CAELEN VALENTINE’S POV
“Does Ilya know about it?” I asked, concern washing over me as Aria sobbed into her hands like her world had just shattered.
She shook her head furiously. “No… and he doesn’t need to. We’ve already broken up. This child—this baby—is mine alone.”
Her tears intensified, and before I could react, she leaned into me, wrapping her arms around my torso. I froze for a second, but the tremble in her body pulled at something inside me.
This girl…
And just as the thought settled in, the door slammed open like a scene from a bad gangster flick.
Speak of the devil… and the Russian arrives.
Cold. Imposing. Fuming.
He stood there like a storm wrapped in silence, his blue eyes narrowed into icy slits, glaring directly at me.
His fists were clenched, jaw locked, chest heaving ever so slightly beneath that tailored black shirt.
Which only encouraged the devil in me.
I gently rubbed Aria’s back as she continued to cry into my chest, blissfully unaware of the murderous Russian statue in the doorway.
Ilya coughed.
She didn’t flinch.
The look on his face? Devastating.
“Young mistress,” he spoke through clenched teeth, “Sir requests your presence.”
She didn’t move. Not even an inch.
“She’ll come in a while,” I said for her, sending him a slow smile.
Looks like I’m playing cupid now.
“I guess I’ll go now,” Aria whispered, gently pulling away from my embrace.
“Don’t worry,” I reassured her. “Your secret is safe with me. In return… just make sure your brother stays at least five kilometers away from me.”
She laughed softly—somewhat sad, somewhat grateful—and walked out, leaving me in the thick silence of my thoughts.
Would my family even look for me?
Doubtful.
Since the day I was born, I’ve been nothing more than a shameful shadow. My mother died giving birth to me, and from that day onward, I became a stain on my father’s perfect life.
At school, I was mocked for being ‘the extra son’.
College was my rebirth. I changed my look, my name, even lied about my background.
Eleven girlfriends.
When Aria told me she was pregnant with my child…
But turns out, even that wasn’t mine to keep.
The baby’s not mine.
Every inch of my body still aches from Lucian’s beating.
MIDNIGHT.
I wandered the mansion like a ghost.
It was palatial—elegant, pristine, cold.
“Ahhh…”
Another scream echoed from somewhere deeper inside.
This place was huge, and knowing this family, someone was either being tortured, interrogated, or sacrificed for looking at Lucian the wrong way.
I followed the sound. My curiosity piqued.
But the closer I got…
I stopped outside a half-open door. The screams weren’t cries for help.
And then I heard a voice. Guttural. Commanding. Familiar.
Lucian?
No.
No fucking way.
I kicked the door open—
Worst decision of my life.
There he was.
Fucking a man over his desk.
Hands gripping hair.
I stood there. Frozen.
He didn’t even stop.
Like he wanted me to see.
LIAM MARTIN'S POVThe pan hissed as the butter melted, thick and slow. My knife moved on its own—slice, scrape, drop—while my head wandered somewhere I wished it wouldn’t. That’s the curse of a quiet house: too much room for ghosts.Grayson Pittman was here tonight. Rare thing. Usually, the mansion just held his echo—meetings, flights, calls that never stopped. Lately, with Caisen in the mix, they were tearing themselves thin trying to leash a kingdom that didn’t want a leash. From what Conrad said, it was like herding wolves with a gold thread. Alliances where there used to be vendettas. Powerhouses who once spat in each other’s shadows now clinking glasses over the same table. Only those two could pull that off—Grayson with his cold precision, Caisen with that simmering steel in his veins.But all I could think about, standing there with garlic stinging my fingers, was how none of this started clean. Not for him. Not for me.I was seven when I met him. He was thirteen—already taller
LIAM MARTIN'S POVThe cursor blinked at me like it knew I was a fraud. Ten chapters in, and my manhwa already felt like it was circling the drain. Not exactly the dazzling debut I had pictured when I signed that contract. The comments section was a battlefield of “The story's bland” and “No spice, could be better,” sprinkled with a few dagger-sharp reviews that still managed to live rent-free in my head. I pretended they didn’t bother me. They did. I was mid-sulk when my phone started vibrating across the desk like it had a personal vendetta against my coffee mug. I glanced at the screen: Kim Seirra.I swiped to answer. “Seirra. To what do I owe this disruption to my artistic misery?”“Liam! You sound like you just got evicted,” she chirped, her voice annoyingly bright for someone who probably had a functioning serotonin supply. “Are you working?”“I was, if you can call staring at an empty panel ‘working’,” I said, spinning in my chair until the room blurred. “What’s up? Did your
