The mockery in his tone made her fingers twitch in annoyance. She rose from her crouch slowly, keeping her face neutral.

  Never show your enemy what you’re thinking.

  “Looking for something to kill you with, actually.” She answered honestly and watched how it landed on his features.

  A muscle jumped in his jaw.

  He moved farther into the room, stepping over the papers she’d strewn across the floor without looking at them. His focus remained entirely on her face, those blue eyes tracking the bruises, the swelling, the evidence of what he and his people had done.

  He stopped near the desk, his body angled to keep both her and the door in his line of sight as he rolled his sleeves up his forearms. His skin stretched tight over the muscle, the veins pulsating underneath jutting out like ridges.

  Shadera watched as his fingers perfected each roll of the fabric on both arms before they curled around the ledge of the desk. He leaned back into it without once taking his eyes off her, studying her. She hadn’t really looked at him until now, truly looked at him. He had to be at least six four, maybe taller. His features were hard—sculpted as if he’d never learned to smile. But underneath the harshness of the sharp edges, underneath the dark brows and deep set eyes, she could see a torrent of emotion raging there. She wondered if anyone else had ever seen it, if anyone had ever seen what turmoil he hid behind the mask.

  She swallowed, tearing her eyes away from him.

  “You should be resting,” he said. “You need to look presentable for the family din—”

  “I couldn’t give less of a fuck how I look for your sick family dinner,” she cut him off, striding toward the desk and snatching the vodka bottle from beside him before walking to the window at his back. She took a long pull as she looked down at the Executioner’s platform. “You killed someone this morning. A child.”

  “He wasn’t a child.” The response was automatic, defensive. “He was nineteen. Old enough to know the consequences of theft in the Heart.”

  “Theft,” she said quietly, taking another drink. “What did he steal? Bread? Medicine? Something to keep his family alive while you feast up here in your tower?”

  Greyson’s expression hardened. “He stole from a Heart clinic. Medical supplies meant for citizens who contribute to society.”

  The rage that flooded through her was volcanic, obliterating. Before she could think, before she could stop herself, she was moving. Not for the door, not for his throat—just moving, needing to move the fury in her body before it exploded. His back straightened slightly as she took a step in front of him and looked up into his face.

  “Contributing to society?” Her voice cracked on the words. “You mean being born in the right ring? Having the right last name? The boy probably had siblings dying of infection while you hoard antibiotics for people who have never known a day of real sickness.”

  Shadera was close enough now to see the flecks of darker blue in his irises, close enough to smell the leather of his gloves and the gunpowder that lingered there.

  “The law is clear,” he said, but something in his voice wavered. Exhaustion, maybe, something close to resignation. The bone deep weariness of someone who’d repeated the same words so many times they’d lost meaning.

  “Your law.” She jabbed a finger at his chest, connecting with a solid wall of muscle. “Your father’s law. Written by murderers to protect murderers.”

  His hand shot up, catching her wrist before she could pull back. His grip was firm but not painful, his thumb pressing against her pulse point where her heart hammered its rage.

  “Careful,” he said, voice dropping low. “The walls have ears.”

  She knew they were listening. Every word they spoke recorded, analyzed, judged. But the anger burning through her didn’t care about consequences anymore.

  These people had taken everything—her parents, her freedom, her hope. Now they wanted to parade her around like a prized animal, use her to break the spirits of those still fighting.

  “Let them listen.” She stood there, letting him feel her pulse race with hatred. “Let your father hear exactly what I think of his empire built on the bones of the people you killed.”

  She pulled her wrist free, shoving a step away from him. Still he didn’t move. Only watched her, watched the emotions break through her composure.

  “How many people have you killed, Greyson? Hundreds? Thousands? Do you even keep count anymore, or do they all just blur together?”

  He straightened at her words, pushing off the desk and taking a step away from her as if to ground himself from the question.

