Chapter 8

Preston's body lay on the stone floor just like that.

The finger marks on his neck were plain as day. Nobody dared to look twice.

The relatives in the courtyard cleared out faster than rabbits. One second they were watching the show, and the next they were gone — chairs not even pushed back, people just vanished.

Not even the sound of footsteps. They just disappeared.

Bourne leaned against the table behind him, legs giving out, whole body sliding down. He dug his fingers into the edge of the table and barely kept himself from hitting the floor. Greya's lips kept moving but no sound came out, just a fine, constant trembling.

Hawk went straight down to the ground.

A dark stain spread across his crotch. The smell of urine drifted out and mixed with the leftover reek of alcohol in the courtyard, making the air almost unbearable.

Thorne turned around.

The blood on his hands hadn't dried yet. He didn't bother wiping it off — just let his arms hang at his sides and swept his gaze across Victor's family of three.

No anger. No satisfaction.

Just looking at them, the way you'd look at three pieces of worthless trash.

He walked toward Hawk.

One step. Two steps.

Hawk scrambled backward, elbows on the ground, heels scraping against the stone, making a sharp grinding sound.

"Thorne!" His voice cracked. "I was wrong! I really was wrong! That thing back then wasn't my idea — it wasn't my idea!"

Thorne stopped and looked down at him.

Hawk's eyes were red raw, tears and snot running down together, words pouring out of his mouth like a dam had broken — no stopping them.

He admitted it. What happened back then was never an accident.

He hadn't been drunk. He hadn't slipped up.

It was their parents' plan.

They'd wanted to get rid of Thorne for a long time, but they didn't dare touch him directly. They were afraid that if that "cursed" thing died in the house, it would bring even bigger trouble down on them. So they came up with a "clean" way to handle it: have Hawk go out and start trouble, make it look like a killing, then push Thorne forward to take the blame, throw him in prison, and hope he died in there. Done and finished.

Hawk's voice was shaking so badly by this point it barely held together.

"I was only sixteen back then... they told me what to do and I did it. I didn't want to either, Thorne, I really..."

"Enough."

Thorne's reply was flat.

No emotion. Not even disgust, if you were listening for it.

But the moment Hawk heard it, he flinched hard, like something had pressed down on him. He didn't even dare cry too loud.

Greya screamed and lunged forward, reaching for Hawk's mouth, trying to shove the words back in.

She'd barely made it halfway when Thorne turned and glanced at her.

Just one glance. Greya's feet locked in place like they'd been nailed to the ground. Her mouth hung open, her eyes full of terror, one hand frozen in midair — stuck there, unable to move.

Thorne shifted his gaze to Bourne.

"Anything you want to say?"

Bourne's knees buckled. He dropped to the ground with a dull thud against the stone, head bowed so low it nearly touched the floor, voice thick with tears.

"Thorne... I'll talk, I'll tell you everything, just don't..."

What happened back then hadn't only been his and his wife's idea.

The Winston family from Silverlight City had come to them.

When the Winston family's people showed up, they brought money and one condition: make Thorne disappear. By whatever means necessary — dead or alive — as long as he was gone from this world.

That one payment alone was worth ten years of the Victor family's earnings.

Bourne said he didn't know why the Winston family would go after a child, and he hadn't dared ask. The money arrived, and he said yes.

A brief silence settled over the courtyard.

Viklian slowly wheeled himself to Thorne's side, his voice unhurried, like he was going through an old ledger entry by entry.

"The Winston family... one of Silverlight City's six great ducal houses. Their reach spans both politics and business, with deep roots in the royal court as well."

He paused, then added something more direct.

"When they want someone gone, they don't need a reason."

"If an ordinary person crosses the Winston family, the best they can hope for is losing everything they own."

"The worst..." The old man left it there. But everyone understood.

Thorne listened in silence, his mind already turning.

Years ago, the servant who had left him at the Victor family's door had said one thing: This child's parents crossed someone they shouldn't have.

Someone they shouldn't have crossed.

One of Silverlight City's six great ducal houses.

And the Winston family had paid to have him thrown in prison...

It was getting hard not to connect these dots in one direction.

Thorne lowered his eyes, voice still level.

"My birth parents probably crossed the Winston family."

Viklian looked at him. He didn't deny it. He didn't say anything at all.

But his silence was its own kind of answer.

