GIDEON VALE
The door closed behind me with a quiet finality that most people would have mistaken for calm.
It wasn’t.
The room was soundproof. Clean. Deliberate. Built for moments exactly like this, where noise didn’t need to escape for damage to be done. The man stumbled forward the second my men let go of him, catching himself on shaking hands before turning back, eyes wide, breath uneven, panic already setting in like rot.
I stepped forward slowly, rolling my sleeves up with measured precision, my gaze fixed on him in a way that made men understand, very quickly, that this was no longer a situation they could talk their way out of.
“I didn’t— I didn’t know—” he started, his voice breaking over itself as he backed up a step. “I didn’t know she was—”
“Mine?” I finished calmly.
The