  “Every one,” he said, his nostrils flaring as he sucked in a sharp breath. “I remember every one.”

  She hadn’t expected that answer, hadn’t expected vulnerability. The raw truth. She studied his face, looking for the lie, the manipulation.

  “Then you’re more of a monster than I thought.” The words came out softer than she’d intended. “You remember them, and you keep killing.”

  “Yes.” Simple. Final.

  No justification, no excuse.

  The honesty of it knocked something loose in her chest. She’d expected denial, rationalization, the usual Heart propaganda about necessary evils and greater goods. Not flat out acknowledgment of what he was.

  She moved without thinking, drawn by the ache screaming beneath her sternum. Her hand reached for his collar, fingers finding the dried blood. Greyson went stiff but didn’t stop her as she traced the stain.

  “This boy,” she started, her voice a whisper. “What was his name?”

  “Marcus Chen.” No hesitation. “From Cardinal South. Three younger siblings. Mother works in the processing plants. Father executed three years ago for smuggling.”

  Each detail was a knife precisely placed. He knew exactly who he’d killed, knew the life he’d ended and the lives he’d destroyed in the process.

  And still he’d pulled the trigger.

  “You’re sick.” She pulled back, the blood ghosting over the pad of her finger making her skin crawl. “You know what you are doing is evil and you do it anyway.”

  “Evil.” Greyson seemed to taste the word, roll it around in his mouth like a fine wine. “Is that what you call it when you slit someone’s throat for credits? When you poison a Cardinal merchant who skimmed from the wrong shipment? Or is it only evil when I do it?”

  “I never pretended to be anything other than what I am. I kill people who help the Heart, not those oppressed by it. And I’m not ashamed of that. Not ashamed to be a killer if it means making the Heart suffer.”

  He pulled the bottle from her fingers and took a large drink. “The only difference is you get to choose your contracts. I don’t. We’re both murderers. We just pay a different price for those deaths.”

  “What price do you pay?” Shadera spat back at him.

  His eyes flickered to the papers on the floor behind her so quickly she almost missed it. A shadow fell over his eyes, something haunted filling his irises.

  “You wanted me to kill you, didn’t you? You wanted to die. I saw it in your eyes when you took off your mask. You wanted me to end it.”

  He went still.

  “You don’t know what you saw,” he said quietly, his eyes not meeting hers.

  “I know exactly what I saw. I’ve seen that look before. In the mirror.”

  Shadera blamed the honesty on the vodka, or maybe it was exhaustion. She watched him, his eyes still locked on the papers behind her, and her mind drifted back to the medical report, how he’d kept it. The evidence of abuse hidden behind clinical language.

  “Your father nearly killed you three years ago.”

  His expression didn’t change, but she caught the minute flinch in his shoulders, the way his breathing hitched for just a moment. Her guess had been correct.

  “Training accident,” he said.

  “Bullshit.” She picked up the report, waving it between them. “These injuries—broken ribs, internal bleeding, skull fracture—someone beat you, systematically. Someone who knew exactly how much damage you could take without dying.”

  “Drop it.” The words came out of Greyson low and dangerous.

  She’d finally found something. A crack in his armor.

  “What did you do? Refuse an execution? Show mercy to a rebel? Or did he just need to remind you who owns you?”

  He moved faster than Shadera expected, closing the distance between them in one stride. His hand wrapped around her throat, not quite painful but tight enough to make her freeze. She could see the vein pulsing along his throat, the barely controlled fury in those blue eyes.

  “I said, drop it,” Greyson growled down at her, his fingers flexing against her skin.

  She should’ve backed down. Should’ve recognized the danger in his voice. Instead she smiled up at him.

  “Did you cry?” She leaned closer, her voice dropping to a whisper. “When he broke your bones, when he made you understand what you really are to him—just another tool, another weapon to maintain his power—did you cry?”

  His grip on her throat tightened, his other hand curling into a fist around the bottle’s neck. Then she saw it. Saw the flash of memory in his eyes, the ghost of that pain still living in his body all these years later.

