Razela didn’t flinch. She nudged the wool-draped bundle of her child toward the nearest frosted-glass alcove, whispering a lethal, two-word instruction under her breath: *Stay hidden.* Then she spun on three-inch stilettos, teeth flashing white and sharp. “A merger, Drystan? Please. You couldn't successfully merge two lanes of light traffic, let alone corporate entities,” Razela purred, smoothing her cuffs. “Though I see your tailor finally learned how to conceal your complete lack of shoulders. Progress looks almost tolerable on you.” Drystan’s oiled smirk curdled at the edges. He shifted his leather portfolio, looking past her to where Zavien stood like an iron statue against the marble colonnade. “Always so performative, Razzy. Zavien, don't tell me you brought my little charity project on board? Last I heard, she was hocking second-rate beryls out of a tenement basement after our… unfortunate parting. She always did confuse raw ambition with actual pedigree.” Zavien’s gaze flickered from the small, red-coated figure tucked safely behind the mezzanine pillar back to Drystan’s throat. His voice sounded like dry gravel dragged across ice. “She is the Morvath Syndicate’s Chief Gemologist. And your ten o’clock appointment is currently wasting my oxygen in the atrium.” “Then let’s move upstairs,” Drystan said, smooth as lard, gesturing toward the express lift. “Before your new hire stains the upholstery.” Inside the sixty-fourth-floor boardroom, the tension could have cut glass. The city sprawled below through floor-to-ceiling quartz panels, sharp and dizzying. Razela felt the faint, sickening tremor deep in her marrow—the familiar burning pang that reminded her the sand in her glass was running low. Five months and twenty-eight days. She swallowed the copper taste in her mouth, plastering on a venomous grin as Drystan opened his presentation case. On the center of the smoked-glass table sat a velvet cushion bearing a rough, uncut specimen the size of a plum, alongside a thick bound dossier. It glowed with a faint, greasy yellowish tint under the overhead halogen beams. “The Crown of Kalmar,” Drystan announced, puffing out his chest. “A fifty-carat fancy vivid yellow diamond from the northern permafrost pipes. Authenticated, pre-graded, and offered exclusively to the Morvath firm for forty-two million before the public auction. It will anchor your winter line.” Zavien leaned back, fingers laced across his knee, posture relaxed yet coiled like a viper. He didn't look at the stone. He looked at Razela. “Chief Gemologist. Verify.” Razela strolled toward the table, her movements languid, insolent. She didn't pick up the stone. She picked up the ledger. “Don’t bother reading the appendices, darling,” Drystan sneered, crossing his arms. “The isotopic analysis is quite technical. Wouldn't want you getting a headache. You always were better at sweeping up the cuttings than reading the spectral plots.” Razela flipped straight to page fourteen, running a manicured crimson nail down the carbon-ratio figures. Her lips parted in a breathless, mocking laugh. “Oh, Drystan. Sweet, incompetent Drystan.” She tossed the heavy dossier flat against the glass with a sharp *crack*. “Did you honestly think I wouldn't notice you slipped an irradiated Russian HPHT synthetic into a certified historic provenance file?” Drystan bristled, color rising rapidly up his starched collar. “Mind your tongue! That certificate comes directly from the Antwerp Guild—” “The certificate is genuine. The stone sitting on that velvet is a counterfeit swap,” Razela interrupted, voice ringing cold and clear through the room. She snatched a handheld ultraviolet emitter from her suit pocket, clicking the beam down directly onto the crystal face. The stone flared with an unnatural, sickly chalk-green luminescence. “Natural type-Ib diamonds with nitrogen dispersion exhibit inert absorption under shortwave UV,” she said, stepping into Drystan's space until he had to lean back against the table. “This hideous lump is fluorescing like a radioactive glow-stick because it spent seventy-two hours inside a hydraulic anvil press in Novosibirsk. Furthermore, your nitrogen defect ratio on page fourteen lists a zero-phonon line at 575 nanometers. That isn't an uncut African rough, Drystan. That’s five hundred dollars’ worth of synthetic industrial grit dressed up in a forty-two-million-dollar suit. Much like yourself.” Drystan stared at the green glow. The blood drained from his face, leaving behind an oily, grayish sheen. “That’s—there must be an administrative error in the transfer depot—” “Get out,” Zavien said. The command wasn’t loud, but it flattened the air in the room. Zavien stood up. Towering, lethal, his dark eyes fixed entirely on Drystan’s trembling hands. “Take your fraudulent