Chapter 49 Vince
Vince
I stepped out of the car. Trying not to glare up at the Crow Estate of Villain.
I hated it.
It was polished. Famous. Photographed from the outside like it was a monument to power instead of a cage built from it. The walls owned you in here. They didn’t need chains.
They had lineage.
Nikolai fell into step beside me.
“You’re breathing too fast,” he murmured, low enough that staff wouldn’t hear as we crossed the foyer.
“I’m fine.”
“You’re not. But it’s charming you think you can lie to me.”
I didn’t answer. The dynasty wing sat above the war rooms—the part of the building that made sense to me.
War rooms were honest.
Dynasty floors were where men smiled while they tightened a noose.
I’d avoided them for years on purpose. Today, I stepped into the lift willingly.
“You remember what we agreed,” Nik eyes stayed on the numbers ticking upward. “You lead on security and Villain. I lead on codex and optics. We’re walking in as a pair, not two separate storms.”
“I know the plan.”
“I’m worried about you improvising murder in the middle of it.”
I huffed once. It didn’t pass for a laugh. “If anyone deserves it—”
“Save the homicidal fantasies for the War Room,” he cut in. “Up here you’re a dynasty heir asking permission. You want Maddy, you play the game.”
The lift opened.
The air changed—thicker carpet, corridor walls dressed in old portraits that watched like judges. Every Crow who’d ever thought they were untouchable glared down.
I didn’t look up as we walked.
Damius’ office sat at the far end, positioned like a throne room that never bothered pretending it wasn’t. The door was open.
He didn’t need privacy.
He needed witnesses.
Damius lifted his gaze from the papers on his desk as we entered. Hands folded neatly, gold ring catching the light. His expression didn’t shift, but his eyes did—already calculating what kind of damage had driven both of us up here.
“You don’t visit,” he stated loudly.
“You’re usually busy,” Nikolai stepped in just far enough to be respectful, not submissive. “We thought Villain’s future warranted an interruption.”
We.
He’d done that on purpose—pulled me into the sentence, spread the weight.
Damius leaned back slowly. “Future,” he repeated, tasting the word. “Sit.”
I pulled the chair opposite his desk out and sat. Nik took the one beside me, a half-step back, the way he did when he wanted to let me carry the threat while he carried the argument.
“So, my grandsons decide to visit the dynasty floor. Why.”
“Villain’s future,” I said, voice flat.
His attention tightened, almost pleased.
“You manage Villain,” he replied. “That’s your domain.”
“It’s our inheritance,” I corrected. “And someone is about to buy a back door into it.”
His fingers tapped once against the desk. “Which crest.”
“Marcellus.” Nikolai answered this time.
The name landed between us like a lit match.
Damius’ mouth twisted. “So-called royalty.”
“They believe it,” Nik said. “That’s the problem.”
A short, humorless sound left Damius. “They’ve ridden reputation for generations. Second dynasty inked into the sovereign codex, and they’ve never shut up about it.”
I let him taste the hate as he said it. Let him remember all the times Marcellus had flaunted that line in front of him.
“We were third,” he added. “We didn’t need pageantry to be feared.”
“They want operations in Villain,” I dragged him back before he could drown in history. “They’ll start polite. Partnerships. Board seats. Donations. Then they’ll buy leverage. Then they’ll push politics.”
Damius’ gaze flicked toward the window. “And they’ll use the Thornes as cover.”
“Yes, Marco’s been edging his way into our courts for years. He plays at respect while he counts profit.”
“He ties assets under his daughter’s name,” Nik added, watching Damius carefully. “Nearly all of them. It looks like protection. Or positioning. Either way, if she merges, his dynasty moves with her.”
Damius didn’t blink. “He’s always implied he’d only merge her to the right crest. Briefly.”
“Marcellus won’t do temporary. Royal dynasties don’t contract. They expand.”
Damius stood, slow, and moved to the glass, looking down at Villain like he could see every deal being made inside it.
“Optics,” he murmured.
“Optics and leverage,” I agreed. “If Marcellus gets a foothold here, other dynasties follow. They’ll decide Villain is up for purchase.”
His head angled slightly. “It isn’t.”
“No.” My voice stayed level. “It’s ours.”
He turned back. “So what do you want.”
The lie lined up cleanly in my throat, practiced, spoken in the only language he respected.
“Crow lineage,” Nik said. “Heirs. Legacy.”
