Page 174 of Vow to Claim You

“As you know,” Nikos continues, “The Council operates on absolute loyalty. Absolute discipline. Our laws exist because without them, empires like ours would devour themselves from the inside. When a member breaks those laws, the consequence is absolute. No exceptions. No appeals. Not even for the Second.”

The word “Second” makes Leandro’s eyelid twitch. He keeps his poker face intact, but I see the implication did its work.

“Aric Vold has broken the law,” Nikos states flatly. “The specifics aren’t relevant to your task. What’s relevant is that this table has decided his fate, and the sentence is death.”

Leandro doesn’t speak or move, but I know—the way I know the weight of a gun in my hand, the way I know the sound of a lie when I hear one—that something just changed behind the surface.

“Your final task,” Nikos says, “is to carry out the sentence.”

“You’re asking me to kill Aric Vold.” Leandro’s voice is careful. “My daughter’s husband.”

“I know what I’m asking. And I know the cost of it. That’s precisely why it’s the final task. The Gods don’t accept men who are willing to do easy things. We accept men who are willing to do the necessary thing, even when it tears them apart.” Nikos pauses for a beat. “Even when it’s family.”

Leandro’s jaw tightens. “My daughter⁠—”

“Will be taken care of.” Nikos leans back in his seat. “She’ll be provided for. Protected. Given the full status of a fallen God’s widow and every privilege that comes with it. The Council will see to it personally.”

“And the seat?”

There it is.

Not what about my daughter’s grief. Not she’s already lost a child, and now you want me to take her husband. Not how will she survive this.

And the seat.

I feel my fingers curl at my sides the way they curl around a trigger.

“Yours,” Nikos says. “Effective upon completion. Full Council membership. Full voting rights. Everything you came here for.”

Leandro is quiet for a long time. Long enough for me to count his breaths—twelve, thirteen, fourteen—and long enough for the room to feel like it’s contracting, walls pressing inward, the mirror between us thinning until I’m certain he can feel me watching.

Then he leans forward. “Where? And when?”

Nikos slides an envelope with The Gods emblems across the table. “Time and location inside. Aric will be there at eleven, alone. He believes he’s meeting me to discuss Council restructuring.” He sits back. “He’ll be unarmed. No security detail. The building has a single entrance and a second exit through the basement, which will be sealed. He’ll be vulnerable.”

Leandro nods simply as though accepting a contract.

Nikos rises but signals Leandro to stay seated. He moves to the cabinet against the far wall and opens it. From inside, he lifts a matte black case. He sets it on the table between them and opens the lid. Inside, nestled against dark velvet, rests a gold handgun, the society’s emblem engraved into it’s grip.

The same pistol I loaded with blank rounds before this meeting.

Nikos and I agreed on it this morning, because there is a version of tomorrow night where Leandro walks into that safe house and pulls the trigger before I can draw a single word out of him. Where the diplomat in him calculates that a clean kill and a quick exit is safer than conversation. Where he decides that dead men don’t ask questions and a confession is a risk he doesn’t need to take. In that version, I need to still be breathing when the dust settles.

So the gun is real. The emblem is real. The weight is right, the action is clean, and if Leandro pulls the trigger, it’ll sound exactly like a live round. He’ll feel the recoil, hear the report, and for one priceless heartbeat believe he’s killed me. By the time he realizes I’m still standing, Nikos’s men will already be in the room.

One shot. One chance. A magazine full of lies standing between me and a bullet.

“Every sanctioned execution carried out in the name of this society is performed with this weapon,” Nikos says, turning the case toward Leandro. “It’s tradition. Older than either of us. The gun is registered to the council, engraved with our seal. When the task is done, you return it.” His gaze sets on Leandro’s. “No other weapon. No delegation. Your hand, this gun. That’s how it’s done.”

Leandro looks at the weapon before he reaches into the case and lifts it. He turns the weapon over in his hand, but he doesn’t check the magazine.

A professional would. A man who has spent his life in the shadows of power and knows that trust is the most common murder weapon in the world—that man would eject the magazine, inspect the rounds, confirm the load before accepting any firearm from any hand, no matter how trusted.

Leandro doesn’t because he trusts the emblem. Trusts the idea that the Supreme Leader of The Gods has handed him a sacred instrument and would not dare compromise the ritual.

“I understand,” he says.

“I need to hear it clearly, Leandro.” Nikos’s voice drops. “Do you accept the task?”