The meeting room was all marble and dynasty money imported chandeliers, old oak table that had seen too many signatures written in blood.


    Three families had flown in from their own capitals. Old names, arrogant. They thought their surnames carried weight here. Thought Viin would bow because of what their bloodlines meant across oceans.


    They didn’t understand.


    This city doesn’t bend to dynasties. It bends to Crows.


    I lit a cigarette. The men at the far end of the table frowned like I’d spat in a cathedral. Good.


    “You called us,” one of them said. His ent thick, his cufflinks dynasty polished. “We assumed it was to discuss partnership. An equal seat at the table.”


    I leaned back in the chair, stretched my legs. “Equal.” The word always pissed me off. “You think because your bloodline shares a Codex with ours, you get equal ground in my city?”


    “Our family has ruled trade in?—”


    “Not here,” I cut in. Calm.“Your family might have influence elsewhere. Here? You’re tourists.”


    One of them shifted in his seat. Tried to smile like it was still politics. “We assumed dynasty honor meant?—”


    I tapped ash into the ss tray, slow.


    “Honor doesn’t unload shipments at three in the morning. Honor doesn’t bleed on the street when a deal goes wrong.” I took another drag. “Honor doesn’t mean shit in Viin. Only leverage does. And leverage here wears our name. Crow.”


    Silence. Heavy. I liked it.


    Bastion leaned forward beside me. “You want Viin, you don’t get it through family crests. You get it through us.”


    I watched the men squirm under a weight they couldn’t measure.


    They’d walked in expecting dynasty protocol. Polite negotiation. Some treaty they could wave at their cousins like a trophy.


    What they got was Viin.


    What they got was Crows.


    And the only thing keeping me calm, the reason I hadn’t torn this room apart when they dared to speak of partnership, was that two rooms away, on my ck console, her ount still blinked green.


    Still alive.


    Still ours.


    “Here’s how this works,” I said, meeting the stares of men that hadn’t earned their name. “You want a seat at the table, you pay for it. With loyalty. With territory. With your cut signed over to the Crows. Otherwise?” I looked down the length of the table. “You can fly back home and tell your cousins Viin isn’t a ce you do business.”


    One of the heirs cleared his throat. Young. But old enough to understand what I meant, but too green to know when to shut the fuck up. Hisst name was on bank vaults in three countries.


    That type of entitlement makes him think he mattered. He doesn’t. Not in this room with us.


    “With respect,” he said, chin lifting just enough to be a mistake, “you may run Viin, but dynasty protocol recognizes parity. Bloodlines don’t answer to syndicates.”


    The wordnded heavy, like he’d spat in our face.


    Syndicate.


    I watched his eyes flicker like he’d just realized, two seconds, toote which wolf he’d fed his throat to.


    “Parity?” I repeated. “That’s the word you brought into my city?”


    He opened his mouth again. Didn’t get to finish.


    Bastion was up and moving before he registered, pinning his head to the table.


    “You think this is a syndicate?” Bastion twisted the heir’s tie until he choked on the silence. “We’re some backroom crew you can buy off with a crest stamped in wax?”


    He struggled once.


    “We are dynasty,” I said, watching Bastion grip tighten, “Our crest goes back farther than yours. Registered in the Sovereign before yours. Our Codex runs deeper. And unlike your families, we don’t just inherit the name. We bleed it.”


    Dynasties cared about two things, keeping their power clean and bloodlines.


    “But we’re also syndicate,” I butted the cigarette out. “Ports. Tunnels. Guns. Streets. The water. We control. Your fathers call us criminals when they want to feel civilized. But they all pay us. Every one of them.”


    Bastion loosened his grip just enough for him to cough.


    “So when you sit at my table, you’re not negotiating with merchants. You’re not trading with old men who still believe protocol keeps them safe. You’re looking at the only family in the empire who can’t be killed by ink or by steel.” I leaned closer. “You’re looking at the Crows. And in Viin, that means you’re already out of moves.”


    Heavy silence. The type that is final. Now they knew where they stood. Which was wherever we let them.<fn17bc> Find the newest release on F?nd-Novel</fn17bc>


    Bastion let him go, he staggered back into his chair, red-faced. His cousins didn’t move to help him. They never do, same pattern across all dynasties.


    “This isn’t protocol,” I said evenly. “This is survival. You want Viin, you get it through us. Or you don’t get it at all.”


    I lit another cigarette, staying calm and controlled, because I had to be for her.


    The reason why I could sit here, patient, while foreign dynasty heirs learned that the Crow name was carved into skin of anyone who dared do business here.


    Because these deals, every power move, was to secure our future with hers.