Dane's POV:The windshield exploded, shards spraying across my face, slicing hot against my skin. Vichy screamed, high, broken, terrified. A man's arm shoved through the shattered glass, rough and forceful, snapping the lock in an instant. The door flew open, icy wind slamming into me along with the stench of cigarette smoke.
I didn't even have time to cry out before a hand clamped around my wrist and yanked me out of the seat. My head hit the doorframe, a sharp crack. My ears rang. The world spun. Snow swallowed my ankles, freezing, numbing. My whole body shook violently.
The man with the cigarette crushed the butt under his heel, stepped forward, and in a gravelly voice that almost sounded like amusement, said:"Sorry, miss. But Lord Brian… doesn't like to wait."
I lifted my head. Blood and cigarette smoke merged in the air, thick enough to choke on. In the dim beam of the headlights, he crouched, eyes cold and gray and I suddenly understood he didn't need to shout or threaten. Just standing there was enough to convince me I might die here.
The snow was so deep that every step I tried to take sank me further. Two men in black suits dragged me forward, their grip like iron clamps. Behind us, Vichy was being hauled away too, her sobs dissolving into the wind that howled through the trees. Everything around us was a blur of darkness, headlights cutting long scars of light across the snow light that gleamed on the spreading pool of the driver's blood.
I clawed at one of the men, my nails tearing through his leather glove. He shoved me down in response, and my knees hit the ice so hard the pain shot through my bones.
Then I heard footsteps.
Slow. Steady. Heavy, but never hurried the footsteps of someone who has never needed to run from anything.
I lifted my head. And my heart stopped.
Brian stood there.
Under the pale yellow glow of the headlights, he looked almost unreal. The wind pushed his hair across his cheek: dark gold strands brushing against skin carved with impossible symmetry. His long black coat swayed behind him, the high collar hiding half his face. Tall. Sharp. Impossibly composed. Beautiful in a way that felt cruel. Like something sculpted from cold stone, not meant to be touched by warmth.
His eyes, icy blue, glimmered like a frozen lake under moonlight, and in them, I saw my own terror reflected back at me.Power. Alluring. And born from fear.
He approached with unhurried steps, the faint scent of mint and smoke drifting with him along with that unmistakable metallic trace I always associated with Brian.
"B… Brian…" My voice cracked, dissolving into my breath. "You came… because of Majori, didn't you? I didn't mean to! I just… I just wanted to teach her a lesson, so that Vincent would..."
A hand lifted.
That was all. Just that.And every word in my throat died instantly.
The guard let go of me, and Brian crouched.He placed two fingers under my chin, lifting it gently, so gently it made my stomach twist. His fingers were cold, metal-cold, chilling my skin.
He studied me with a slow, attentive gaze, the way someone might look at a small creature trembling before the knife.
"Dane, Dane…" he murmured, voice soft enough to shiver. "You're shaking so much, I almost feel sorry for you."
Tears spilled from my eyes.
"I… I only did it to help you. Vincent won't willingly let Majori go. He won't. I know him. That's why I..."
I felt the colors drain from my face. I tried to steel myself, to hide the horror clawing at my insides, but Brian was not a man you could hide anything from. I tried invoking Vincent to intimidate him. It didn't work. And whatever courage I had left evaporated the moment he looked at me again.
"Dane," Brian interrupted, the corner of his mouth twitching. "We're family. Why should you be this frightened?"
His fingers brushed my cheek: cold, gliding slow enough to raise every hair on my arms.Colder than the falling snow.
"F-family what…" I tried to laugh. Tried. My hands were pressed against the ice, fingers numb and red, but I didn't feel the cold. The heat in my skull drowned everything else.
"There's no outsider here," Brian said. "Why pretend?"
He turned his hand, gripping my chin with a sudden, chilling precision. His palm felt like a blade pressed to my throat, one wrong twitch and he could snap it.
"I don't know what you're talking about," I forced out. "If you lay a hand on me, it'll be an official war between the packs."
"Oh?"His voice held no rise, no fall. But something in it squeezed my lungs.
He tilted his head slightly, the faintest gleam passing through his eyes.
"But you know, Dane… there are certain things I don't like people forgetting. Especially debts."
I froze.
"What… debt?"
Brian was silent for a long moment. Then, in a voice warm and horrifyingly gentle, he said:
"Your father."
Everything around me stopped.The wind.The snow.The world.
I stared at him, shaking my head, trying to inch back but before I could move even a hair, his fist tangled in my hair and yanked me forward, forcing my eyes into his.
"What did your father do that you don't know?" Brian asked.
"He… he died for the righteous cause… he stood against the cruelty of the crown, he..."
Brian laughed.
Not loudly.Not wildly.A quiet, metallic sound like a knife dragged across steel.
"Righteous cause?" he repeated, tasting each word. "You really think a polished lie can turn him into a hero? How adorable. Imagine what Vincent would say if he learned the truth. Wouldn't that be fun?"
I shook my head, breath choking in my throat.
"You're lying."
"No."Brian leaned in, breath warm and cold all at once: mint, smoke, and winter."If your memory is slipping… allow me to refresh it."
"Your father was mine. My man. My piece on the board. He was fed, protected, raised into power by me. And then he thought himself clever enough to betray me. To build a faction of his own.A pity I discovered it early."
I tried to pull back, but his grip tightened.
"Do you know how he died?" Brian whispered."I killed him. Me. No one else."
My breath vanished.My limbs went numb.His words pierced straight into my chest.
Yes. I knew.I remembered the rope around my father's neck. The will that wasn't his handwriting. The lies I crafted to wash his name clean. The invented "martyrdom," the "heroic stand," the noble death all forged by me.
Because Brian had just inherited his title, and I found the perfect moment to twist the truth.To survive.To keep my family's estate from being devoured by my uncles.To make myself worthy of Vincent's and Ryder's pity, their protection.
Brian looked at me with detached calm.
"Don't look at me that way, Dane. He deserved it. He tried selling my secrets for a chance at fame. And you… poor little you… the daughter of a traitor, clinging to your delusion of a righteous lineage."
He tilted my head further back.
"I almost pitied you at that funeral, you know."