Interest locked in. Damius’ focus shifted fully, the way it always did when the conversation turned from business to blood.
Nik had chosen his moment perfectly.
“The bride is Thorne. Good bloodline. Strong stock. She produces heirs that hold. Half Thorne, half Crow. Politically potent. Physically resilient. And all of it stays under our crest, not theirs.” Nik added.
Damius watched me while Nik spoke, like he could see the truth behind my ribs and was amused by how hard we were working to wrap it in strategy.
“Thorne blood strengthens Crow,” he said, almost indulgent. “Stubborn. Resilient. They survive.”
I nodded once, like her name on his tongue didn’t make my pulse turn feral.
“It’s a risk to let that blood go to Marcellus,” Nik pressed. “They gain the line and the access.”
“And the reputation,” I added. “A royal crest paired with Thorne ambition turns this city into a playground.”
Damius held my gaze. “You’re unusually invested.”
I didn’t flinch. “I’m invested in not being surrounded. In ensuring the next generation of Crows still owns this city outright.”
Damius’ eyes narrowed, considering. Legacy had hooked him; Nik was reeling him in.
For a moment, he studied us both like a problem he wanted to solve later. Then he returned to his desk and sat again.
“Marcellus owes us. We collect publicly. They can’t refuse without admitting weakness.” Damius said. He smiled at the word debt.
It turned pride into compliance.
“And the payment,” he prompted, looking between us.
I kept my breathing even. “A royal bride.”
Nik slid the knife in cleaner. “We phrase it as correction, not theft. The second dynasty in the codex paying due to the third. We remind the world that inked order doesn’t equal present power.”
The satisfaction on Damius’ face sharpened into something uglier. “Humiliating.”
“For both dynasties.”
“It shames Marcellus,” he murmured. “A crest that claims it can’t be touched, forced to pay in flesh and pride.”
“It reminds sovereign families that ink doesn’t protect them from us. And it terrifies the rest.”
Yes. That was the justification.
It was also permission, dressed as codex.
Damius’ gaze stayed on me, heavy, searching for weakness he could use later. “And the Thornes. Marco’s assets are tied under his daughter’s name. What happens when she’s taken.”
Hesitation would look like compassion. Compassion got punished in this room.
“They collapse in Villain politics. Their leverage goes with her. Marco’s comfortable position here ends overnight.”
Damius nodded, satisfied at the brutality. “Good. He’s been too comfortable.”
Something sour twisted in my stomach. Respect wasn’t loyalty, but it still had weight. Marco wasn’t a fool. He’d built his dynasty carefully, kept his family alive in a world that ate daughters and called it tradition.
Madeline didn’t deserve to be used as a lever.
I kept all of it off my face.
Nik slid in a final hook. “And once she’s Crow, her heirs bind Thorne holdings permanently to us. The next generation of Thorne-Crow children are raised under our codex. Villain stays in Crow hands for another century. Minimum.”
Damius’ eyes gleamed at that—time. Future. A city still stamped with his legacy long after he was gone.
He reached for a leather folio, old crest pressed into wax, the kind kept for debts that outlived the men who owed them.
“The debt is real. Older than Marcellus would like sovereign families to remember.”
He didn’t hand it to us. He opened it, reading like he was savoring history.
“I’ll revoke it. Publicly.”
The statement hit with the clean force of law.
“Marcellus will receive notice within days. Thorne will know within the week. Rumor moves faster than courier in Villain,” Damius went on, pen already in his hand.
He pulled a sheet of thick paper from a drawer—crest watermark, codex formatting, and set it on the blotter like an execution order. He never used datapads when paper added to the theatre of it all.
“I will draft the merger paperwork. Codex-compliant. Nonnegotiable.” His pen moved, lines already forming. “The Thornes have no say. There will be blowback. Marco will request a formal sit-down. Marcellus will demand one. Humiliation turns pride into violence.”
His gaze slid to me, then to Nik.
“Nikolai will handle it. He speaks for the dynasty when diplomacy is required.”
“And when it isn’t?” I asked, already knowing the answer.
“You speak,” he said. “As you always have.”
A reminder. A test dressed as logistics.
Damius rose and walked around the desk, stopping closer.
“Taking a wife isn’t symbolism for fun. It’s responsibility.” He held my gaze. “You take Thorne blood, you take what comes with it. Her place under our crest. And the heirs she gives you. They will carry my name further than I will live to see.”
