Richard Powers Novels Novels & Stories

Maxime Pov The Northpoint house party is a beast all its own—a living, sweating, pulsing animal with bad intentions and zero chill. Every breath I take is thick with cheap beer, tequila fumes, and too many different brands of overpriced cologne. It’s sensory overload—the walls vibrate with bass so heavy it shakes my insides, lights flicker strobe patterns over faces I mostly recognize and wish I didn’t. Navigating this place is war; shoulders bump mine, someone spills a drink down my arm, and my boots stick to floors that haven’t seen a mop since move-in day.

finally bubbling to the surface, my aura darkening the room. I grabbed his jaw, my fingers digging into the bone. "I’m not the boy you broke. He’s buried in a potter's field next to his father. I’m the man who’s going to make you beg for the end. Now. Get. On. Your. Knees." I watched him sink. I watched the great Jaxson Vane, the Devil of the NHL, crumble to the floor because he had no choice. The power shift was absolute. I felt a sick, twisted sense of triumph as I looked down at his bowed head.

"I don't know either. I can't sense the current situation." The blind woman said, shaking her head slightly. The power was so strong that it almost covered everything. Even she was shocked by some of the martial intent contained in it. “No wonder Jason once said that even he was jealous of Little Apple's foundation. With such a huge inheritance, how far will the child go in the future?” the blind woman thought. The most terrifying thing was the bloodline power. She had fought with the survivors of the Inuit countless times, so she could clearly feel that the bloodline power was more terrifying than the pure bloodline power of the Inuit.

I growled. “And I can give her back,” he replied without hesitation. “But not if you destroy everything we built.” “You mean everything you built,” I snapped. “Why?” I gasped, the question ripping from my throat like it had claws. “Why did you do this?” Richard straightened his suit, brushing imaginary dust from his sleeve. Then he looked me dead in the eye with a calm so cold, it froze everything inside me. “Because I could,” he said flatly. “Because power means having leverage. And I always choose leverage.”