Jermin's POV
I hated meetings.
Suits babbling in circles forever. Councils behaving as if they had some relevance left. Half of them were already dead on the inside, and the others-well, they were clinging to power they never had a right to. Power I let them keep, like a leash I wore whenever I felt like it.
Thus, when my assistant and occasional source of regret, Madeline, entered, stammering of yet another 'urgent' council summons, I did not even have the decency to lift my head.
"They can shove it," I groaned, swirling my whiskey in an attempt to drown out the drudgery.
"You've said that five times already this year," she snapped, her tone defensive. "This time, they are after you."
My brow grew at this. This was new.
She leaned against the brim of my desk, the snug blouse she had on trying to hold some authority. It didn't. It used to, once, but now it just annoys me—like a hit single that's on repeat.
"They tell me it is regarding the shattered alliances. The Monroe break-up seven years ago destabilised much more than you want to admit. Some of the old families are fragmenting. Forming their splinters. And they're arming themselves, Jermin."
Lastly, I looked upwards. "Let them burn."
She folded her arms. "They're saying they've got a plan. And that this time, you need to be present. It's gonna provide you with everything."
I cocked an eyebrow. "Everything?"
Madeline nodded. "Control over the city, the gangs, the docks, the underground routes, even the east docks. All of them. The minute you eliminate the middlemen."
Now she had my attention.
Power in its purest form.
All in one name- mine.
I lifted my glass and watched the amber liquid swirl like a storm.
"Well enough," I said, rising slowly. "Let us see what they believe they are giving me."
________________________________________
The room was colder than I remembered. Marble walls, gold moulding. More like a tomb than a board—a last refuge for men who were dying because they had started to come and seek prophecies and answers.
They all swivelled around to face me as I came in. It didn't take longer than a second for the silence to slap me in the face, riding the hollowness there in high tension.
And something shifted.
The air changed.
Electric. Stinging. The kind of tension that stands the hairs you never back of your had on end.
At first, I hadn't even registered.
And then I saw her.
Sitting at the long table. Dressed in black as if she'd come to bury someone. Maybe me. Pale face. Dark eyes, etched with something fierce. The mouth was colored like sin and war.
Alice.
My heart hadn't accelerated. My features hadn't changed. But in here?
Static.
She hadn't batted an eyelid at my appearance, didn't glare at me down, or even blink.
She didn't stand up.
Not a millimetre.
Oh, now I was livid.
"Jermin Hunt," Arturo declared with that smile plastered on his face, that mandatory fake smile. His voice was laced with fake politeness. "Good of you to make it."
I didn't respond. I continued staring.
Five years.
No message. She had disappeared. She had left me with bloodstains on my hands and questions I never got the opportunity to ask. No farewell. No letter. Poof.
And here she was, sitting like a queen, as if I were not present.
As if I never owned her.
"Elijah," she said to a tall man who sat next to her, "did you bring the documents?"
That voice.
It had cracked and quaked ages ago over my name.
Now it was steel.
The second-Eli, as I would have come to call him for the time being, nodded and slid across the table a huge folder.
"You said you had a solution," I broke in, smooth as the blade of a knife. "I presume the solution is not her?"
Tomas snarled like the rat he was. "She is, however, the solution. A marriage agreement between Monroe and Hunt would unite all parties. Her holdings. Your dominance. One empire."
"A wedding," Arturo joined in, trying to hide his enthusiasm.
I tilted my head, my gaze holding her. "You'd marry me?"
She faced me then. Finally.
Her gaze did not falter. She just. Settled. Like a blade against my throat.
"No," she replied serenely. "I would marry the Hunt Syndicate."
That stung worse than any punch I ever took.
"That's the same thing," I snarled.
"Not to me."
She swivelled around as though I were merely a ghost standing in the corner of the room.
I moved closer, hands on the marble table, voice lowered to a whisper she could hear. "Be a good girl, Alice. You are playing a game you've forgotten how to lose."
She didn't flinch. "I stopped playing games with you a long time ago."
________________________________________
But I remembered.
Every inch of skin.
The curve of her spine as she arched under me.
The catch in her voice as I said to her, "Good girl."
The sounds she'd made in ecstasy as I touched her just so.
I'd once had that body; it was my secret prayer.
Now, she was just a ghost in stilettos. Beautiful. Unholy.
And it filled my blood with a crazy roar.
________________________________________
Arturo cleared his throat. "The terms are given. This agreement would give Jermin domination of all factions and Alice a safeguard for her estate. A marriage in heaven."
Alice smiled at them. Not me.
"I will sign," she said, digging out her pen. "With one condition."
They all stopped.
She looked at me. "We are strangers. Keep it that way."
The pen snapped loudly, louder than any thunder.
She hurried to put her signature, rendering her share legally irrelevant.
________________________________________
Strangers.
She thought she could walk in after five years, steal my name, and get away with it?
No.
This was not finished.
Not by a long shot.
Let her think.
Let her wear her armour and her blood-red lipstick disguise.
Because in the end—
She will remember.
And I will be prepared.
Not for forgiveness.
Not for apologie
s.
But for the pleasure of watching her tumble again.
Right into my hands.
Where she belongs