voice low but rich with thunder. “We gave them corridors and truces. But they put a bomb beneathmy woman’scar. They bled on my doorstep. That... is a mistake they willdrownin.”
No one corrects me on what I just said. My woman.
Because they’ve seen it too.
The way I look at her.
The way I haven’t let another touch me since she walked into my courtroom like fury in heels.
I slam my hand against the comm-table. Holograms of Nar’Vosk assets flicker in blue and red—targets glowing with impending violence.
