The front door slammed with the kind of finality that made the whole villa feel like it was holding its breath. Ranon didn't shout. He never did. He moved through the marble foyer like a man who had already calculated every possible way this night could still go worse, jaw locked so tight it ached, shoulders rigid under the black shirt that suddenly felt too fucking tight across his chest. The supplier had pulled out. Eight figures in commitments to three allied families now had a crater right in the middle of them. Public. Embarrassing. And in this world embarrassment was currency that always collected blood later.
Sera stood in the kitchen doorway in one of those soft cotton things she slept in, arms crossed, watching him the way she watched everything. Carefully. Completely. She didn't scatter. She didn't pretend she hadn't noticed the storm rolling off him in waves.
"Go to bed," he said. Flat. Controlled. The kind of order that usually worked on everyone else.
