Every head in the room turned toward the voice. A woman approached from across the banquet hall, her bearing unmistakably aristocratic. She moved with the unhurried grace of someone who had never once been denied anything in her life, each step deliberate, each gesture radiating the cold confidence of absolute authority.
The woman was none other than Vivian Sterling, the undisputed power behind the Sterling family.
At her side walked a man even broader than Gideon. His skin was sun-darkened, his hair cropped close to the scalp, and his eyes burned with an almost unnatural intensity, as though live current ran behind them. His temples bulged visibly, the telltale sign of someone who had trained their body to its utmost lethal potential. Anyone with even a passing knowledge of combat could
