The words settled low in my stomach.
Because he’s right and that terrifies me.
Later that day, he brought me into the operations wing.
It’s different from the rest of the estate, modern screens, encrypted servers, live shipping routes flashing across digital maps. The Syndicate isn’t just old money and intimidation. It’s technology. Logistics. Global reach.
He stood behind me while explaining port routes through Naples and Barcelona. I could feel him. Not touching but close enough that the heat of his body felt deliberate.
“You see this delay?” he asked, pointing at a blinking shipment route.
“Yes.”
“Someone is testing us.”
“Rival faction?”
“Possibly.”
He watched me instead of the screen.
“And how would you respond?”
The question wasn’t rhetorical. I considered it carefully.
“Not aggressively at first. Find out who benefits from the delay. Money always points to motive.”
A pause. Then, quietly
“Good.”
That single word shouldn’t have felt like a reward but it did.
CHAPTER 13
Lucien
She adapts too quickly. That’s what unsettles me. Most people entering this world hesitate. They recoil. They moralize. They fracture.
She studies.
She absorbs.
She questions strategically.
That makes her valuable, that also makes her dangerous.
Tonight, I had a call with Marseille ports. The shipment delay wasn’t random. Someone diverted one of our container manifests and rerouted it through a shell company tied to an old rival, the Belladonna family.
That name has history. Ugly history.
Sera doesn’t know the details yet. She will but not tonight.
She stood near the balcony doors while I ended the call, city lights reflecting in the glass behind her.
“You didn’t tell me everything,” she said.
“You’re not ready for everything.”
