Chapter 3
CHAPTER THREE
VIDAR
Iglanced at my watch. Swiss-made, impeccably engineered, and of no help at all when it came to punctuality. Time was the only set of numbers in this world I couldn’t make obey me.
Outside, the line for Fang Dynasty stretched half a block down the sidewalk.
Men in five-thousand-dollar coats, women draped in enough diamonds to fund a small war, stood in the New York chill, waiting for the slim chance of a cancellation.
You couldn't book a table for at least three months.
Still, the humans hovered like moths near a flame, hoping for a taste of the fire.
I moved past them, the valet and the hostess barely catching my eye before they bowed their heads in silent recognition.
As I walked through the main dining room, the air was thick with the scent of expensive charcoal and searing fat.
I turned my nose up at the dishes passing by; prime cuts of meat that had been kissed by the fire just long enough to satisfy a human palate.
The diners were moaning in pleasure, their eyes rolling back as they savored the char, oblivious to the fact that they were eating a sanitized version of the truth.
I pushed through the heavy cedar doors at the back, leaving the soft jazz and clinking crystal behind.
Here, the atmosphere changed. The lighting was lower, the air cooler and heavy with the scent of iron.
In the private alcoves, wolves in human skin sat stripped of their corporate masks, hunched over wooden boards piled with the finest cuts of raw, blue meat.
They used forks; we were civilized beasts after all.
Even with the low, guttural growls of satisfaction vibrating through the floorboards.
I felt a surge of cold pride. This was the engine of our empire. This was the truth beneath the silk.
A few she-wolves tracked my movement as I passed, their eyes glowing with interest they didn't bother to hide.
I kept my gaze fixed forward. I didn't sleep with my own kind. A night spent with a she-wolf was a complication I didn’t have the bandwidth for after a day spent navigating the jagged architecture of impossible choices.
For that reason, I preferred human women.
The fragile, skin-and-bone distractions who didn't understand the darkness I carried.
I reached the service corridor that led to the sub-basement. Just outside the heavy, reinforced door to the Meat Locker, I caught a scent that was too young to be there.
"Aren't you supposed to be with your tutor?"
My youngest brother was hunched over, his ear pressed to the wood, peeking through the narrow gap in the doorframe.
Ivar nearly jumped out of his skin, spinning around with his eyes wide.
He looked like a puppy caught digging in the garden, but he quickly tried to square his shoulders like the Blackwood male he would grow to be.
"The man spent an hour fumbling through the Shell Method like it was rocket science.
I had to show him how to set up the integral myself just so we could move on to something that actually required a brain.
" Ivar jutted a thumb at the closed door.
"I need to learn this stuff. I’m going to be part of the family business soon.
I know how to throw a punch, but I don't know how to interrogate a rat. "
I held back the twitch of a smile. Ivar was a brat, but he was a Blackwood brat, which meant he had the sense to despise mediocrity.
The kid didn't realize that the only reason our family sat at the apex of the New York food chain was that Mei-Ling and Fenrir Blackwood hadn't raised a single idiot amongst their brood.
"You have an AP Calculus test on Tuesday. If you get a ninety-five or higher, I’ll take you with me on a logistics run next weekend." Real business. No interrogation rooms. We didn't typically get our claws dirty, but what was going on inside that back room was a special situation.
Ivar’s face fell. "A ninety-five? Come on, Vido. Negotiate. Eighty-five?"
"Ninety," I countered, my face expressionless.
Ivar stuck out his hand. "Deal."
I shook the kid's hand, knowing full well he'd likely score 100% on the test because he was a Blackwood, and we liked to show off.
"Now get out of here, Ivy," I commanded, giving his shoulder a firm squeeze that was half-affection, half-warning.
He scampered toward the back exit. I took a breath, letting the mask settle over my features.
I stepped into the back room in a tailored charcoal suit that cost more than most people’s monthly rent, and I found my family already assembled as if it was Sunday dinner.
Fenrir Blackwood sat at the head of the scarred oak table.
My older brother Magnus stood, flanking his right side.
The spot to my father's left, the place where I was supposed to stand as his second-born, was empty.
"You're late." That came from my younger brother Gunnar. It was accompanied by a wet thud as Gunnar's fist connected with the bloody pulp of what may have been a pretty face about an hour ago.
Gunnar’s fist connected with the man's face again as I shut the door behind me. The sound was wet and unpleasant. The young man's head snapped to the side, a spray of red dotting the concrete floor.
"Fucking hell, Gunnar, " I said mildly. "You’re going to lower his IQ. "
Gunnar grinned over his shoulder at me, knuckles slick with blood. "Too late for that. Kid thought he could siphon six figures through a rounding error and we wouldn’t notice. "
I adjusted my cuffs and took in the scene with professional detachment.
Elias Vane—youngest son of an Irish wolf den that liked to pretend they weren’t slipping—had tried to get clever with our books.
