Peter
But I’ve always found my sister’s mental breakdowns to be far more entertaining than business.
Inside the library, Clara is pacing. I can hear the frantic, uneven thud-thud-thud of her heels on the Persian rug. It’s the sound of a trapped bird beating its wings against a cage made of its own heritage.
“Pick up, pick up, pick up…” she mutters. Then, a sharp gasp. “Mum? Oh my god, Mum, finally.”
I take a slow, appreciative sip of the scotch. The peat hits my tongue, smoky and dark, much like the conversation about to unfold.
“Mum, you have to listen to me,” Clara’s voice is an octave higher than usual, vibrating with a delicious sort of hysteria.
“Peter has lost it. He’s completely gone.
He kidnapped Wendy. No, Mum, listen—he didn’t just ‘take her on a date.’ He snatched her.
Her window is broken. She’s… she’s covered in marks. I saw them.”
I tilt my head back against the wood, a ghost of a smirk playing on my lips. Covered in marks. Such a pedestrian way to describe a masterpiece of ownership. I didn’t just mark her, Clara; I redesigned her.
“No, she’s not ‘going through a phase’!” Clara shrieked into the phone.
I can practically hear our mother on the other end, probably lounging on a deck in Amalfi, sipping an Aperol Spritz and wondering why her daughter is interrupting her tan.
“She’s not choosing this! He’s using that…
that thing he does. That way he talks. He’s twisted her head around until she doesn’t know which way is up.
Mum, he’s a sociopath! He’s exactly like Dad, only he’s funnier and that makes it worse! ”
I let out a soft, silent huff of a laugh. Funnier. I’ll have to remember to put that on my tombstone. Peter Hale: Exactly like Dad, but with better timing.
“He’s going to start a war,” Clara continues, her voice dropping to a frantic whisper that carries perfectly through the heavy door.
“The North End is outside the gates right now. Viktor is pissed. Peter is treating this like a goddamn game of chess, but Wendy is the only piece on the board. He’s going to get us all killed just because he has a fetish for grey eyes and broken spirits. ”
I swirl the ice in my glass. A fetish? Please. It’s a vocation.
“Mum, please, you have to call the Council. Tell them he’s unfit. Tell them he’s compromised.” There’s a pause. Clara’s breath hitches. “What? No. No, don’t tell him I called! Mum, if you tell him, he’ll—”
“He’ll what?” I murmur to the hallway, my voice a silk thread in the dark.
“He’s terrifying, Mum!” Clara’s voice breaks into a sob. “He looks at her like… like he wants to unmake her. And the worst part? I think she’s starting to like it. I saw her look at him in the kitchen. It was… it was sick. It was Hale sick.”
Hale sick. I like that. It has a certain ring to it. We’ve always had a unique way of expressing affection—usually involving high-stakes ransom and psychological warfare. Our mother knows this. She’s probably rolling her eyes, wondering why Clara hasn’t learned to appreciate the drama of it all.
“I’m going to get her out,” Clara vows, her voice hardening with a desperate, futile courage. “I don’t care what he does to me. I’m going to wait until he’s distracted with those North End thugs and I’m taking her. I’ll burn this whole estate down if I have to.”
I finish the scotch, the burn in my throat a pleasant reminder that I’m still very much alive. I check my watch. Seven forty-five.
“Lovely monologue, Clara,” I whisper, straightening my cufflinks. “Solid B-plus for effort. Dreadful for execution.”
I start to walk away, my boots silent on the marble. I don’t need to stop her. I don’t need to take her phone. She can call the Pope for all I care. The North End thinks they’re the threat, and Clara thinks she’s the hero.
They’re all just background noise to the main event.
I reach the top of the grand staircase and stop. The house is a symphony of expensive silence and hidden rot. Downstairs, the “thugs” are waiting. In the library, the “hero” is crying.
And in my bedroom, the “prize” is putting on a black lace dress and wondering why her heart beats faster when she hears my key in the lock.
