02:03. The Grand Obsidian was quiet. Too quiet. The maintenance log was closed. Suite 14B was dark. The cameras showed nothing. My override had held. But my blood was singing. I felt it the second I stepped into the service corridor on sub-level 2. That prickle. That wrongness. The kind that had kept me alive through three council purges and one fratricide. Someone had been on my floor. Not staff. Staff smell like bleach and fear. This smelled like old earth. Expensive tobacco. Alistair. And underneath it, something else. Gun oil. Rain. The faint copper of a vampire who hadn’t fed in two days. Marcus. Alistair’s chief enforcer. He’d been watching the window. 02:04. I didn’t go to my office. I didn’t call security. If I involved the hotel, there would be a paper trail. A record. Questions. Neutrality meant no questions. Neutrality meant the Grand Obsidian was Switzerland with bloodwine. Neutrality was the only thing keeping my empire standing. I took the freight elevator down. Alone. The doors opened onto the alley behind the hotel. Rain always tasted like copper in Monsteria. Tonight it tasted like a mistake. The alley was black glass and steam from the vents. Crimson neon from the street bled down the brick in violent slashes. Puddles reflected the skyline like broken knives. And at the far end, by the dumpsters, a shadow moved. Tall. Broad. Coat too heavy for the weather. Marcus. He hadn’t seen me yet. He had a burner phone in his hand. The screen was lit. One thumb hovering over the call button. Alistair’s number. My heart didn’t race. It never did. But something in my chest went cold. Colder than usual. If he made that call, Elspeth was done. Three hours of acoustic calibration would become kidnapping. Harboring a fugitive. Treason against the Vance dynasty. Alistair would take her hands tonight. And mine after. The contract was clear: _If she strays from the penthouse..._ She had strayed. Because of me. I stepped out of the shadows. No sound. That was the point of Kade boots. Of a century of discipline. Marcus didn’t turn. Not until I was three meters behind him. Then he froze. “CEO Kade,” he said. Voice rough. He didn’t turn around. “Didn’t know you did your own maintenance checks.” “I don’t,” I said. The word echoed off the brick. Marcus turned slowly. He was smiling. Not a nice smile. The smile of a man who’d been paid to watch and was about to get paid more to talk. “Rain’s bad tonight,” he said. Lifted the phone. “Was just about to call in. Report some irregularities.” My hands stayed at my sides. Clasped behind my back. The posture. Control. “How much is he paying you to lie, Marcus?” I asked. “More than you pay me to look the other way.” He shrugged. “Business is business. And the boss says the girl’s been sneaking out.” He took a step back. Toward the street. Toward witnesses. Toward noise. If he got to the street, I couldn’t touch him. Not without cameras. Not without war. I moved. --- Pureblood speed isn’t fast. Fast is what werewolves do. What humans see and call a blur. Pureblood speed is absence. One second I was three meters away. The next my hand was around Marcus’s throat and his back was hitting brick. The impact cracked something. His ribs. The wall. Both. Water from the brick sprayed across my suit. His phone clattered to the wet ground. The screen cracked. “Ghh—” I had him pinned by the throat, six inches off the ground. My other hand was flat against his sternum. I could feel his heart. Too fast. Human-fast. Fear. Good. “Listen to me,” I said. My voice was quiet. It was always quiet when I was angry. “You saw nothing tonight. You were in the north wing. Dealing with a drunk warlock. Got it?” Marcus choked. Tried to laugh. “You... you can’t... neutral, right? That’s your whole thing, Kade.” His eyes flicked to my hand. To the blood on my knuckles from the goblet two nights ago. The cut had reopened. “You touch me,” he wheezed, “and you’re not neutral anymore. You’re a combatant. You’re in the war.” He was right. That was the problem. For twenty years I had been the man in the middle. The hotelier. The one who hosted the treaties. The one who never picked a side. The second I put my hands on Alistair’s man, that ended. The Kade name would be dragged into the Vance war. My mother’s voice, cold in my head: _“We do not dilute the bloodline for weakness, Damian.”_ Julian’s voice, wet and dying: _“Forgive me.”_ Elspeth’s voice, from two hours ago: _“Three hours. To pretend I'm not cattle.”_ I tightened my grip. Marcus’s face was going purple. His hands scrabbled at my wrist. Useless. I was older. Stronger. Pureblood. “I can make this look like a mugging,” I said. “Werewolves in the freight district. Happens all the time. No one will ask questions.” “Then do it,” Marcus gasped. “But it won’t matter. I already sent the message.” Lie. His phone was on the ground. Cracked. No signal bars. “Try again,” I said. He did laugh then. Wet. Ugly. “You think you’re the only one who knows how to watch? We’ve had eyes on your ‘maintenance’ for a week, Kade. The car. The garage. The girl’s room going dark at 23:00 every night.” The alley tilted. A week. That meant Alistair knew before the banquet. Before the wine. Before I broke the glass. He’d been testing me. The burned hand. The public humiliation. All of it to see if I’d crack. And I had. Sickening dread pooled in my stomach. Acid. Cold. My reputation. Twenty years of absolute neutrality. Gone because of three hours in a warehouse and one girl with a broken violin. “Why?” I asked. I didn’t let go. “Why her? She’s sixteen. She’s nothing.” “Nothing?” Marcus coughed blood onto my sleeve. “She’s a Vance. And she’s got that fire. Same fire Julian had. You remember Julian, don’t you, CEO?” My grip spasmed. Marcus’s eyes widened. He saw it. The crack. “You killed him for less,” Marcus whispered. “And now you’re protecting her for the same reason. Sentiment. Weakness. Your mother would be so proud.” I should have killed him. One twist. Clean. Dump the body in the river. Tell the council it was werewolves. That’s what the old Damian would have done. But the old Damian didn’t hear violin music in his sleep. The old Damian didn’t feel heat when a sixteen-year-old girl took his hand. I dropped him. Marcus hit the puddle hard. Sucking in air like a drowning man. I stepped back. Wiped my bloody hand on my pants. The charcoal was ruined. “Get up,” I said. “And walk away. Tell Alistair you lost me in the rain. Tell him anything. But if I see you near my hotel again, neutrality ends.” Marcus pushed himself up on one elbow. Water and blood ran down his face. He was looking at me like I was a stranger. Like I was already dead. Then he started laughing. Not the choked laugh from before. A real one. From the gut. It echoed down the alley. “What’s funny?” I asked. He got to his feet. Slow. Hurt. But standing. “You,” he said. “You think this is about tonight? About the warehouse?” He bent, picked up his cracked phone. It was dead. “Doesn’t matter,” he said. Tossed it in the dumpster. “You’re too late, Damian.” He took a step toward me. I didn’t move. “Her father already knows she's missing from her room.” The words hit harder than the wall had. My blood went to ice. “02:03,” Marcus said, checking a watch I hadn’t seen. “Housekeeping did their rounds. Suite 14B. Bed made. Window open. Violin case gone.” He smiled. Teeth red. “Alistair’s already on his way up to the penthouse. With six men. And a silver knife.” The rain kept falling. And for the first time in a century, Damian Kade, CEO of the Grand Obsidian, had no move left.

Chapter 7: Neutrality Bleeds