chapter 6

The room smelled of iron and rust—not from blood, not yet, but from the old chair the man had been tied to for the better part of an hour. Elison Floris stood before him with his sleeves already rolled to the elbow, though he hadn't touched a single thing. He didn't need to. His presence alone had a way of making people's spines curl inward, as if their bodies already understood danger before their minds caught up.

The man in the chair was panting, sweat clinging to his collar, his breath coming out ragged and uneven.

"Looks like your owner has fed you well," Elison said, tilting his head, studying him the way one might study a particularly uninteresting insect.

"Do whatever you want," the man rasped, jaw tight. "I will not say anything."

Elison's mouth curved, unbothered, almost amused. He turned toward the doorway where his personal assistant—and closest friend, though neither of them would ever say the word aloud—stood leaning against the frame with a glass in his hand, as though this were a cocktail party and not an interrogation.

"Azhael," Elison said, voice smooth as silk over a blade, "do we still have nail cutters here?"

"Yes, boss." Azhael Frost pushed off the doorframe without missing a beat, crossing the room and placing the small silver tool into Elison's waiting palm as casually as if he were handing him a pen.

The man in the chair began to tremble.

"Hmm," Elison murmured, turning the nail cutter over in his fingers, feigning deep contemplation. "Which finger should I start with?"

"Middle," Azhael offered immediately, sipping his drink.

Elison raised a thumb toward his friend in mock approval. "Why not," he said lightly, and then, without any further ceremony, he began peeling back the skin at the edge of the man's nail.

The scream that tore out of the man's throat rattled the walls.

Elison didn't flinch. He simply moved to the next finger—the ring finger this time—unhurried, methodical, as if he had all the patience in the world and nowhere else to be.

"WAIT—I'll speak! I'll speak!" the man howled, blood beading along his fingertips now, his whole body shaking against the ropes.

"Azhael, listen to what he has to say," Elison said, already stepping back, already bored of the scene he'd created. "I'm going to go wash my dirty hands." He left without another glance, the door swinging shut softly behind him, as though he hadn't just reduced a grown man to tears in under two minutes.

By the time he'd scrubbed the evidence from beneath his nails and made his way to the car waiting outside, his expression had smoothed back into its usual detached calm. Azhael slid into the seat beside him a few minutes later, still holding the same drink, somehow unspilled despite everything.

"What did he say?" Elison asked, staring out the tinted window.

Azhael relayed it all—every stammered, blood-slick confession—while Elison listened with his chin propped against his knuckles, expression unreadable.

"Hmm," was all he said when Azhael finished.

Then, almost as an afterthought: "By the way. Did you find him?"

Azhael's easy smirk faded a fraction. "No," he admitted. "Looks like a powerful person is covering him up."

"So there's no way we can find him?"

"I won't promise you anything." A beat. Then, without warning, Azhael's tone sharpened, indignation flaring up out of nowhere. "And why the hell are you talking to me so coldly?" He reached over and smacked the back of Elison's head.

"BITC—" Elison started, only to be cut off by his own affronted silence.

"Shh," Azhael said sweetly, pressing a hand to his own chest and letting his eyes well up in an entirely unconvincing display. "I'll tell your mother you scolded me." He sniffled theatrically.

"You don't have to, my frie—"

"I'm not talking about you, asshole." Azhael waved a dismissive hand. "I'm wishing luck to whoever's about to marry you."

"THIS BAS—"

The car rolled to a stop before Elison could finish the insult. From the front seat, the driver called back, "Sir, we've reached."

Azhael was out of the car before it had even fully stopped, practically sprinting toward the front doors of the estate. Elison followed at a slower pace, muttering under his breath as he stepped inside.

"Enter and dodge," he warned no one in particular. "Mom's trying something new today."

He wasn't wrong.

"THIS BRAT—" Adira Floris's voice cracked through the hall like a whip the moment her son crossed the threshold, and whatever object she'd hurled in his direction went sailing past him just as Azhael strolled in through the door behind him, entirely unaware.

"DODG—" Elison tried to warn him.

"Huh?" Azhael blinked, and then dropped like a stone as the projectile connected.

Silence. A single, damning period appeared where a response should have been, as if even the room itself didn't know what to say.

---

It was later that evening, curled into the corner of a velvet armchair with his sleeve pulled over his knuckles, that Elison finally let himself sneeze—loud, sudden, entirely undignified.

"Achoo—" *shots fired, metaphorically speaking, through the quiet of the room.*

Somewhere near the doorway, a passerby who'd had nothing to do with any of it clutched their chest and collapsed dramatically onto the floor, muttering, "I'm dying."

"Did you catch a cold?" came a curious voice from the hall.

"Someone might be talking badly about me," Elison replied simply, unbothered, dabbing at his nose. Then, glancing toward Azhael, he asked, "Anyway. Did he speak up?"

"No," Azhael said.

"Should I make him?"

Elison sighed—long, heavy, the kind of sigh that carried the weight of an entire life he hadn't asked for.

Azhael's brows knit with concern, all his usual mischief momentarily gone. "What happened? You don't look good."

"I'm getting married."

"WHAT?" Azhael's glass nearly slipped from his hand. "Who's dying?"

Elison said nothing. His silence stretched long enough that Azhael leaned forward, insistent.

"Tell me."

"My mother is forcing me to marry someone I don't even know," Elison finally admitted, voice flat, resigned, the practiced calm of a man who had already lost this particular fight before it began.

For once, Azhael didn't joke. He didn't smirk, didn't reach for another insult to lighten the mood. He simply looked at his friend—the boy who could carve fear into grown men without blinking, who could stare down his own mother's fury without flinching, but who now sat there looking, for the first time, genuinely and completely helpless.

"I feel bad for you," Azhael said quietly.

And for once, Elison didn't argue.