Vince had stepped back.


    Maddy was his reason, but it hadn’t mattered why. After everything he’d carried for us, every bone he’d broken so we didn’t have to, none of us had the right to argue. And we all knew if he hadn’t stood down, we could’ve lost himpletely.


    Niki was gone too. Dynasty meetings overseas. Contracts. Legacy chess with no return date circled. He’d taken the position none of us had the patience for. Not even Luca.


    Which left us.


    Me. Luca. Rome.


    Three brothers standing between Viin and the chaos waiting to reim it.


    The war room wasn’t dynasty polish. Just steel, obsidian, and ss.


    The table glowed from beneath, maps lit like veins across Viin. Red for ports and tunnels. White for clubs. Blue for casinos. The city pulsing in digital light.


    Screens flickered along the wall. Docks. Tunnels. Casinos and streets. The city breathing on camera. And at the far side, floor-to-ceiling ss. Viin stretched wide.


    Rome leaned against the table, still bloody from the underground gun run he’d pulled through Southbridge.


    Luca stood across from him, one hand braced on the table, the other marking maps, dividing the workload.


    And me?


    I stayed standing. Couldn’t sit for this.


    Because it wasn’t just power anymore. It was inheritance. And legacy didn’t care if you were tired.


    Dynasty power wasn’t given. It was always watched. Especially in our bloodline. If Viin slowed for even one quarter, Damius wouldn’t blink. He’d restructure. Hand the city to another branch.


    Ashwood.


    Their books were clean, trades was fast. They didn’t have a city, but they were hungry for one. And Damius knew it.


    So it was us.


    Thest line standing.


    “Southbridge is secure?” Luca tapped the map.


    Rome nodded. “Ran the escort shell through the Memormial Route tunnels. Drop was clean. No eyes. Weapons tagged and logged.”


    “Surveince scrubbed?”


    “I pulled every trace.”


    Luca gave a short nod. “Then we move.”


    I turned toward the table, watching the city burn red and white across its surface.


    Ports were mine.


    Dockside contracts, customs bribes and container routes. Every ship that touched East Dock ran under my name.


    Unions bent when I leaned. Inspectors signed before they read. If they resisted? They drowned quiet.


    Ports weren’t just steel and water. They were arteries. And if you controlled arteries, you controlled the city’s pulse.


    But it wasn’t just ports. It was everything bleeding out of them.


    Clubs, drugs, territory enforcement, street loyalty and distribution. If it moved through Viin—powder, pills, bodies, or bullets—I ran it.


    Now I had Vince’s civic contracts on top.


    Construction. Real estate. Zoning boards. Shell developers. The concrete you poured to reinforce silence.


    He’d mapped the city’s bones. And beneath them he’d buried the bodies. Torture sites. Clean teams. Punishment protocols. Vince hadn’t delegated that part. He’d handled it himself.<fnefda> For original chapters go to find?novel</fnefda>


    Now that weight shifted. Rome and I carried it.


    Luca held the front-facing world.


    Restaurants. Hotels. Casinos. Border logistics. Offshoreundries. Surveince tech.


    The casinos, Obsidian Crown, ck Vault, The Gilded Cage—looked like marble and gold, but they were encryption engines at the core. Syndicate-only floors under chandeliers.


    He’d inherited Niki’s casino division and turned it into a digital empire. Offshore ounts. Encrypted betting. Quiet diplomacy with men twice his age who walked away convinced they’d done him the favor.


    Where I broke bones, Luca broke systems. And he made it look effortless.


    Rome was enforcement.


    Vice. Clubs. Escort shells. ckmail suites. Temptation on one side, punishment on the other. His clubs were sealed—masked ess with coded tattoos. No cameras, no minors or trafficking. Those line was never crossed.


    Now he had Vince’s old enforcement routes—gun runs, tactical rotations, warehouses. He moved men and bodies like chess pieces.


    “We’re stretched,” Luca muttered, not looking up from the table. “Three-man weight for five-man war.”


    Rome tapped his knife on the corner of the table. “Then we move men. Street-level enforcement’s bleeding too heavy.”


    I nodded. “Split it. I’ll take East and the ports. You hold South and the tunnels.”


    Rome’s mouth twitched. “That’s eighty percent of the city.”


    “Exactly. Luca keeps the syndicate floors calm. We keep the streets quiet.”


    “Calm won’t hold,” Luca pressed. “Syndicate’s circling already. Even the Sovereigns are watching. They’re all waiting for one mistake. They’ll use Vince’s absence as proof.”


    “They can wait all they want,” Rome smirked, “They won’t like the answer.”


    “Still,” Luca said, “we need to show a united front. I’ve got three meetings this week—Sable Room, The Archive, ck Vault. If I don’t walk in steady, they’ll start carving up the table without us.”


    “They’ll test you,” I said.


    “They’ll test all of us,” Luca corrected. “Power shifts fast if it isn’t managed. We lose one street, one club, one shipment—they’ll smell blood and pick us apart.”


    “Then we don’t lose.”


    We were barely staying ahead of copse.


    The cousins were circling. Hungry for promotion they wouldn’t get. Damius was watching every slip, every bruise.


    It wasn’t about control anymore. It was survival.


    And survival meant ruin before rest.


    The bruises, long nights and the endless bodies. We carried it all for one reason.


    And I wasn’t going to die bloody the same month Emilia was finally returning to Viin.