ログインRavenThe evening air is cool and clean after the warmth of the restaurant, and Jack walks beside me with his ice cream held out in front of him like it is the most important thing he has ever carried.“I’m just saying,” he says, for the third time in two minutes, “chocolate is not a flavour. It is an experience. It is a whole emotional journey in a single cone.”“You sound like an advertisement.”“I sound like a man who has found truth and is trying to share it generously.” He looks at me sideways. “What did you even get?”“Vanilla.”He stops walking.I take two more steps before I realise and turn back. He is standing on the pavement looking at me with an expression of genuine sorrow.“Vanilla,” he repeats.“Yes.”“Out of everything. Every flavour on that entire board. You looked that man in the eye and said vanilla.”“It’s a classic.”“It is a surrender.” He falls back into step beside me, shaking his head slowly. “It is what you order when you have given up on life having anything
RavenThe restaurant is warm and softly lit, the kind of place that makes everything feel slightly more manageable than it actually is. We have menus open in front of us. I am staring at mine without reading a single word.“Right.” Anaya closes her menu with the authority of someone who made this decision before she even sat down. “Lobster. The big one. With the butter sauce and the side of truffle fries.”Jack stares at her. “You are being deliberately vindictive.”“I am being strategic.” She folds her hands on the table. “I study Business Administration. I understand opportunity and I maximise it accordingly. You said you were paying.” She tilts her head toward me. “And you cannot say no with your crush sitting right here looking all sweet and innocent. It would be rude.”I look up from my menu. “You are genuinely using me as a human shield right now.”“I prefer the term social leverage.”“You can say no, Jack,” I tell him. “Genuinely. I’ll back you up.”Anaya’s mouth falls open. “R
Raven“Come on Cousin. Don’t embarrass me in front of my potential date. It was one incident—”“There were several incidents.”“The bucket thing was an accident.”I look between them. “The bucket thing?”Anaya’s eyes light up. “Oh, she doesn’t know.”“She doesn’t need to know,” Jack says, pointing his spoon at her.“She absolutely needs to know.” Anaya turns to me fully, the way she does when she’s about to deliver something she’s been waiting years to tell. “Okay. So. Jack. Year ten. School sports day. There is a relay race…”“I want to state for the record that the ground was wet.”“The ground was not wet, it was a completely dry day in June, and I was there.” She waves him off. “So there’s a relay race and Jack is on the last leg, right? He’s winning. Genuinely winning, which rarely happened—”“I was fast—”“You were occasionally fast. There’s a difference.” She takes a sip of her tea. “So he’s coming around the final bend, he’s got the baton, the whole year is cheering, and he som
RavenI am in the lobby when I see the scar-faced man leave Roman’s office.He smiles to himself as he passes. There is something about him that seems off, but I don’t let it bother me.I don’t move until he steps into the elevator, and then I head back to Roman’s office quickly—before someone else goes in before me and I have to wait another long minute to see him.I push open Roman’s office door.He doesn’t let me get two steps inside.“How many times have you been warned to text before coming to my office?”The coldness in his voice makes me stop walking.Roman is standing behind his desk, leaning forward, staring down at me with such a heavy frown I barely recognize him. His face is tight, his jaw locked so hard the muscle is jumping visibly. It’s a wall of pure anger I cannot penetrate.I have never seen him this furious. It actually scares me. My stomach twists into knots and I take an involuntary step back.“Roman…” I whisper, my voice trembling. “I was going to Anaya’s place.
Roman“You actually did it, boss?” Marcus’s voice is low, controlled, but I hear the shock underneath it. He has worked for me long enough to know better than to wear his reactions openly. He isn’t doing a good job of it right now. “You put ten bullets in Alexander Kingston’s son?”“I did.” I swirl the whiskey in my glass and watch the amber catch the light. “Ten times. I made sure he stayed down.”Marcus is quiet for a moment. The kind of quiet that means he’s choosing his words carefully.“Roman. The boy—”“The boy was a jackass,” I say. “Just like his father. Same arrogance. Same recklessness. Same belief that the world would simply rearrange itself around him because of whose blood runs through his veins.” I set the glass down. “He got exactly what that kind of thinking earns a man.”“This isn’t good.” Marcus runs a hand down his face. He looks tired. He always looks tired when I’ve done something he can’t undo. “If he dies…”“If he dies,” I say, “it saves me the trouble. But that
RavenI enter the private fitting room and it feels like a stage set for someone else’s life.It should be beautiful. It probably is beautiful. But standing here, pressed against the wall with my arms crossed over my chest, it feels suffocating.Vivienne stands on the low podium at the centre of it all, a queen holding court without even trying. The seamstress, a small, precise woman named Margaux — moves around her in careful circles, pins between her lips, hands ghosting over fabric with the kind of reverence reserved for sacred things. Two assistants orbit further out, adjusting, smoothing, waiting.And Roman stands a few feet away, hands in his pockets, watching with that expression he always wears in public. Bored. Untouchable. Dangerous in the way that a storm is dangerous, not because it’s loud, but because it doesn’t care who it destroys.“What do you think, Babe?” Vivienne asks, turning at the waist, holding a swatch of ivory silk against her collarbone. “Is this the one? Do
Raven“I can wear whatever I want.”I say it before he can open his mouth again and I watch something move through his eyes that makes my stomach flip.Roman sets his pen down on the desk. Slowly. The way a man does when he is deciding how much patience he has left.“Excuse me.”“You heard me.” I l
RomanThe spreadsheet on my desk shows three months of movement across the Harlow Port acquisition and every number on it tells the same story. Someone has been quietly buying up surrounding parcels of land in small, untraceable increments, and I know exactly who it is without looking further.“How
RavenVivienne is already in the kitchen when I come downstairs and honestly, I should have turned around and gone back to bed the moment I saw her.She is standing at the stove in a silk robe, her hair twisted up perfectly, looking like someone who woke up beautiful without trying.“Good morning,”
Roman“No.” She sits up straight and holds my gaze and there is nothing uncertain about her. “I am not going anywhere. I am not a child anymore and you cannot keep sending me away every time this gets too real for you.”I lean back in my chair and look at her and I am doing everything I know how to