Not sloppy. Not obvious. Elegant, even. He’d used a 0.
4 percent spoilage margin to build a ghost-bridge directly to his father's empty vaults.
A long con routed through shell accounts and timing that suggested patience and real intelligence.
If he weren’t a Vane, I would’ve offered him a job.
Instead, Gunnar was rearranging his face.
My brother liked the physical side of interrogation, where I liked the more subtle, psychological side of getting information out of a person.
Blood instilled fear outside of our family and made sure no one wanted to fuck with us.
Brainpower is what made us rich and attracted corporate power to us.
"Did he say anything useful before you started redecorating? " I asked as I slipped out of my jacket, draping it carefully over the back of a chair well away from the splatter zone.
"Just that your balance sheet was messy." Gunnar turned, still smiling as he did a little dance in his black tracksuit. The dance move ended with him reaching out to throw a playful jab at my chest.
I leaned just enough to avoid his bloody knuckles. "This is Tom Ford, asshole! "
Gunnar snorted, still keeping his dukes up. "Little Miss Right Said Fred is too sexy to get her hands dirty."
"What are you going to do? Drop a diss track in your Adidas?"
Gunnar stepped closer, chest out, the old familiar challenge lighting his eyes. "Say that again to my face. "
"Boys. "
Our mother’s voice cut through the room like a blade through silk. Gunnar froze. I straightened. We both turned as one.
Mei Ling Blackwood never raised her voice. She didn't have to. "If you’re going to fight, do it after our guest is no longer with us. And Gunnar—wash your hands. You’re dripping on my floor. "
"Yes, Ma."
"Vidar, I need you to take a look at the books before you leave."
"Yes, Ma."
"And you—" her gaze landed on my father. "Don't take too long. I just came back from a trip to Victoria's Secret."
"Jeez, Ma," groaned Magnus from over our father's shoulder.
"I'll be up to help you unwrap that package in a bit, sweet cheeks." Fenrir winked at his wife.
The move earned the elder Blackwood another chorus of groans from all three of his sons.
Fenrir Blackwood ignored his boys. He watched his wife slip out the door with another wink and a tug at his bottom lip with his upper canine. Then he turned his attention to the bloody male in the chair, studying Elias Vane like a man assessing a bad investment.
“You took a risk, and it backfired,” my father said evenly. “I respect the attempt. But you almost hurt my family. As a father, you must understand that my family is my most precious investment.”
At the tilt of my father’s chin, Gunnar's fist came down again. Elias’s head snapped forward, a dull crack followed by a wet groan.
"Where’s your father, Vane? A man should be present when his son makes a mistake like this."
No answer. Just labored breathing.
Fenrir sighed. Theatrical. Almost disappointed. "Parents these days. They don’t take pride in their progeny. Don’t teach them consequences. Don’t teach them restraint. "
My father's gaze shifted, sweeping the room, landing on each of us in turn. Pride softened his mouth.
Magnus straightened, chest puffing out as my father’s right hand and heir apparent. He wore that look like armor; confidence forged from years of proximity to power.
When my father's eyes met mine, there was a light there. Approval. Belonging. I lived for that light.
The Blackwood house had always been full—of noise, of laughter, of arguments shouted across the dinner table. And yes, of blood. I’d seen my first dead body before I ever did the science experiment where you dissected a frog.
I remembered the weight of that moment. The way everyone else flinched. I hadn’t. Not at the body. Not later at the frog. My father had clapped a hand on my shoulder afterward and told me how proud he was.
Fenrir and Mei Ling Blackwood raised us with love. Fierce, unquestionable love. But they made sure we were hard, too.
They didn’t solve our problems. Didn’t stop us from making stupid decisions.
They let us scrape our knees, break bones, learn where the line was by crossing it.
They were always there on the sidelines.
Watching. Safety off. Ready to cap someone in the ass if the opposition went too far. Like a safety net.
"I’ll pay you back,” Elias rasped. “Every cent. I’ll work it off. Whatever you want. "
Fenrir waved the offer away like smoke. "We’re past money. If this were about cash, you’d already be dead. Besides, we already own you. You belong to us. Which, when you think about it, makes you something like family. "
All three of us Blackwood sons tensed.
"You have a sister, don’t you?"
At the mention of his sister, Elias Vane managed to look fierce through the bruises and blood.
Magnus’s jaw locked. He held still like a cockroach on the wall whose puny brain believed it wouldn't be seen so long as it didn't make a move. Gunnar grinned and dragged the back of his hand across his mouth, smearing blood along his chin like war paint.
But it wasn’t them my father looked at. It was me.
His gaze found mine and held. And there it was again—that light. Approval. Pride. Expectation. The thing I’d chased my whole life without ever admitting it aloud.
In that moment, standing beneath the full weight of my father’s regard, I knew exactly what he was about to ask. I knew my answer before he spoke.
I would say yes.
I straightened, already bracing for the shape my future was about to take.
I was about to get hitched.