Chapter 25 Madeline
Madeline
Only Sovereign made the dynasties feel like gods.
There was nothing like it in the world.
The air itself shimmered when I stepped into the Hall, the entire space glowing with crest-light—all the dynasties ancient sigils suspended in hologram form above the marble floors, circling each other like constellations.
Adams gold.
Crow obsidian.
Thorne sapphire.
Dupont silver.
And more, every original bloodlines dynasty was represented.
The ones whose ancestors stood in this hall centuries ago and let the founding handlers ink their crests into the sovereign, binding them to law and lineage forever.
Tonight celebrated that moment.
And every dynasty heir within five continents was required—by sovereign decree—to attend.
Especially the Crows.
Veil drones slipped in graceful arcs above us, their lenses rotating and adjusting for global broadcast. Every movement we made streamed live across major networks—our gowns, crests, our alliances. Even the way we blinked was politics.
Sovereign wasn’t an event. It was a performance. A ceremony of power. And dynasty heirs were the spectacle. The mortal royalty the world pretended weren’t human at all.
My crest glowed faintly against my skin as the hologram-light hit it—a subtle gold shimmer only the cameras picked up, an enhancement coded into Veil’s broadcast algorithms to make the sovereign bloodlines look divine.
Madeline Elizabeth Thorne.
My full title glittered in the digital banner floating near the stage, translated instantly into twelve languages for the millions maybe billions watching.
I could feel the attention settle on me like heat from a spotlight.
Dynasty daughters were trained to carry that weight young—to walk like marble, breathe like silk, and smile like nothing could touch us. Ever.
I moved through the entrance arch at the exact pace drilled into me since childhood.
Flashes from the Veil drones haloed around my face as I descended the staircase. Distantly, I heard commentators naming designers, lineage ties, marriage prospects.
My bow, dress —every inch of me filtered through the sovereign gaze.
Crest banners hung from crystal rafters. Champagne towers glowed from internal lights. Every heir was dressed in ceremonial colors—embroidered silk, metallic thread, custom gowns shaped by ancient house designs.
No matter how often I attended, Sovereign never stopped feeling like fantasy.
I stepped off the final stair into the sea of heirs, officials, family heads, and foreign dignitaries. It was impossible to take three steps without being recognized.
“Lady Thorne—stunning as always.”
“A vision tonight, Madeline—your mother must be proud.”
Compliments rehearsed generations ago. I scanned the hall instinctively. The Crows weren’t hard to find.
Bastion and Luca entered on opposite sides of the room, black suits tailored like armor, expressions carved from shadow. Every heir moved out of their path without thinking.
Crow presence worked like gravity.
You didn’t fight it.
You obeyed it.
Rome was slower coming down the stairs, broad shoulders stretching the formal jacket, tattoos beneath the collar. He looked like he’d rather be anywhere else, but he walked with the same terrifying confidence the cameras adored.
Then Vince arrived.
But the shift in the room was instant.
His presence was a pressure drop—the kind that made every head turn without understanding why. The Veil drones broke formation to keep him centered in their frame.
He didn’t smile or greet anyone. He just descended the staircase like Sovereign had been built for him to walk through. Villain loved it seeing their lord even if the dynasties weren’t happy to acknowledge it.
I dragged my attention away before the cameras caught it.
“Maddy!”
Isla’s voice cut through the sea of noise. Isa Kingsley was waving from near the far archway, her crest pin catching the light like a gem.
Relief flooded me. Isa looped her arm through mine before I could even greet her.
“Finally,” she breathed. “I was beginning to think you’d been drafted into a political hostage circle.”
“Not yet. But the night is young.”
She laughed, then pulled me into a quieter corner.
“Oh look,” Isa’s eyes were already scanning the crowd. “A Tarkington in a gown that actually fits. Mark the calendar.”
I snorted. “Be nice.”
“No.”
This was why I loved her.
She lifted her champagne flute in the direction of a woman in a shimmering pearl dress. “She’s wearing sandals to Sovereign. Sandals. Tradition is dead.”
“Comfort is a political act now,”
“Well she’s making a statement. And that statement is: my stylist hates me.”
I hid a laugh behind my glass.
Our eyes traveled the room in the same rhythm, identifying trends, disasters, alliances, and small dynasty rebellions disguised as fashion.