  She didn’t flinch.

  Greyson held her there, their bodies nearly touching, the silence between them growing dangerous.

  She saw it in him—a kind of violence that ran colder than fury, a violence so practiced it’d become routine. He could’ve snapped her neck in that moment, she knew it. Could’ve ended the whole charade, and maybe he even wanted to. But he didn’t. She watched him make the choice not to. Watched his jaw work, watched his nostrils flare wide, watched the blue in his eyes narrow to a killing moon.

  He released her with a shove, as if disgusted by the idea of her taking up his air. She rocked back, legs catching herself before she could stumble. The skin of her neck throbbed, heat pulsing from every spot his fingers had pressed. She let herself cough, once, not enough to give him satisfaction, just enough to clear her windpipe.

  Greyson stalked to the window, his free hand dragging down his face as he looked out over the city. Shadera watched the tremor that plagued his other hand as he rose the bottle to his lips. It was so slight no one else would’ve noticed it, but she was a connoisseur of pain. Especially the kind that haunted the living.

  “I need you to leave,” he said as he turned back to face her. His gaze had gone flat, not a single ounce of emotion to be found in their depths.

  “No.” Shadera’s back straightened in defiance.

  He sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose before his eyes locked on to hers.

  “Shadera.” A pause. “I want to kill you.” The cadence of his statement sent a shiver crawling down her spine. “If you do not leave right now, I’m going to kill you.”

  There was something about the admission, something so dead in his gaze, that she didn’t question the sincerity of it. She hesitated for only a second, her eyes staying locked on his as her heart began to race, then finally, she fled the room.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN YOU KNOW THE RULES

  THE MAN’S WHIMPER ECHOED off the concrete walls as Callum circled the metal chair, his footsteps unhurried. Blood already decorated the concrete floor in abstract patterns, spreading outward from where the elite slumped. Crimson covered his once pristine white shirt—an expensive piece now ruined beyond salvation. Callum flexed his fingers inside the brass knuckles, feeling the weight of the metal warm against his skin. He believed in consequences. He believed in order. This was a lesson in both.

  Above them, the club’s bassline thumped through three floors of concrete and steel, vibrating through Callum’s bones like a second heartbeat. Down here, in the basement that didn’t exist on any architectural plans, the sound arrived muffled and distorted—a ghost of the revelry happening in the world above. The single bulb hanging from exposed wiring cast harsh shadows that turned the blood black where it pooled in the floor’s imperfections.

  “Do you understand why you’re here, Davish?” Callum asked, his voice betraying none of the disgust coiling in his gut. He stopped his circling, positioning himself directly in the elite’s line of sight.

  Davish—mid-forties, thinning hair, the soft physique of someone who’d never known true hardship—lifted his head. His mask had been removed, a power play for Callum, an indignity that would have scandalized Heart society. Without it, his face was unremarkable, save for the terror widening his eyes.

  “Please,” Davish croaked, spitting blood onto the concrete. “This is a misunderstanding. I didn’t kno—”

  Callum’s fist connected with his jaw before he could finish the lie. The brass knuckles split skin on impact, adding another wound to the collection already forming on Davish’s face. Two guards stood against the far wall, expressions impassive behind their masks. They’d seen this ritual before.

  “A misunderstanding,” Callum repeated, wiping a fleck of blood from his sleeve with fastidious care. “You truly didn’t know?” Callum kept his voice conversational, almost gentle.

  He circled the chair again.

  “Strange. Because Marina wears my mark. Right here.” He tapped the spot below his own ear where all his workers bore the same small copper tattoo—a singular rose on a stem, splitting his initials on either side. “Unless you’re telling me you didn’t bother looking at her face while you held her down.”

  Davish’s sob came out as a gurgle. Blood ran from his nose in twin streams, disappearing into the ruin of his mouth.

