The low, frantic hum of the satellite phone sat on the mahogany desk like a live grenade. Viktor’s voice, distorted by the high-altitude interference of the Andes, had turned the morning air from celebratory to lethal in a matter of seconds. The "Stellaris" files—my father’s final, poisoned legacy—were no longer just a map to a vault of shattered emeralds; they were a systemic kill-switch designed to incinerate the underworld from the inside out.
Roman didn't move for a heartbeat, his hand still anchored to my waist, his thumb tracing the curve of my hip with a possessiveness that defied the chaos erupting through the speaker. He looked at me, his eyes two shards of grey ice, searching my face for a flicker of the girl who had once feared him. He found nothing but the cold, sharpening foc