“Oh, someone is trying to get the heirs over with, so she can start biotech,” Isa whispered, tilting her head toward a couple entering on the right. The woman carried a newborn with a tiny bioluminescent crest pulsing faintly on its blanket.
“A lot of them did. Eight babies were announced this week. Four houses racing for succession security.”
“Dynasty fertility has become a public sport.”
I nodded. “Optics matter.”
She gave me a side-eye. “Your optics are perfect as always, Maddy. Ugh. I hate how effortless you make it look.”
“Not effortless,”
“Liar.”
Before I could respond, a ripple passed through the room. Isa followed my gaze.
“Oh no,” she whispered dramatically. “The Crows are congregating.”
We both turned.
Bastion and Luca stood near one of the pillars. A few heirs shyly angled closer, pretending to be interested in the art pieces beside them.
No one got too close.
“They terrify people. Not because they do anything. Because they don’t.” Isa whispered, leaning in.
“It’s the stillness. Like they’re waiting for someone to breathe wrong.”
“Exactly. Nature documentaries would call it apex predator behavior.”
I didn’t disagree.
My heart betrayed me before my eyes did.
Vince.
Standing at the edge of a dynasty conversation circle, posture relaxed, presence anything but. A black suit, crisp shirt, silver ring stood out.
Isa’s gaze flicked toward the stage. Her expression changed.
“Shit. My mother. If I don’t get over there in the next thirty seconds, she’ll have another daughter written into the will.”
“Go,” I squeezed her arm.
She wrinkled her nose. “Find me later, okay? Preferably before the speeches depress us both.”
The noise of Sovereign was sharper without Isa beside me to cut it.
Vince stood near one of the central conversation circles now, not with his brothers this time, but among dynasty heads and international officials. The Crows had been pulled into the core orbit—exactly where everyone pretended they didn’t belong and where they always ended up.
He was all sharp lines and control, expression neutral, posture relaxed in a way that meant deliberately calculated. One hand in his pocket, the other around a glass he wasn’t drinking. The Veil drones hovered near him, every lens hungry.
He said something to the man beside him. I couldn’t hear the words, but I saw the reaction, three people in the circle laughed, too quick, like they hadn’t expected him to speak at all and were honoured he had.
A young heiress, someone from a mid-tier house, blush dress, perfect hair—edged closer to him, positioning herself at his side like a photograph being composed. Her shoulder brushed his suit. The cameras loved it.
He didn’t move away. My stomach curled. I reminded myself of his rules. No approaching or acknowledging him. We’d agreed. I’d promised.
Still, it scared me how easy he made it look.
I let myself be pulled into a cluster of greetings—Adams allies, Thorne relations, foreign guests. My handler appeared and disappeared in my periphery like a dark planet, always nearby, never far enough.
“Lady Thorne, a pleasure.”
“Your work with the Caelus hospitals has been impressive.”
“I heard about your father’s latest acquisition—congratulations.”
I smiled where I was meant to smile. Tilted my head at the right angle. Laughed on cue.
Until I couldn’t not.
Vince moved through the room like he’d studied the blueprints.
He never lingered anywhere long enough to be cornered, never stayed still long enough for a single crest to claim his orbit.
He gave each circle exactly what they wanted: a nod here, a cut-glass comment there, a sliver of attention rationed out like it was more valuable than the gold in the sovereign vault.
He didn’t come near me.
Not once.
The unreachable Lord of Villain worked the room.
We had spent the weekend with his mouth on me, his hands on my body, his voice coaxing me to let go in ways no one had ever seen. He’d carried me to the bathroom, wrapped me in blankets, whispered mine into the dark like a prayer.
Here, he couldn’t even stand beside me.
Then…the confusion.
Because this wasn’t the Vince from Veil streams—the violent, terrifying lord of enforcement I’d watched on screens. It wasn’t the Vince in the penthouse.
This was a third version.
Public Vince. Almost… charming. Yet, still cold.
He said very little, but the room bent around him. People leaned in when he spoke. Daughters angled closer hopeful. Dynasty men tolerated it because they needed the Crows more than they hated them, and the cameras ate up every frame.
I realised, with a small, sharp pressure in my chest, that I didn’t know this version of him at all.
