Chapter 121

Samuel & Harrison – The Weight of BloodThe warehouse hummed in quiet tension after Samuel returned. The men, who had yelled at one another, now sort kinda just kinda hanging out, not even looking at one another, cigarettes, wrenches, or boxes they wouldn't dream of lighting. The Blackwoods slept at the heart of it — commander and heir, father and son — two storms laying waste to the same city.Samuel's cane tapped off pavement step by step, every strike a tick of the clock another notch toward the noose. Harrison flasks to his lips and back again without taking a sip, jaw tight, shoulders braced."You don't belong," Harrison snarled, short and taut. "This is my territory."Samuel did not stir, his shadow moving over the earth, white and famished. "Your ground?" His body convulsed, his voice laughed on ice. "You sully stewardship with property, Harrison. This empire thrived because I did this. Not you."Harrison's men shifted uncomfortably, gazing. His fists clenched into his ribs. "I

Last Updated : 2025-08-25

Chapter 122: Samuel & Harrison – The Curse of Blood

Samuel & Harrison – Blood and SilenceSilence at the warehouse was heavier than steel. Samuel's cane snapped out of the hallway with him as he departed, every ear-shattering crunch on the sidewalk thundering like the lash of a judge's gavel in a fist. Men parted like an open gate of death in full dirge flung wide to receive him. Everyone held his or her breath until heavy iron clanged shut behind him.The storm dogged Harrison like the tolling of a bell.He lay where his father had pushed him down, cheek ablaze, a trickle of blood down the jaw. He had not stirred. He was not about to give up his victory to his father. Fists were clenched and opened, fingernails buried deep in palms, but he was not hurt — whole, motionless, breathing.The boys backed away from him. His captain's been shot. Humiliated. By his father. They did not glance; they tried to concern themselves with boxes. Some just stood there, waited, tried to guess whether Harrison was going to blow or tank.Harrison spat on

Last Updated : 2025-08-26

Chapter 123: The Men Who Watch – Whispers in the Warehouse

The warehouse was never silent, not even during the depths of night, the River rain smelled wet over girders, chains clanking on rollers, rats scaling climber timbers. This evening, though, since Samuel had departed, the silence was as volatile as gunpowder.Harrison's men were scattered in the huge stomach of the building, none of them willing to catch a glance for it to begin. They showered with boxes, took guns, puffed cigarettes with tremulous hands. The bite of the slap was still burning in their marrow — Samuel Blackwood slapping his own son in our presence.It had not been rage alone that silenced them. It was the knowledge of what they had witnessed: a chink in the armor of the man they followed.A chink that smelled of weakness.---“Never thought I’d see it,” he muttered, Scarface, his scar pulling taut as he spat onto the concrete, but His voice was low, and in the cavernous space, even whispers traveled. “The boss bled. Like a whipped dog.”A few of the men were surprised.

Last Updated : 2025-08-26

Chapter 124: The Blood Vow – Harrison's Vow

The bite hurt.His father's hand — hard, cruel, deadly — burned Harrison's cheek even now. The bite ran through his marrow, the shame unspun like a serpent in his heart. The men had seen it. They had seen him smacked like a naughty boy in his own house.The noisy warehouse, once with its barked commands, was now still and submissive. He had frightened them all with a single phrase, and they had run, dissolved into the metal shadows. Not even one of them dared look at him, not any of them, not since Samuel changed.The vaulted chamber creaked and cracked under heaps of pails and tins stacked high outside, the sea battering the quays. Inside, only the thudding of Harrison's heart, hammering away inside his head like war drums.He bit his lip. Blood. Iron-phobia in his mouth, metallic and bitter. He let it stay there, spit on the sidewalk. One red drop fell onto concrete — his blood, but not his father's. Not yet."Pain control," he grumbled to himself, coming apart. No other noise came

Last Updated : 2025-08-27

Chapter 125: Oil on Marble – Vivian's Malice

Blackwood Hall stirred late in the morning, as if grudgingly of an unwelcome visitor. Curtains dropped from ceiling to floor and gently radiated pale, soft light, but the atmosphere was clogged and groaned — as if the night darkness of the previous evening hung in a sticky way to every room. Samuel Blackwood arrived from business sooner than he expected. His cane staccatoed its beat to the beat of the marble floor as he entered, face impassive, lips screwed up in a line that dared anyone to try and extract a word from him. He strode down the hallway, where Leya stood waiting. She had risen before dawn with the bruises that she had gotten mere moments earlier from Eleanor's whipping and the shame still searing the servants' quarters. She stuttered in step when she saw him, bowing her head, as was proper. For a second, she hoped — maybe foolishly — that he would. Talk to her. Assure her she was fine. Inform her what had occurred all those years before last fall when the house sh