  “Let’s be clear about what isn’t misunderstood. You paid for time with Marina. You agreed to our terms. And then you put your hands on her.” He leaned down, bringing his mask inches from Davish’s exposed face.

  The proximity was unnerving—a violation of Heart law that emphasized just how far they’d stepped outside society’s rules.

  “No one touches what’s mine,” Callum said quietly. “Especially not like that.”

  The elite attempted to straighten in the chair, dignity warring with survival instinct. “She’s just a Cardinal whore—”

  This time Callum didn’t aim for the face. His fist drove into Davish’s solar plexus, driving the air from his lungs in a desperate wheeze. He doubled over as far as his restraints would allow, and retched onto the floor between his expensive shoes.

  Callum crouched down to meet his one good eye—the other had swollen shut ten minutes ago.

  “Marina has three younger siblings in the Cardinal,” Callum said casually when Davish had recovered enough to listen. “She sends ninety percent of what she earns to keep them alive.”

  His fist crashed into Davish’s kidney, a precise blow that made him shriek. The sound bounced off the walls, distorted and inhuman. One of the guards glanced over at them but didn’t intervene. This was business, and business required clear messaging.

  “Please,” Davish gasped between sobs. “I’ll pay. Whatever you want. Double. Triple the usual fee.”

  “Payment?” Callum scoffed. “You think this is about credits?” Another punch, this one to the ribs. Something cracked. “Marina can’t work for at least three weeks. Three weeks of lost income because you wanted five minutes of feeling powerful.”

  Callum slowly uncoiled from the floor.

  “This isn’t about money. This is about respect.” He gripped Davish’s chin, forcing him to meet his eyes through the slits in his mask.

  “You know the rules,” Callum continued, voice dropping to a near whisper. “Everyone who steps through my doors knows them. Hurt what’s mine, I hurt you back.”

  He circled behind the chair again, letting his footsteps echo. Fear worked better when you couldn’t see where the next blow would come from.

  “You came into my house, Davish. My house.” Callum spat each word. “So tell me why I shouldn’t cut your throat and drop your body in the Boundary canals?”

  Davish’s pupils dilated with terror. “I have information,” he blurted. “Valuable information. About the Heart. About transactions—illegal ones. You collect secrets. I have secrets I could give you.”

  Interest flickered through Callum, though he kept his posture relaxed, unaffected. “I’m listening.”

  Callum did indeed collect secrets. The men and women that worked in his clubs throughout the Heart shared the things they learned about their clients with him. He kept these secrets filed away until the moment came where they could be leveraged, used for his own purposes.

  “Serel Industries,” Davish gasped. “They’re moving supplies through false manifests. Medical equipment and food that never reaches the Cardinal or Boundary clinics. Redirected to private facilities in the Heart.”

  Callum’s mind processed this rapidly. This could be useful. Potentially worth more than the satisfaction of breaking another one of Davish’s ribs.

  “Details,” Callum demanded. “Names. Facilities. Routes.”

  “I oversee the Cardinal distribution network,” Davish said, words tumbling out now that he’d found potential salvation. “Two shipments a week disappear from the manifest after they clear the agricultural customs. The verification codes are changed in the system. They go to a warehouse in Heart East, burn it, get rid of the evidence. The President is planning something with other high-level members of leadership. They’ve been slowly cutting of all remaining aid and food shipments to the outer rings.”

  Callum’s arms folded across his chest, his fingers tapping against his bicep. What was Maximus Serel up to now? He’d need to dig into this, use whatever contacts he had to collect more information.

  He fought to keep the disgust from his expression. Medical supplies Callum knew they’d been hoarding, but food? They were now fully cutting off access to the already small amount of food that made it to the Boundary.

  A knock at the door interrupted his thoughts. One of his guards opened it slightly, exchanging quiet words with someone outside.

  “Boss,” the guard said, turning back. “You have a visitor waiting in your office. Says it’s important.”