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The name hung in the damp air of Mara’s small apartment like a death sentence. Sebastian. / Chapter 1 / 6

Chapter 1 - The Mark of a Traitor

The name hung in the damp air of Mara’s small apartment like a death sentence. Sebastian.

Sebastian Vale was Lucian’s younger brother, the polished, smiling face of the Vale Syndicate who handled the public relations and the legitimate corporate empire. If Sebastian was the one who had orchestrated this, then the entire city of Port Aurelia had just become a minefield. There was no safe haven left for the undisputed king of the underworld.

Mara felt the cold metal of the silver thorn pin bite into her palm as she picked it up from the floor. Her hands shook, but her mind, honed by years of surviving on the rough edges of Port Aurelia, went sharp and icy.

"Lucian, stay with me," she muttered, pressing down harder on the gunshot wound just beneath his ribs. The bullet had torn through flesh, but it missed the main artery—for now.

Lucian’s grip on her wrist suddenly loosened as he slipped entirely into unconsciousness. His breathing was shallow, his face a ghostly, bloodless mask. Mara dragged his heavy, muscular frame across the hardwood floor and into her small bedroom, concealing him beneath the mattress frame where the shadows ran deepest. She then rushed back to the living room, using bleach and old rags to scrub the blood from her carpet, her heart hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird.

Just as she finished throwing the ruined towels into a trash bag, a low, heavy vibration echoed through the floorboards.

A black SUV pulled up across the street.

Mara peered through the blinds. Three men stepped out, their faces obscured by the brims of their hats, but the streetlamp caught the glint of silver pinned to their lapels. The thorns were already hunting.

They weren't looking randomly. They were checking every building within a three-block radius of the alley where Lucian had vanished. And they were heading straight for her apartment complex.

Mara’s phone suddenly buzzed on the kitchen counter. The screen lit up with an unknown number.

With trembling fingers, she answered.

"Mara," a smooth, cultured voice purred through the speaker. It was a voice she recognized from the VIP lounges of the bar. Sebastian Vale. "I’m looking for my brother. He seems to have misplaced himself tonight. Have you seen him?"

Mara swallowed the lump of terror in her throat, forcing her voice to sound tired and annoyed. "Mr. Vale? No. I left the club hours ago. I’m in bed."

"Are you?" Sebastian’s tone dripped with polite malice. "Because my men are standing outside your building, and they tell me the lights in your apartment just went out. And Mara? We found a trail of blood leading toward your street."

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The ink on the emergency audit report was barely dry when the secure terminal on my desk flashed a violent crimson. I hadn't slept in thirty-six hours, my eyes burning from staring at columns of ghost figures, duplicate invoices, and shell corporations linked to Dominic Rossi. But the red alert wasn’t from Rossi’s faction. It was an internal security flag originating from the estate’s main vault deep beneath the west wing.

The ink on the emergency audit report was barely dry when the secure ter...

The glass shattered into a thousand tiny diamonds on the marble, scattering the light from the chandeliers. The muffled laughter died instantly, replaced by a suffocating, heavy silence that crept outward from the grand staircase.

The glass shattered into a thousand tiny diamonds on the marble, scatter...

The heavy oak doors of my private study clicked shut behind us, locking out the clinical, terrifying silence of the kitchen. Evelyn Crane stood stiffly in front of my mahogany desk, her hands folded over her apron with the rigid precision of someone who had spent decades micromanaging every square inch of my estate. Behind her, Norah hovered near the doorway, clutching her clipboard like a shield.

The heavy oak doors of my private study clicked shut behind us, locking...

A heavy knock rattled her front door.

The Hook: Mara froze, the phone still pressed to her ear. Through the peephole, she didn't see a stranger. She saw her own landlord, a gun pressed hard against the back of his head by a man wearing a silver thorn.

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