Chapter 3 Meeting the Obsidian Triarchy
Seraphina POV:
I’ve studied them for three days straight. Taking in as much information as I possible could. I feel like nothing is going to prepare me for what awaits me once I walk through those doors.
My job is to get close. Earn their trust. Then take them out. I dress in something that’s going to draw attention without seeming suspicious.
I throw on a tight pair of black leather pants with a black belt, black combat boots, and a black leather corset. I tie my hair up out of my face pinning it down with two needle like pins that are more deadly than they seem. I strap on my knives and a small handgun for extra protection.
You can never be too prepared when walking into the unknown. I retrieve the rest of my things and make my way to the destination.
The warehouse overlooking the river was all steel and shadow, the kind of place built for transactions that don’t make it into daylight. Their men lined the perimeter armed, silent, watching.
I make my way inside. When I saw them I finally understood why no one succeeded in taking them out. Power doesn’t always shout. Sometimes it stands still and waits for you to notice.
Malakai stood at the center. Of course he did. Tall. Impeccably dressed in black that fit like it had been tailored to his control issues. No wasted movement. No nervous adjustments. His hands rested lightly on the table, long fingers relaxed, but not careless.
His hair was dark, nearly black, pushed back neatly but not stiff. A single strand had fallen slightly forward, softening nothing about him. His face was sharp. All clean angles and quiet severity.
But it was his eyes that caught me.
They weren’t wild.
They weren’t cold.
They were aware.
Like he’d already dissected me and was waiting to see if I noticed. He didn’t look like a crime lord. He looks looked like judgement.
To Malakai’s right leaned the storm.
Blonde hair — darker at the roots, pushed back like he ran his hands through it when he was thinking. Or fighting. Or both.
Broad shoulders. Rolled sleeves revealing forearms marked faintly with scars that weren’t decorative. Earned. Honest violence.
He didn’t stand still the way Malakai did. There was energy in him. A subtle restlessness. Like he was always one breath away from action.
His eyes were lighter — sharp, expressive, alive with something dangerous and almost amused. When they landed on me, they didn’t analyze.
They reacted.
Soren didn’t look like judgment.
He looked like temptation.
Then to the left stood the quiet one. Cassian stood slightly apart but not disconnected. His navy suit perfectly fitted. His dark hair was precise. Intentional. Every detail about him felt curated.
He wasn’t leaning. Wasn’t bracing. He was observing. His face was composed in a way that almost read diplomatic. Until you met his eyes.
He didn’t look at me the way the others did. He assessed. Not whether I was attractive or threatening. Whether I was useful.
Cassian didn’t feel like temptation or judgment. He felt like inevitability.
And together?
They didn’t crowd each other. They didn’t compete for space. They formed it. Three distinct forces.
Control. Fire. Strategy.
Three points of a triangle.
Unbroken.
I walked forward alone. Boots echoing once. Twice. No one stopped me.
Interesting.
“I hear you’re looking for additional muscle,” I say, voice even.
Soren’s mouth curves faintly. “We don’t look.”
Malakai didn’t smile. His eyes were dark. Measuring.
“You walked into our territory uninvited,” he says calmly. “That’s either confidence or a death wish.”
“Neither,” I reply. “It’s leverage.”
That caught Cassian’s attention. I felt it shift. subtle, sharp.
Malakai stepped closer. Not rushed. Not threatening. Just inevitable.
He stops a foot away from me. Close enough that I can see the discipline in the tension of his jaw.
“You don’t look afraid,” he murmurs.
“I’m not.”
A lie.
But not the kind he meant.
Soren pushes off the crate and circled slightly, not touching me, but adjusting the air around me. Testing how I stood under pressure.
Cassian finally spoke.
“If we hired you,” he asks smoothly, “who would you betray first?”
The correct answer was none of you.
So I tell the truth instead.
“The one who underestimates me.”
Heavy silence filled the room. Then something shifted.
Malakai’s expression didn’t change. But approval flickers there. Dangerous approval.
Soren’s eyes brightens like he’d just found a new kind of trouble.
Cassian’s gaze narrows thoughtfully.
They weren’t deciding if I was useful. They were deciding if I was worth keeping. And for the first time since the contract landed in my hands—
I felt it. Not fear. Gravity.
Because standing in front of them didn’t feel like stepping into danger. It felt like stepping into something inevitable.
Malakai stepped back first.
“Fine,” he says quietly.
“Impress us.”
And just like that I was inside the empire I’d been hired to destroy.
