Lahat ng Kabanata ng Empire of Dominance: Kabanata 41 - Kabanata 50

They rode in silence to the office the next morning, staring out opposite windows: it felt as if silence was far more eloquent than trying to reach back to the place they’d been the night before. Sex was easy, beside this very careful dance of non definitions. They were no longer living within the safe, clear confines of the agreement that had been governing their relationship for the last weeks. Now that agreement was officially dead. And the air between them felt charged with electric warmth–not the simple charge of desire. But something more delicate, more vital. Something neither were willing to look at directly.“I’ll see you at the end of the day,” said Kade as the limo pulled up to the front of the building. “For your report.”“See you.”There was no discussion of her going back to her apartment. They hadn’t even mentioned the fact of her apartment’s existence since the passing mention of the break in a few nights before. It wasn’t as if Raven needed anything from the a

Seymore’s POV A few minutes earlier, Seymore strode into the vast Oriri lobby, all slick marble and tasteful gilding along angular edges. They might be evil, murderous assholes, he thought, but they could decorate. Or at least hire good decorators.Seymore’s cheer was his armor, and he kept it up around himself. Nobody could crack good cheer. It was something he’d learned after long struggles. Even Kade didn’t know what Seymore had gone through in the years since school…What he’d struggled with. How he’d nearly broke.But now, he had his armor.He smiled at Charles Lu, as the second-youngest Lu sibling came toward him in the lobby. Seymore grinned cheerfully as he shook the hand of the man who had helped arrange the murder of his best friend’s parents.“Good evening, Mr. Lewis. Thank you for coming.”“Please, call me Seymore.” Seymore knew Charles Lu by reputation, and he was pleased to see his instincts were correct: the surviving Lu brother appeared to be about as

Kade’s POVKade Sinclair did not get frantic. But he was very, very worried.He sat around the corner from Oriri, parked in the borrowed getaway car with the lights off on the cross street. Raven knew where to find him. She’d gone in nearly fifteen minutes ago, and she wasn’t back out. Seymore hadn’t reemerged either, but that was less concerning. Seymore would be pretending to negotiate, he thought, driving up the price for his loyalty before accepting it, to all appearances. Raven should have taken no more than ten minutes.He couldn’t wait any longer.If Oriri got Raven too… That would be too much. That would be it.He wouldn’t—couldn’t—admit that to himself. But that would break him. How they would send her body to him? All those years ago, the Oriri operative had described how a thirteen-year-old Kade would be left on his father’s desk. An ending to a legacy. To a dynasty. The tactics had never changed. Only now, it was the horror show of the Oriri heirs who were pull

The lawyers shuffled out after about half an hour of celebratory drinking and self-congratulations. Raven was left alone in the dining room, the last of the drug’s aftereffects fading into the light champagne buzz.Raven hoisted herself onto the table, where all the monitors and laptops had been set up only a little while before.But Kade didn’t come back in. She linked her ankles and swung them back and forth. If he didn’t show up soon, she decided, she was going to get at least a few hours of sleep before they met up with Christina Lu. But what was keeping Kade?Then she caught the flow of low, low voices. Hushed, coming from the kitchen. Kade and Seymore.She hopped off the table and moved tentatively toward the conversation. She told herself that she wanted to defend Seymore, if it came down to it. To tell Kade she understood what it would be to be dominated. To be taken. But she also knew she was just intensely curious.Kade and Seymore were poised, facing off from oppos

They were back at the restaurant on the ground floor of Kade’s apartment building only a few hours later for lunch—or for whatever indeterminate meal marked this strange, endless, wonderful day.Raven gratefully accepted a large pour of Kade’s favorite vintage of wine, allowing herself to breathe out at last. Kade had booked them a table by the window: a very visible table, almost like a stage onto the sidewalk. Kade kept his phone on the table, watching push notifications roll in minute by minute as he sipped at his own wine.“So. The Jackal.” She spoke tentatively, reluctant to broach a topic that would bring the whole mood of this victorious moment down. “How did that happen?”“Easily. I reached out to him and told him I had a job.”“Just like that?” She couldn’t help staring. It seemed too easy.“I have my underworld contacts. As you well know.” He didn’t seem at all phased to be discussing this openly and in public. Well, at least in his own restaurant. But then again