The heavy, metallic scent of blood and pulverized timber hung in the stagnant air of the Antique Market. Issac Monroe let out a long, weary sigh—a sound that carried the weight of a man who had hoped for a civilized resolution but found only the predictable, violent greed of the mediocre. It was clear now that words were a wasted currency here. Negotiation required a mutual understanding of reality, and the woman before him was living in a self-constructed delusion of grandeur.
“Why must you insist on this?” Issac murmured, his voice barely audible over the groaning of the shop’s structural beams.
He stood perfectly still, his hands tucked loosely into his pockets, looking more like a bored tourist than a man facing a lethal strike. When the Mountain-Crushing Force of Lord York’s palm fi