I start the descent, my smile sharp enough to draw blood. It’s time for dinner. And I’m feeling incredibly hungry.
I reach the bottom of the stairs, the last few steps taken with a deliberate, slow-motion grace.
The air in the grand dining room has changed.
It’s thicker now, saturated with the smell of expensive tobacco, gun oil, and the restless energy of men who have built empires out of other people’s nightmares.
My table is a slab of obsidian, polished until it reflects the chandelier like a frozen explosion. Around it sit the three pillars of my northern border.
To my left is Vane. He’s a mountain of a man, his suit straining against shoulders that look like they were carved out of granite.
His face is a roadmap of scars, the most prominent one bisecting his left eyebrow—a souvenir from a Russian hitman who didn’t live to see the sunrise.
Vane is my hammer. He doesn’t speak much; he just exists as a looming threat of blunt-force trauma.
Opposite him sits Julian. He’s the antithesis of Vane—slight, elegant, with silver-threaded hair and hands that look like they belong to a concert pianist. He’s my scalpel.
Julian handles the money and the digital ghosting, and he’s the only man I know who can kill you with a fountain pen and a smile that never reaches his predatory, amber eyes.
And then there’s Torin. Torin is young, hungry, and has a twitch in his jaw that tells me he’s been spending too much time at the underground fights. He’s wearing a leather jacket that costs more than a mid-sized sedan, and he’s currently leaning back in his chair, boots scuffing my marble floor.
“Gentlemen,” I say, my voice cutting through their low murmur like a razor through silk. “I trust the wine is to your liking. The vintage is older than most of your children.”
I take my seat at the head of the table. I don’t look at them. I look at the empty chair to my right. The seat of honour.
“Boss,” Torin says, his voice raspy. He doesn’t sit up. “We saw the North End SUVs at the gate. Viktor is rattling his saber. He says you took something that belongs to the city’s balance.”
I lean forward, resting my elbows on the obsidian. I let the silence stretch, watching the way Julian’s eyes narrow and Vane’s hand twitches near his waistband. I wait until Torin starts to sweat—just a bead, right at his temple.
“Viktor,” I begin, my voice a soft, melodic purr, “is a man who confuses proximity with possession. He thinks because he watched a bird fly over his yard, he owns the sky.”
I pick up a steak knife, the silver gleaming under the light. I test the edge with the pad of my thumb, drawing a tiny, perfect ruby of blood.
“In a few moments,” I continue, looking each of them dead in the eye, “my guest is going to join us. She is the reason for the cars at the gate. She is the reason Viktor is breathing through a straw this morning. And she is the only thing in this house that is absolutely, fundamentally off-limits.”
Vane shifts, the leather of his holster creaking. Julian tilts his head, a curious, sharp bird.
“I want to be very clear,” I say, and the wit is gone now.
This is the Hale that people pray to never meet.
My voice is a low-frequency rumble that vibrates in their teeth.
“You will not look at her with anything but the utmost deference. You will not address her unless she speaks to you. And if I catch even a hint of a leer, a stray thought, or a flicker of disrespect in your eyes…”
I drive the steak knife into the table. The tip buries an inch deep into the obsidian with a sickening crack.
“I won’t kill you,” I whisper, leaning over the table toward Torin. “I’ll salt you. I’ll peel the skin from your frames and hang it in the foyer as a warning to the next man who thinks my property is public domain. Do we have an understanding?”
Torin’s jaw stops twitching. He blinks, his face turning a chalky shade of grey. Vane nods once, a solemn, heavy movement. Julian simply sips his wine, his expression unreadable.
“Perfect,” I say, my smirk returning like a shark’s fin cutting the water. I settle back into my chair, the monster retreating back behind the mask of the witty host. “Now, let’s have the first course. I believe the chef prepared something… delicate.”
I look toward the stairs, my heart doing a strange, violent kick against my ribs. I can hear the soft, rhythmic click of heels on the floor above.
The queen is coming. And God help anyone who forgets their place.