Luther Steph felt the world shift around him. It was subtle at first, just a pull in the chest and a tremor in the ground beneath his boots.
Then reality itself seemed to breathe, expand, and fold in ways his mind could barely comprehend. He had thought he understood danger, control, and power. He had thought he knew the limits of loyalty and betrayal. He had been wrong.
Valentine Spade stood before him, her eyes burning with a clarity he had never seen. It was as if the smoke, the ambush, the rejection, and the fury that had filled the past weeks were all threads in a tapestry that was only now revealing its true image.
He remembered her first appearance, behind that mask, silent and unyielding. How she had allowed him to kill Adre and had not flinched at blood. How she had defied him,