Thorne pieced the fragments together in his head — the Winston family, Silverlight City, his birth parents.

Every piece pointed toward the same bottomless hole.

Then a sharper question drove itself into his mind.

If the Winston family really had a grudge against his birth parents, they should have had him killed the moment he was born. Killing a baby — nothing easier than that.

But they hadn't.

They'd waited fifteen full years.

Waited until he was grown, until he had memories and attachments, and only then spent money to set a trap and put him in prison.

Why?

Had they not been able to find him? Or was there some reason they couldn't move against him too early?

Thorne's brow creased slightly.

He thought about it for a long time and came up with nothing.

Too little information. Like a broken chain missing the most critical links. The only thing he could say for certain right now was that the Winston family had been watching him all along and had never let go.

Ten years ago, it was prison.

And that fake priest, Preston — he might not be unconnected to the Winston family either.

At that thought, Thorne forced all those churning ideas back down.

No point thinking further without more to go on.

Clear up what's in front of him first.

He brought his gaze back to Bourne and Greya.

Bourne was still on his knees, head hanging low, shoulders jerking up and down.

Thorne walked over and crouched down in front of him, meeting him at eye level.

Bourne looked up, caught Thorne's eyes, and immediately looked away — like he'd seen something he wasn't supposed to see.

Thorne's voice was quiet and even.

"I'm not going to kill you. Death would be too easy."

He raised his right hand and pressed two fingers lightly against Bourne's throat, then did the same to Greya's.

Both of them went rigid at once.

Bourne opened his mouth to speak. Nothing came out.

He tried again. Still nothing.

Same with Greya — her mouth moved and moved, but not a sound escaped. The color drained from her face. She pressed both hands hard against her throat, eyes wide with terror.

Thorne pulled his hand back and turned to Adrian.

"Could you have your people take them to the police station."

"Conspiracy to commit murder, fabricating evidence — let the law sort out the rest."

Adrian looked at Thorne for a moment, said nothing, and gave a small nod to the guards behind him.

Two guards stepped forward, grabbed Bourne and Greya, and dragged them toward the exit.

Bourne struggled once and couldn't break free. He twisted back and fixed his eyes on Thorne, mouth moving, managing only a faint breathless sound. His stare held anger, fear, and something uglier underneath all of it.

Thorne didn't look at him.

He'd already turned to Hawk.

Hawk sat on the ground, watching his parents get hauled away, looking like something had been hollowed out of him. When Thorne's gaze landed on him, he scrambled backward instinctively, tried to get up, but his legs had no strength and he fell back down.

"Thorne..." Hawk's voice had gone raw. "Thorne, we're brothers, you can't..."

"We're not brothers."

Thorne looked down at him, tone unchanged.

"We never were."

Hawk's lips trembled. No words came.

Then, like he'd suddenly remembered something, a wild light flared in his eyes — a man grabbing at the last thing within reach — and he rasped out:

"You dare touch me! The Winston family won't let you walk away from this! Their people could show up any time! You move against me, you're making an enemy of the entire Winston family!"

The courtyard went quiet for a second.

Thorne looked at him. The corner of his mouth pulled slightly.

"Then let them come."

The words were barely out before he lifted his foot and brought it down hard on Hawk's right wrist.

The crack of bone breaking rang out sharp and clear across the courtyard.

Hawk's scream tore open like something being flayed alive, echoing across the entire estate.

Thorne straightened up and casually brushed the blood from his palm.

It was right then that engine sounds came from outside the estate walls.

Not one vehicle.

Many.

The rumbling grew closer, grew louder. The gates were pushed open from outside.

More than a dozen black armored SUVs rolled in one after another, forming two neat columns and parking in perfect alignment.

Every door opened at once.

Dozens of guards in black uniforms stepped out and took their positions — no extra movement, not a word spoken — and formed a line that enclosed most of the courtyard.

The door of the last vehicle opened.

A man stepped out.

White suit. Early thirties. Hair combed without a strand out of place. His walk was unhurried, like someone arriving for a social visit. But when his gaze swept across the bodies and blood on the ground, there wasn't a flicker of surprise — only the cool, settled look of someone who'd expected exactly this.

His eyes came to rest on Thorne.

The two of them looked at each other.

The man's expression stayed easy, his tone casual, like catching up with an old acquaintance.

"Thorne Victor."

"I've heard a lot about you."

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