“The international contracts require stability. If Villain collapses—” A Thorne heir tried to be useful.
I turned my head. Looked at him once.
He stopped talking. A wise fucking choice.
Stability. That was their obsession. Because dynasty business thrived on appearances, wealth polished until it was legacy framed like art on a wall.
But the Crows?
We thrived on control.
Distribution that ran from back-alley corners to offshore accounts. Customs officers who knew when silence was the answer.
Accounting systems that bent to our numbers, not theirs.
We didn’t play dynasty games.
We changed the rules and broke the board.
I enjoyed watching as I reminded them over and over their name meant nothing to us.
Alexander pivoted to zoning, construction expansions, and building timelines.
“You’re counting the Orlen steel twice,” I said. “You’ll be thirty-one days late on the east truss because your supplier can’t berth without our escorts. And you won’t have our escorts if your offload report keeps lying to my face.”
Another tick of his jaw.
I lit a cigarette. I did it every time I came into his broad-room. He commented once it was unmannered. Who the fuck even says unmannered.
“Try again,” I told him.
His gaze flicked to the smoke, then to my hand, then to the heads at the table who were pretending not to watch thepower dynamic unfold. I could have stopped there. Made him bleed slowly. That was my hobby. What I normally did.
But today wasn’t for my hobby. Today I wanted to gut his books publicly.
I slid a single envelope across the table. Cream stock. Heavy. The kind old men trusted, and the kind I hated.
“New business,” I said.
He hesitated, then opened it. I watched his eyes move left to right. Twice. His grip tightened at the second line.
House Vale regrets to inform…
Strategic realignment…
Withdrawal from all merger discussions effective immediately.
He lifted his head, fury showing, “You?—”
“Correction,” I said, my voice dropping reminding him who he was speaking to, “They withdrew.”
Someone coughed. Someone else put down a pen like it weighed more than it should. The Thorne heir stared at his water.
“It doesn’t impact Adams growth—” Alexander tried to stand on what he had left.
“You keep using that word like it matters to me.” I flicked ash on his polished Mahoney table.
Watching his jaw twitch as I did.
