MARA
I’ve spent my life watching my father play god with people’s lives, smiling across mahogany tables while he dismantled empires with his words as a politician. I hated him for it.
Hated the ice in his veins.
The way he could look a man in the eye and ruin him without blinking.
I swore I’d never let that coldness touch me.
But tonight? Tonight I’m grateful for every poisoned lesson he ever taught me.
Because these two, stubborn, broken men I love are hemorrhaging their partnership and I’m done watching them bleed out.
“Get them,” I say to Talon.
He nods once and vanishes down the hall.
My pulse is a war drum. This could explode spectacularly. Jasper could shut down completely. Dredyn could double down on his martyr bullshit. They could decide I’m the enemy for forcing this, but I’m past caring. James Steele wants us fractured? Fine. I’ll solder the cracks with my bare hands if I have to.
I’m done losing the people I love to monsters.
Jasper appears first, looking like he’s been dragged through Hell and left there to rot. When his gaze lands on the ring box that’s on the dining table in front of me, something visceral twists across his face.
He stops dead in the doorway.
“Sit.”
His jaw ticks, but he moves and drops into a chair.
Then Dredyn staggers in. He looks like he’s spent the night trying to punch his own soul out of his body. When he sees Jasper, the guilt hits him so hard he actually sways.
He freezes.
“Sit,” I repeat, colder this time.
“Mara—”
“I said sit the fuck down, Dredyn.”
The words snap across the room like a gunshot. He circles wide, putting the entire length of the table between him and Jasper, and collapses into the opposite chair.
I let the silence stretch just long enough to make them uncomfortable. Then I lean forward, palms flat on the table, and smile the way my father taught me.
“We’re doing this once. You will sit your asses in those chairs, you will listen, and you will speak when spoken to. If you can’t give me that, I will duct-tape you to this table and make you regret it.”
No one speaks.
I arch a brow. “Do. You. Understand?”
“Yes,” Dredyn mutters.
Jasper gives one sharp nod, eyes burning holes in the tabletop.
“Goodboys.” The words drip sarcasm.
I pick up the ring box, rolling it between my fingers. “This little piece of shit started the fire, so we start here.”
I pin Dredyn with a stare sharp enough to draw blood. “Talk—all of it. When did Daddy Dearest recruit you into his murder club?”
