Lahat ng Kabanata ng marked by the mafia alpha: Kabanata 131 - Kabanata 140

Chapter 128: The Board ResetsThree days after.The palace was doing what palaces did after catastrophe. Moving. Functioning. Guards on every wall. Staff in every corridor. The machinery of it grinding forward because stopping meant acknowledging what had happened and there were still too many things that needed doing before anyone could afford to do that.Lucian had slept four hours in three days.Nobody mentioned it.The first council meeting without Grandfather happened on the morning of the fourth day.Lucian called it. Didn't delay it. Didn't give the court time to sit with the power vacuum and start making calculations about it. He called it for dawn and every council member was in their seat when he walked in because none of them were stupid enough not to be.He sat at the head of the table.The crown wasn't on his head. It was never on his head outside of ceremony. But it was in the room. They all felt it.He looked around the table.Fourteen faces. Old bloodlines. Old loyalti

Chapter 130 — Wrong HandsLiorThe heel snapped.One second I was walking. The next the floor was coming up fast and my stomach dropped and I grabbed the nearest thing which turned out to be absolutely nothing because there was nothing there and I was going down—Hands.Hard. Fast. Both of them locking around my waist from behind and yanking me back before I hit anything.I didn't fall.I also didn't breathe for a second.The hands didn't move.Big. Warm. Completely certain of themselves in a way that was immediately irritating.I looked down at them.Looked up.Kael.Standing behind me with both hands still locked on my waist and a grin already forming like he'd been waiting his whole life for this exact moment and it had exceeded expectations.Behind him three girls stood watching. All of them beautiful. All of them looking at me like I was something that had landed in their afternoon without being invited.I looked at his hands."Remove them," I said."Sorry?""Your hands. Remove t

The RoomThe room was different.That was the first thing she noticed when she pushed the door open with her hip, tray balanced in both hands. No warm lighting. No soft rugs or framed things on the walls. Just dark wood, dark curtains pulled almost all the way shut, a single lamp throwing a low amber cut across the floor.Like the room had been designed to keep people from getting comfortable.She set the tray on the side table and straightened and told herself to leave.She didn't leave.The bathroom door was still closed. She could hear the shower had stopped. Steam curled from the gap at the bottom and she stood there like an idiot, hands clasped in front of her, heartbeat entirely too loud for a Tuesday.Just put the tea down and go. He's not even out yet. Go.Her thoughts went somewhere they had no business going and she pressed her eyes shut.Moon Goddess. Help me.He was — it wasn't her fault. It wasn't something she chose. He was just — the way he moved, the way he never raise

The MorningThe sun wasn't fully up yet and they were already outside.Keal was on his phone, thumb scrolling, leaning against the car with the particular energy of someone who had nowhere to be and wanted everyone to know it. Zaren stood a few feet away doing what Zaren always did — nothing. Just existing in that still, contained way of his, eyes forward, expression giving absolutely nothing to anyone.Sol stood against the car with his shirt half buttoned.He didn't realize it until he felt Zaren move.Not heard. Felt. The shift in the air that happened whenever Zaren decided to close distance between himself and something. Sol looked up and Zaren was already walking toward him, steady and unhurried, eyes fixed on him with that look that had no temperature."Zaren—" Sol straightened. "What are you—"Nowhere to go. The car was already at his back and Zaren didn't slow down, just came to a stop directly in front of him, close enough that Sol had to look up slightly, close enough that

The PartyThe sitting room was quiet.Zaren was on the couch, phone face up in his hand, the television throwing low gold light across the walls. He wasn't watching it. Wasn't really looking at anything. Just sitting in that way of his that made it impossible to tell if he was thinking about everything or nothing at all.Then he heard heels on the stairs.He looked up.Lior came down in red.Backless. Clean cut. The kind of dress that didn't need anything else to make its point. She moved in it like it was nothing, hair up, shoulders bare, and the room rearranged itself around her without her asking it to.Zaren looked back at his phone.Keal came down two seconds later.Jeans, t-shirt, still pulling himself together — and then his foot hit the bottom step and his body just. Stopped.Eyes landing on Lior crossing toward the door and something cracked open in his expression for just a second before he got it back under control. Something that looked a lot like a boy who had not been pr