The words had weight, even here.
“She will be the first Crow wife in Villain for this generation. The city will watch her. Sovereign families will measure her. Rivals will look for fractures.”
His eyes narrowed, sharpening into instruction.
“A wife must be made strong enough to hold Crow blood. Women aren’t born ready for us. They are shaped. Softness is part of that shaping when it’s done correctly.”
Softness, coming from him, sounded like a weapon you learned to wield instead of a feeling you were allowed to keep.
“She will learn your strength. Because it becomes hers. A husband’s power is his wife’s perimeter.” A pause followed, deliberate. “Train your pet. As the codex requires.”
The phrase should’ve repulsed me. Instead, it tightened something behind my ribs, because I knew what it meant in Crow language.
Not degradation.
Intimacy. Devotion. A private vow enforced through structure.
“The Crow dynasty is ruthless. But for our women, we kneel.”
He didn’t say it like romance.
He said it like doctrine.
“I will kneel for her as well. During the rite. Once she is Crow, she becomes sacred.”
The reverence didn’t remove the threat behind it.
“A wife isn’t a right,” Damius continued. “She is a vow. You will treat her as the husband oath demands. I won’t tolerate breaches.”
My jaw tightened. Damius watched it happen and smiled like he’d earned something.
“Do you know why the oath is strict,” he asked, “or do you think it’s ceremony.”
He didn’t wait for an answer.
“Because Crows aren’t gentle by nature. You weren’t raised for softness. You were raised to take.”
He stepped away, toward the window, and his voice dropped into something almost reflective.
“I made you a monster. Villain needed monsters. Your brothers needed monsters standing in front of them when the knives came.”
The admission didn’t come with regret.
“Monsters don’t get wives. Not unless they learn restraint.” His eyes cut back to me, warning embedded in every syllable.
“Abigail,”
Our mother’s name crossed the room like a match to gasoline.
Beside me, I felt Nikolai go still. A tiny shift, nothing visible if you didn’t know him. I did.
“She was flawless. A perfect Crow wife.”
He stared out at the skyline as if grief lived somewhere in the glass.
“Her death costed me. My wife. My six sons, their wives. Six brothers and their wives.” His jaw worked once. The loss was real. The lesson was crueler for it. “Only grandchildren left. Most not grown. Many not ready.”
He turned back, eyes cold again.
“And Tobias.”
My father’s name hit harder. Grief with hate.
I kept my face blank.
“He failed in many ways. He did not fail Abigail.” A calculated pause. “He lost his mind for her. That is what devotion does to a Crow. It unmakes him.”
Damius watched us both, satisfied by the blend, my silence, Nik’s language.
Then his eyes landed on me. “You will learn softness. You will apply it correctly. Thorne blood will not be damaged under your hands. You are ruthless. I made you that way.” His mouth tilted, pride and threat braided together. “My strongest Crow.”
Monster, the word he never needed to say.
“I will keep the oath,” I said, because anything less would have been insult. I would never raise a hand to Madeline. I will however, break every hand that reaches for her.
Nikolai added the structure. “We’ll put a logistics plan on your desk by week’s end.
Thorne assets that transfer under the crest. Security adjustments in Villain when the announcement hits.
A lock-in timeline that ensures Villain remains covered while Vince fulfills codex obligations on the island. ”
Damius gave a single nod, ceremonial in its restraint, like he’d stamped the decision into the air.
I stood. The estate still felt like it was trying to own me as I turned toward the door.
Nikolai rose with me, only speaking when we’d crossed the threshold and the portraits were behind us.
“You didn’t pass out,” he tapped the elevator, “Good.”
“Fuck you.”
He huffed, the ghost of a smile. “I’ll start pulling the Thorne and Marcellus portfolios. You’re going to the War Room. Rome and Bastion are waiting. Luca too.”
“For what.”
“To build the logistics you just promised. And to keep you from flying to St Cross and putting Aurelio Marcellus through a wall before the paperwork’s dry.”
My hands flexed at my sides.
“Nik.”
He glanced over. “Yeah.”
“If I ruin her—”
“You won’t, probably come close trying. But you won’t. That’s what the lock-in is for. That’s what the rest of your life is for.”
I’d walked into the lion’s den and left with permission.
Now to make sure the monster Damius built learned how not to ruin the only woman I’d ever wanted to kneel for.