rock, take your worthless paper, and remove yourself from my building before I instruct security to throw you through the glass.” Drystan snatched the stone and the dossier, hands shaking so badly the paper tore against the spiral binding. He glared at Razela with pure, venomous hatred before spinning on his heel and bolting toward the boardroom doors. Razela waited until the heavy double doors clicked shut. A sharp stab of nausea ripped through her ribs—her spleen throbbing, a vicious biological reminder of the clock ticking down. She discreetly pressed her elbow into her side, letting out a breezy chuckle. “Well. That was delightfully cathartic. Now, if you’ll excuse me, Zavien, I have a nephew to collect before he eats your potted orchids.” She turned to leave, but Drystan hadn't taken the lift. As soon as she stepped into the private executive corridor, a hand clamped brutally around her upper arm. Drystan yanked her hard toward the service vestibule, slamming her shoulder against the wood-paneled wall. “You miserable little gutter rat,” he spat, his face inches from hers, spray hitting her cheek. “You think you can ruin my firm’s credit rating? I plucked you out of the gutter, Razela! I made you! You think Morvath gives a damn about you? He’ll discard you the second he finds an excuse, and when he does, I will personally see to it that you starve on the pavement—” He never finished the sentence. A hand like an iron vice locked around Drystan’s throat, hoisting him off the carpet and slamming him backward into the opposing wall with bone-jarring force. Zavien stood there, his frame cast in shadow, his grip tightening until Drystan’s heels scraped frantically against the baseboard. Zavien’s face was completely devoid of humanity—a predator operating on raw, territorial savagery. “You laid hands on my employee,” Zavien murmured, his voice deadly soft, his thumb pressing directly into Drystan’s carotid artery. “In my house.” “Zav—Zavien—” Drystan choked, his fingers clawing uselessly at Zavien’s iron wrist. His eyes bulged in pure terror. “If you ever step within five hundred yards of her again,” Zavien whispered, leaning in until their noses nearly brushed, “I won’t just ruin your firm. I will strip your family name down to the bedrock and bury you under the debt. Do you understand me?” Drystan nodded desperately, gasping for air. Zavien released him with contemptuous ease, letting the man crumple into a heap on the carpet. Drystan scrambled backward like a crab, hauled himself up by the brass railing, and sprinted blindly toward the emergency stairwell, vanishing behind the heavy fire doors. Razela smoothed down the sleeve of her silk blouse, her fingers trembling slightly—not from Drystan’s grab, but from the terrifying, unhinged ferocity Zavien had just displayed. She masked it immediately, arching an eyebrow. “My, my. And here I thought the Morvath family valued decorum over street brawls. Did you miss your boxing lesson this morning, Morvath?” Zavien turned around. He adjusted his platinum cufflinks, the feral heat in his dark eyes slowly locking onto her. “He’s hosting the European consortium at the Winter Diamond Gala on Friday,” Zavien said, stepping closer until Razela had to crane her neck to meet his gaze. “He intends to seek an emergency liquidity loan from the Swiss houses to cover the deficit you just handed him.” “Fascinating. Give him my regards,” Razela said, taking a step toward the lift. Zavien blocked her path, planting one broad palm against the wall beside her head. The scent of cedarwood, bitter espresso, and raw danger enveloped her completely. “You’re coming with me,” he commanded, his voice brooking no argument. “As my date.” Razela let out an incredulous laugh. “Excuse me? I’m your Chief Gemologist, Zavien, not your arm candy. I don't do black-tie socialite petting zoos.” “You do if you want to keep your credentials,” Zavien countered, leaning in until his breath brushed the shell of her ear. “We walk in together. You dismantle his European backing in front of every major syndicate house in the hemisphere. We drive the stake through his firm’s heart together. If you refuse, your contract is terminated, your clearance is revoked, and security escorts you and your mysterious ‘nephew’ out into the rain within ten minutes.” Razela ground her molars together. Defiance flared through the ache in her ribs. He was using her, testing her, boxing her in—and she had a five-year-old child downstairs with his exact bone structure waiting for her protection. She looked up into the dark, arrogant depths of the eyes he didn't know he had passed down to her son. “Fine,” Razela whispered, her voice pure poison. “Buy me a dress that costs more than his company, Morvath. I’m going to bleed him dry.”

The Treacherous Ex