LIAM MARTIN'S POVThe screen glared at me, empty panels waiting to be filled with brilliance, and all I had to offer was…a half-dead brain and too much instant coffee. My studio—fine, Grayson’s guest room that I’ve colonized with sketchpads and ramen cups—looked like a battlefield. And I was losing.I dragged the pen across the tablet, trying to summon a new character. What came out? Another tall, broad-shouldered man with a jawline sharp enough to slice bread. Black suit. Cold blu eyes & blonde hairs. Menace radiating off him like bad Wi-Fi.“Goddammit,” I muttered, staring at the sketch. “That’s just Pittman again.”I erased the lines with unnecessary violence. This was getting pathetic. My readers wanted angst and passion, not an unauthorized fancomic of my homicidal landlord. And yet, every time I sat down to work, Grayson’s face crawled into my imagination like an unpaid intern refusing to leave.I leaned back in my chair, staring at the ceiling. What’s wrong with me? Why am I me
CAISEN VALENTINE'S POVThe hum of Grayson's office was oddly calming, sterile in all the wrong ways, except for the glass coaster Conrad kept shifting from side to side with two fingers like it offended his existence. I had my feet on the coffee table and my hand halfway into Conrad's shirt.He gave me the look—that quiet, murderous glare that said: "Try that in front of people and I will kill you slowly."To which I responded by running my thumb over the waistband of his jeans and smirking at him like I was daring him to do it now.It was stupid how easily I could still rile him up. One and a half year since we started dating, and I could still get him flustered with the dumbest move.Conrad clicked his tongue. "Are you done molesting me in public?""No," I replied. "This is barely second base."Before Conrad could murder me with a pen, the door opened and in walked Shourya. His sleeves rolled up, collar popped slightly open, tie missing. He looked like he was trying too hard not to
CONRAD WILLIAM'S POV"Stop it."I hiss the words under my breath, swatting blindly behind me, but the devil behind me just laughs."Stop what?" Caisen says, and I can hear the grin in his voice. "I'm just making sure you don't burn your precious eggs.""You're not even looking at the eggs," I grit out, trying to push his hand away from where it's unapologetically slipped past the waistband of my pajama pants. "Your fingers are about to end up in the frying pan if you don't stop."He chuckles — that low, rumbling kind of laugh that still makes my skin tingle even now — and presses his lips to the back of my neck."You say that like it's a threat," he murmurs. "I'd burn for you, you know.""Don't get poetic while groping me, Asshole" I mutter, cheeks already warm. "It's too early in the morning for this.""It's almost noon.""Still early when I haven't had coffee and you haven't let me cook for the past ten minutes."He doesn't move.Of course he doesn't.Instead, his hand drifts lazily
CONRAD WILLIAM'S POVThe air inside Lucian Throne's study was thick. With silence. With history. With the scent of bloodied guilt and vengeance too long delayed.It's been three days since we dragged Edward—three days since the lights flipped on in that eerie mansion to reveal a pile of corpses and the barrel of a gun against Caelen's head. Three days since Manav, the perfect pet, turned out to be the serpent Edward himself had raised, only to strike him where it hurt the most.And now... we sit in the heart of the storm.Grayson, Joshua, and Liam sit on one couch—like three shades of judgment day, tired but unshaken. Across from them, I sit beside Caisen. He hasn't said a word in the last half hour, just tapping his ring against the wooden armrest. Deliberate. Cold. Calculating.Lucian lounges in his chair like a king reclaiming his war throne, and right on the armrest, perched like a crown jewel, sits Caelen. His body relaxed, his arm draped around Lucian's shoulders as he watched t