Chapter 43 Vince
Vince
Madeline was asleep in my bed. Where I should have been.
Instead Damius had summoned us all to the island. Nikolai stood beside me in the hall, hands in the pockets of his suit pants. If anyone else looked at him, they’d see composure. I saw the truth, the low, simmering dread we’d both carried since the summons.
We had hoped our brothers would never see this part of dynasty law play out. Not while they were still this young. Not before they had the chance to believe we were monsters only in reputation.
The lower levels smelled like metal and lemon oil. The combination never meant anything good.
“Think Damius planned this?” I murmured.
Nikolai didn’t look at me. “Of course he planned it.”
“He could’ve kept them out of this.”
“He didn’t want to.” His jaw flexed. “He wants to measure them.”
Footsteps echoed down the hall, uneven in rhythm, Luca’s quick stride, Bastion’s heavy one, Rome pacing himself but still wound too tight. They turned the corner. I straightened.
They froze when they saw us standing there alone.
Their faces changed in unison, the kind of shift that happens when instinct recognizes danger before the brain does.
Bastion spoke first. “What’s this about?”
I held his gaze. I didn’t answer immediately, because saying it aloud made it real. His eyes flicked over my face, and he must’ve seen the truth, the thing I never wanted any of them to see in me.
Pity.
“A lesson,” I finally said.
Rome stepped forward. “Who’s being punished?”
Nikolai exhaled through his nose. “Our cousin. He loved someone he wasn’t given.”
“And?” Bastion asked.
“And Damius demanded she be shared among the Crows to cleanse the disobedience,” Nik said.
Rome blinked, processing. Luca clenched his jaw.
Bastion’s voice lowered. “Shared?”
“Our cousin refused,” I told him. “So now we’re here.”
His throat moved as he swallowed. “Here for what exactly?”
I looked directly at him. At all three of them.
“Public punishment. He wants you to see what happens when a Crow thinks love matters more than loyalty.”
I pushed open the door.
The disciplinary chamber hit them like a punch, it always did.
The air felt wrong, too controlled. Banners hung like silent judges.
Every older Crow sat with the posture of men who’d seen this before and decided long ago to stop feeling anything about it.
Over thirty of our cousins lined the room as well.
I didn’t sit. I stayed near the back, between my brothers and the door. Protective habit. Useless here. Nikolai moved a step closer to them, as if they needed the grounding. They did.
Then the door to the side opened.
The girl was dragged in. Torn dress. Blood along her hairline. She lifted her chin anyway, and the pride in it was what made my stomach twist.
Because it wasn’t her face I saw.
It was Madeline’s.
Just for a flicker, a cruel flash of imagination I couldn’t shut off. Her blonde hair. Her stubborn jaw. Her courage where it didn’t belong.
A future I could never allow.
Nikolai’s hand brushed my sleeve, small movement, barely there. He noticed. He felt me freeze.
Damius entered like the showman he was, shadows bending around him. His eyes swept the room, bypassed the victims, landed on the audience.
He wanted the reaction. The fracture. The weakness.
“When a Crow keeps what isn’t his,” Damius began, “the dynasty takes it back.”
Enforcers stepped toward her, syndicate men, not even Crows. That part always twisted the knife deeper.
The sound she made cracked the air.
The cousin sobbed into the brace that held him still. Couldn’t even turn his head. Spare himself the sight.
I watched my brothers instead.
Luca dug his nails into Bastion’s wrist.
Rome’s jaw locked, vibrating with contained fury.
Nikolai stared ahead, mind somewhere cold.
And me, I forced myself still, because Damius watched for movement. I felt his gaze slide over us like a blade. I felt his calculation. His hunger for any sign one of us might love someone too much.
Anyone.
Madeline’s name flared through my skull again, unwanted and unquiet.
Damius kept his eyes on us while the violence unfolded. He didn’t look at the woman. He didn’t look at the cousin. He looked at us.
Because punishment was never the real point.
Control was.
The girl collapsed afterward, barely conscious. The cousin wasn’t crying anymore. That scared me more than the sobs.
Damius turned fully toward my brothers.
“Weak men love. Strong men obey their Dynasty.
Then he dismissed the room. People filed out.
When the enforcers pulled the woman’s head back, the sound of the knife hitting flesh cut through the hall.
Rome jolted. Bastion flinched. Luca froze.
“Keep walking,” I murmured.
We didn’t look back.
Outside, the air tasted like smoke and iron. Nik lit a cigarette. I lit a joint and handed it to Rome because he needed something to hold onto.
“Now you know. This is what happens when he thinks we care about someone.” I exhaled.
“He made him watch,” Bastion said quietly.
“That’s the whole point,” Nik replied. “Obedience through paralysis.”
Rome brought the joint to his lips, hands shaking. “Why do it like that?”
“Because Damius doesn’t enforce the Codex. He weaponizes it.” Nik fingers tapped his side once. He was rattled. There was no accepting what happened in that room. Other than our overseer keeping his monster’s leashed and loyal:
Luca lit another cigarette and passed it to Bastion.
“It wasn’t about the girl. It was about the message.”
Luca stared at the ground. “And that message is what?”
“That loving someone gives him leverage.”
Their heads snapped up. They understood. All at once. My chest tightened. The ache hit low and silent.
Because while they watched a stranger die, all I could think about was Madeline’s throat under someone else’s blade. Madeline sobbing on a floor she didn’t belong on.
Madeline being punished because of me.
Damius wouldn’t need much. One slip. One rumor. One wrong look at her.
He’d drag her into a room like this. Make me choose dynasty or her. And I would choose her. Every time. Which meant death for both of us.
I’d known it before. Today made it absolute.
Rome stopped walking. “We should’ve—”
“There was nothing you could do,” Nikolai said, gripping his arm. “If you moved, it would’ve been seen as rebellion.”
“You were being tested,” I told them. “Not them. You.”
We walked in silence toward the airfield.
And I was dying quietly inside, because I already knew what came next. I’d have to end things with Madeline.
Not because I wanted to.
Because I needed her alive.
Because Damius would watch every grandson closer now. Waiting for weakness. Waiting for a reason.
Every step toward the jet felt heavier. But I knew, with absolute clarity, that the dynasty had drawn its line. And Madeline was on the wrong side of it.
Unless I found a way to claim her in a way even Damius couldn’t rewrite.
A dynasty-level plan. A way to keep her. Permanently. Legally.
But until I figured out how to pull off the impossible—I’d have to let her go. Even if it split something vital inside me to do it. Then do everything to get her back as wife. That was the only way I’d survive this. Let her got, temporarily, then pull her back forever.