Chapter 23 Malek
MALEK
The city below me is a sea of lights, glittering across the lake like a constellation that has fallen to earth.
Geneva has always worn its peace like a mask, clean boulevards and gleaming facades hiding the blood soaked into its stones.
I built part of my empire here for that reason.
The illusion of civility, the quiet efficiency that masks what rots beneath.
Tonight it feels fragile, as though a single roar would shatter it all to dust.
I stand at the window of my office, whiskey untouched on the desk behind me, and listen to the silence stretch.
It’s not silence, not truly. My senses pick up every hum of the city—the grind of tires on wet pavement, the distant whistle of a train, the muted roll of thunder beyond the mountains—but compared to the storm inside me, it might as well be nothing.
I’ve ignored the call for too long. Darius’ voice in my blood, that insistent tug pulling me back to the oath we swore together.
I’ve denied it, shoved it down, told myself it was nothing but an echo of a dead past. But tonight, after holding her in my arms while she shook and whispered Roman’s name like a prayer, I know the truth.
The Pact isn’t dead. Roman is twisting it into something monstrous, and I’ve been lying to myself thinking I could stand outside it.
The lion won’t let me lie anymore.
I turn from the window and lay my palms flat on the desk.
Maps sprawl across the surface, edges curling, corners pinned by knives driven deep into the wood.
Some are old, ink faded, parchment yellowed.
Others are fresh prints, glowing with satellite images and encrypted coordinates.
Together they form a web: trade routes, black sites, Syndicate cells, laboratories hidden under shell companies. Threads that all lead back to Roman.
My hand finds the bronze coin sitting among them. Cassian pressed it into my palm centuries ago, its edges sharp with youth, its emblem bright and unbroken. Time has worn it smooth, dulled the lines, but it still burns when I hold it, as if the oath we swore is branded into the metal itself.
I curl my fist around it until it bites my skin.
No more silence.
I pick up the phone and start calling the dead.
The first number is older than most men alive, buried in codes I never thought I’d dial again. It rings once, twice, and then a gravelly voice cuts in.
“You’ve got a lot of nerve, Malek.”
“The Black Forest still stands, doesn’t it?” I say, my voice low. “And your wolves still breathe because of me.”
There’s a growl on the other end, guttural, animal. Then silence. Finally the voice returns, grudging. “You’re waking bones better left buried. Why now?”
“Because Roman is building something bigger than any of us,” I reply. “And if you don’t stand with me, you’ll be standing in his chains.”
Another long silence. Then a short, sharp laugh, humorless. “You always did know how to make enemies sound like allies. Send the coordinates.”
The line goes dead.
One by one, I pull at threads.
The panther in S?o Paulo answers on the second ring, her voice velvet and steel, dripping with the disdain she’s carried for me since the last war. “I told myself I’d never fight for you again, Malek. Not after the blood you spilled.”
“Then don’t fight for me,” I say evenly. “Fight for the women Roman is hunting. You know the rumors are true. You’ve seen the disappearances. He won’t stop at humans. He never does.”
A pause. Her breath catches, almost imperceptibly. “One time. No more.”
The vulture in Cairo doesn’t bother with pretense. His laugh is sharp, echoing through the line like a carrion bird circling. “If there is war, I will feed. Send word, and I will be there.”
And so it goes. Old names, old debts, voices that bristle with anger or tremble with fear, but none that refuse. They may hate me, they may hate what I made of the Pact, but they hate Roman more. And hate is enough.
By the time the sky begins to pale, bleeding gray over the lake, my desk is covered with notes, names, promises scratched into margins. The whiskey is still untouched. My throat is raw from too many words, my body taut with the weight of choices that cannot be undone.
Michaelis steps into the room without knocking. He’s been with me long enough to know when doors mean nothing. His eyes flick to the maps, the scattered lists, the coin still clutched in my hand.
“You’re pulling them back,” he says. His voice is quiet, but there’s no mistaking the accusation in it.
“Yes.”
“And Darius?”
The name grates like broken glass. I lift my gaze to meet his, unflinching. “I’ll answer him. But not as his soldier. Not even as his brother. On my terms.”
Michaelis studies me, searching for cracks, for hesitation. He’ll find none. At last he nods, though his jaw tightens. He knows as well as I do that once the call is answered, there is no middle ground. War doesn’t care about terms.
When he leaves, the room feels heavier, the silence thicker. I sit at the desk and turn the coin over in my hand, its weight an anchor dragging me back through centuries.
Cassian’s stillness. Rafe’s laughter. Darius’ scowl. Roman’s fire.
The brotherhood we built on blood and vows lies shattered, pieces scattered across the world. I told myself I didn’t miss them. But the truth burns. I miss what we were, before ambition twisted us, before Roman betrayed us.
I press the coin to the map where his name coils like a stain and whisper, voice low, meant for him alone.
“Not yet. But soon.”
The message is sent through channels Roman cannot ignore.
Not an email, not a call, but something older.
A Syndicate safehouse in Istanbul, its walls still marked with scars from the last war, receives an envelope.
Inside, nothing but Cassian’s coin and the words I carved into parchment myself: Not yet.
He will know it’s me. He will know I’m watching.
And he will know I’m coming.
By the time the sun claws its way fully above the horizon, the city outside my windows has already sprung to life. Trains rumble, horns blare, children shout on their way to schools. The illusion of peace stretches across Geneva, and none of them see the fault lines forming beneath their feet.
I pour the whiskey at last, the glass heavy, the liquid amber catching the light like fire. I lift it, not as a toast, but as a vow.
“To Roman,” I murmur, my voice thick with the lion’s growl. “Enjoy your empire while it lasts. Because when I come for you, it won’t be whispers. It won’t be shadows. It will be fire.”
I drink, the burn sliding down like molten iron, and at last I feel alive again. Not as the man who hid in boardrooms, not as the king who buried his oath, but as the lion who remembers what it means to claim.
And this time, I will not be alone.