I knew his violence, and his softness side. But this? This polished, perfectly-managed, political Vince? He might as well have been a stranger.
By the time the formal announcements ended, my head throbbed.
Mostly from pretending his absence didn’t hurt.
I slipped free when I could, drifting toward the bar. My handler let me go, only because we were still within the visible centre of the Hall and cameras panned past us every few seconds.
“Water, please,” I told the bartender.
I turned slightly, resting my elbow on the bar, letting my posture mirror the confident relaxation they trained into us at the Academy.
Then I watched him.
Vince stood across the hall now, near an exit arch lined with Thorne and Kingsley banners. Two dynasty elders spoke to him, hands moving, faces animated. A small group of heiress daughters clustered nearby, clearly waiting for an excuse to drift close.
He gave the elders nothing more than a polite, contained attention. Short answers. A nod. A measured shrug.
They looked satisfied.
When they stepped away, two of the daughters moved in.
One stood just to his left, her gown a deep wine colour, neckline low. She said something, smile practiced, eyes bright.
He listened.
He angled his body enough to acknowledge her presence. A fraction of his attention. A few words. A slight curve at the corner of his mouth that the cameras would frame as interest.
My fingers tightened around the stem of my glass.
All weekend, he hadn’t stopped touching me. Here, I might as well have been another crest in the crowd.
I swallowed. The bubbles in the water clawed at my throat.
“Lady Thorne. You look pale.” My handler’s voice appeared at my side.
“I’m fine,”
He studied me. “You’ve fulfilled your appearance obligations. The cameras have cycled through your circle six times. The interviews are complete.”
In other words, my usefulness to the sovereign optics machine was tapering off.
My gaze flicked to Vince one more time.
He was in motion again, shifting to another circle, Rome now at his shoulder. A Veil drone tracked them, relaying every second to the world.
I turned back to my handler.
“I have a headache. A bad one.”
He frowned. “You didn’t mention it earlier.”
“It came on during the announcements.” I kept my tone neutral. “The lights. The drones. All of it. I’d like to leave.”
He hesitated. Leaving Sovereign early wasn’t done lightly, especially by heirs with as much attention on them as I had tonight.
“I’ll arrange your exit. We’ll cite fatigue from your recent travel schedule.”
“Thank you.”
He moved away to speak to an event coordinator, crest catching the light.
I let myself look one last time.
I waited at the bar, pretending the ache in my chest wasn’t growing sharper by the second. The bartender kept glancing at me with sympathetic eyes I didn’t want. I just needed my driver to text that the north exit was clear.
Veil drones hummed overhead, capturing every sovereign outfit.
People stepped aside before they even realized why.
Roman Crow descended the staircase like a storm in a perfectly tailored suit. Tattoos along his neck and scalp caught the chandelier light. His jaw was clenched so tight I wondered if his teeth would crack under the pressure.
Straight through a cluster of heirs who scattered like pigeons avoiding a hawk.
Roman reached behind the bar, gripped an unopened bottle by the neck, and yanked it free.
The bartender took half a step forward, brave for exactly one second.
Roman turned his head.
The bartender froze mid-breath.
“Try it,” Roman growled.
No one moved.
Rome muttered under his breath—something like, fucking women, then uncorked the bottle with his teeth and strode toward the stairs leading to the upper floors.
Two minutes later—barely, Luca and Bastion Crow followed.
Luca was icy stillness, the kind of calm that made people instinctively step back. Bastion radiated a heat that felt like violence barely leashed.
I heard Luca’s voice quietly as they passed.
“We need to calm him down.”
Bastion’s jaw flexed. “I know.”
They disappeared up the same staircase as Roman.
I realized then that the rumors didn’t do the Crows justice.
Dynasty heirs played at power.
Crows wore it.
I slipped my hand under the bar counter and looked at my phone again, tapping it to wake the screen.
Still no message.
I needed to leave discreetly—Veil drones had four angles on every main exit. If I left through one of those, my departure would be broadcast internationally before I even reached the curb.
My phone buzzed
Driver: North exit clear. Waiting outside.
Finally, I gathered my skirt, smoothed my hair, and kept my head down as I walked toward the service hallway.
For the first time since our dynamic started. I doubted if I would send a night time debrief.