The grand ballroom of the cruise liner felt as though it were exhaling a long, pent-up breath. As Sebastian Sterling—the golden boy of Haven City’s elite—retreated in a state of shattered dignity, the vacuum he left behind was filled with an almost frantic energy. The remaining representatives of the city's high society, people who usually moved with the slow, calculated arrogance of apex predators, were suddenly looking for the nearest exit.
The spectacle of Sebastian’s downfall had been more than just a social scandal; it was a tectonic shift in the power landscape. No one wanted to be the next target of Conrad Stone’s enigmatic protector, that silent, lethal shadow known as Phoenix. One by one, the scions of old money and the moguls of new industry rose from their velvet-cushioned seat
