Chapter 3 - The Ledger of BloodThomas Doyle dropped the lighter. It hit the linoleum with a dull clatter, the blue flame sputtering out against the cold floor. He backed away, his heels catching on the threshold, his hands trembling as he clawed instinctively at his coat.
"The curse was absolute," Doyle choked out, his eyes darting toward the open door and the dark, empty hallway beyond. "The council... the blood-pact—"
"The council are cowards who mistook a temporary exile for a permanent vacancy," Viktor stepped forward. The sheer physical presence of him filled the room, swallowing the light from the single overhead bulb. The temperature in the apartment plunged so sharply that Mia could see her own breath frosting in the air.
Viktor reached out, his long, scarred fingers closing around Doyle’s throat with casual, effortless strength. He lifted the older man off his feet as if he weighed nothing more than a bundle of laundry. Doyle’s legs kicked wildly, his hands clawing at Viktor’s wrists, leaving red streaks that faded almost as quickly as they appeared.
"Wait!" Mia finally found her voice, sharp and thin with terror. "Don't—don't do that here! You'll bleed on the rug!"
Viktor paused. He turned his head slowly, those cold silver eyes fixing on Mia. For a terrifying second, the ruthless mafia lord looked entirely bewildered, as if he had momentarily forgotten where he was or who she was.
The harsh, deadly tension in his shoulders softened by a fraction.
"The rug," Viktor repeated, tasting the word on his tongue as if it were a foreign language. He looked down at the frayed, cheap woven mat beneath his boots. "Right. Your rug."
With a flick of his wrist, Viktor tossed Doyle backward out the door. The older man hit the opposite hallway wall with a sickening thud, slid down like a broken doll, and lay motionless, unconscious before he even hit the carpet.
Viktor stepped out into the hallway, coldly stepping over Doyle’s limp body to retrieve the silver lighter from the apartment floor. He picked it up, turned it over in his palm, and crushed it into a flat metallic disc with a casual squeeze of his thumb and forefinger.
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When he turned back to look at Mia, she was still pressed against the counter, her fingers white-knuckled against the edge.
"You should lock your door, Mia," he said, his voice smooth, deep, and utterly devoid of the stray dog’s desperate, ragged breathing. "The neighborhood is full of stray animals. And some of them bite."
