Content Warning

This chapter contains explicit threats, blasphemy, non-graphic violence, psychological manipulation, and emotional coercion. Reader discretion is advised.

Damien Sinclair did not believe in repeated warnings, but he did believe in demonstrations. Nicholas understood this with absolute clarity when the impact threw him onto the asphalt. It was a carefully calculated lesson, according to the lawyer. The brief screech of metal, the dull thud of a body hitting the ground, the pain spreading through his side without becoming lethal. Everything was measured. Nothing was improvised.

Damien wasn’t trying to finish him off completely, but to break him.

When Nicholas opened his eyes, the world was a blur of lights and shadows. The first thing he made out was a pair of immaculate shoes, far too polished for that place.

Then, a familiar voice —calm, almost kind.

“Easy,” he said. “We’re not going to kill you, although… Sebastian doesn’t know yet that you and Noah… got intimate. He himself would have taken my driver’s place.”

Damien crouched in front of him, filling his entire field of vision.

“But if I’m honest, that would be… unproductive. And erasing traces is tedious, besides the fact that Sebastian is still an impulsive and stupid man.”

Nicholas tried to sit up, but the pain in his side tore an involuntary groan from him. Damien watched him with clinical interest, as if evaluating an experiment.

“What do you… want?” Nicholas managed to ask, clenching his teeth.

Damien smiled faintly.

“For you to understand your place.”

He pulled out his phone and showed him the screen. A recent image: Noah entering the gym alongside Sebastian. The closeness between them wasn’t intimate, but it was ambiguous enough to plant doubt and fear.

“He thinks he’s already won,” Damien continued. “He thinks setting boundaries makes him untouchable. But Sebastian will make sure to remind him how things really work.”

A deep cold settled in Nicholas’s chest.

“Fuck. Don’t… involve him… anymore,” he said with difficulty.

“Too late,” Damien replied. “Now you’re the variable.”

He stood up and, before leaving, picked up Nicholas’s phone, still lying on the ground.

“I’m not going to make this easy for you,” he added. “Disappear, or he’ll pay the price for your stubbornness.”

The message lingered in the air long after Damien was gone.

***

At the same time, Sebastian entered the gym with a terrifying calm.

Noah followed a few steps behind him, his body on constant alert. He had tried to call Nicholas several times. No answer. The silence of the phone weighed on him more than any direct threat.

“You wouldn’t want my men to go get my mother-in-law and pull her out of the hospital,” Sebastian said mockingly, without looking at him, clearly referring to Claire. “Or would you?”

Noah stopped short. He went pale. Swallowed hard. His mother. Nicholas. Everything he cared about was at stake, and for now, he had no room to resist.

The gym was empty.

Damien had made sure to clear it out hours earlier. Their footsteps echoed through the wide space as they headed toward Nicholas’s training room. The lights were on only in the central area, casting long, distorted shadows.

Sebastian leaned against a wall, very close to a punching bag, as if the place belonged to him.

“Great,” he said. “Here we can talk more calmly.”

However, Noah didn’t move forward. He narrowed his eyes, analyzing his movements.

“Where is Nicholas?”

Sebastian tilted his head, a twisted, cynical smile on his face.

“Alive,” he replied. “For now.”

The urge to step back was immediate, but Noah didn’t.

“This is between you and me,” he said. “Leave him out of it. Him and my mother.”

Sebastian laughed softly, without humor.

“No,” he replied. “This is between what you lost… and what you refuse to give back to me.”

He took one step closer.

“I gave you a place,” he continued. “I gave you… several chances. And you traded them for someone you barely know.”

“No,” Noah corrected firmly. “I traded them for myself.”

Sebastian studied him carefully, as if measuring him again, recalculating.

“We could still fix this,” he said. “Come back. Say you were wrong, and I’ll… take care of them.”

Noah’s silence was absolute.

“I’m not going to choose you,” he finally said. “Not even if I ended up alone.”

That was what broke something in Sebastian.

His eyes hardened.

“Then you’ll lose everything,” he whispered. “As always.”

And in that instant, Noah knew there was no turning back. He had to prepare himself and take a stance to strike back.