The sudden, sharp snap of the leather file echoed through the vast executive suite like a gunshot.
David had deliberately closed the folder with his heavy gold fountain pen trapped inside, crushing the pages. The clinical, professional facade vanished in an instant. He slowly pushed himself up from his sweeping glass desk, his tall frame cutting through the harsh morning light that flooded the floor-to-ceiling windows.
The atmosphere in the room shifted violently. The cold, air-conditioned space suddenly felt suffocatingly hot, the oxygen draining out of the room as if the temperature had spiked. The heavy scent of David's expensive cedarwood cologne mixed with the lingering ghost of fresh garden flowers on Bryan's sleeves, creating an intoxicating, pressurized tension that made it impossible to breathe.
David stepped out from behind the desk, taking slow, deliberate strides toward him.
His face was a terrifying, unreadable mask, but his eyes gave him away. Dark, intense, and bloodshot around the edges, they burned with the raw, volatile agony of a man who believed he had just been betrayed in love. There was no corporate authority left in those eyes—only a jagged, possessive pain that cut deeper than anger.
With every step David took forward, the floorboards seemed to vibrate with a dark, suffocating gravity.
And Bryan stood entirely paralyzed. The bold, untouchable playboy who usually laughed in the face of danger was gone. Standing there in his impeccably tailored beige suit, his chest heaving with shallow breaths, Bryan looked pathetically small. He shrank back beneath the crushing weight of David's gaze, frozen in place like a terrified kitten cowering before a mercifully silent master, unable to run, unable to hide, and utterly at the mercy of the man approaching him.
They stood separated by a single hand's distance—so close that Bryan could feel the intense, radiating heat coming off David's body. The silence in the vast office was deafening, heavy with the suffocating weight of seven long months of unsaid words, toxic jealousy, and lingering phantom touches.
"Bryan," David commanded, his voice a low, gravelly whisper that cut straight through the pressurized air. "Look at me."
Bryan's chest hitched. Slowly, agonizingly, he forced his chin up. His wide, terrified eyes locked onto David's, completely stripped of his playboy defense, exposing every ounce of his vulnerability.
And in that split second, David cracked.
The moment their eyes collided, the terrifying, cold Sovereign vanished. The sheer intensity of Bryan's gaze hit David like a physical blow to the chest, making his heart hammer violently against his ribs. It was too much. It was agonizing to see the man who had stolen his first kiss, the man who had been smiling at another woman just an hour ago, looking at him with such soft, pleading eyes.
Unable to hold the gaze without exposing how completely unraveled he was, David jerked his head away.
He broke the connection, turning his back on Bryan as if the sight of him was physically painful. David dragged his heavy, exhausted steps toward the leather sofa across the room, sinking into it as though the emotional weight of the moment had suddenly drained all his physical strength. He leaned back, resting his arm against the armrest, staring blindly at the glass coffee table to keep his trembling composure intact.
"Do you... do you really think that the Mathews are stupid?" David asked, his voice shaking with a dangerous mixture of wounded pride and raw, suffocating obsession. He swallowed hard, the words catching painfully in his throat. "That you can just... mess with me, step into my life, and then simply disappear?"
Bryan opened his mouth, the word sorry hanging heavy on the tip of his tongue. He took a hesitant half-step toward the sofa, ready to throw away his pride and confess how cowardice had kept him hidden for seven agonizing months.
"David, I—"
"And who was that woman in the traffic with you?" David interrupted, his voice dropping into a razor-sharp, quiet bite before Bryan could even finish his sentence.
The sentence hung in the heavy, air-conditioned space between them, thick and suffocating.
Bryan froze mid-step, his brows pulling together in sheer, unadulterated confusion. The words were so entirely out of nowhere, so wildly disconnected from the cold corporate execution he had been expecting, that his brain completely short-circuited. He stood paralyzed in his tailored beige suit, his eyes wide, his lips parted in absolute speechlessness.
He didn't answer. He couldn't answer. He was still trying to process how the ruthless heir of the Mathew Empire—a man who had just delayed a high-stakes executive meeting—knew anything about a five-minute stop at a chaotic sidewalk flower shop.
Across the room, David sat rigidly on the dark leather sofa, his jaw clenched so tightly the muscle ticked. He didn't look up, but the suffocating silence from Bryan was like salt poured directly into an open wound. David had just exposed his deepest, most humiliating secret: he had been watching. He had been tracking. And beneath all the dark authority and corporate grandstanding, he was completely losing his mind over a bouquet of sunflowers and a stranger's smile.
When the silence stretched too long, David couldn't take the agonizing suspense anymore. He supplied the answer himself, his voice dropping into a cold, flat register designed to act as armor against his own bleeding pride.
"So," David said, the words tasting like ash in his mouth. "You're dating someone, right?"
Bryan lightly tilted his head up, his eyes searching David's profile for any sign of a joke or a trap. On the surface, David maintained his usual, unreadable composure—his posture rigid against the leather sofa, his gaze fixed blankly ahead. But as Bryan looked closer, he caught the one subtle detail David couldn't mask.
The muscle in David's jaw was flexing violently, his back teeth grinding together so hard the strain was visible along his neck.
It was a quiet, dangerous physical betrayal. David was standing at the absolute edge of his sanity, consumed by a green-eyed, possessive rage over a woman who didn't even exist.
And yet, the tragedy of the room remained absolute. David was consumed by a suffocating, violent jealousy, while Bryan stood there entirely dense, completely missing the fact that the terrifying heir of the Mathew Empire was unspooling solely because of him. Both of them were hopelessly trapped in the gravity of feelings they refused to name—two stubborn men standing in the ruins of their own denial, entirely blind to the love staring them directly in the face.
..
..
The university canteen was drowning in a deafening, chaotic roar.
Plates clattered loudly against laminate tables, plastic trays slid across metal counters, and the heavy, rich scent of freshly fried snacks hung thick in the warm afternoon air. Scattered across the crowded hall, groups of students were locked in intense, animated discussions over their upcoming group projects. On one side of the room, high-strung overachievers leaned forward with eyes sparkling with frantic excitement, furiously scribbling notes into open laptops.
On the other side, exhausted, sleepy-eyed students slouched low in their chairs, openly groaning under the suffocating weight of endless assignments and looming deadlines.
In the middle of all the academic chaos, however, a juicy new topic was quietly circulating from table to table—the newly appointed canteen staff member working behind the counter.
He certainly wasn't a jaw-dropping beauty who could hold a candle to the elite, untouchable figures on campus. Yet, as the students watched him wipe down counters and hand out lunch trays with a quiet, easygoing smile, the consensus was clear. Compared to the notoriously bitter, hot-tempered old man who used to run the register, this new guy was practically a godsend. He was undeniably better looking, surprisingly polite, and far gentler in his behavior—a refreshing change of pace that gave the tired students one extra reason to linger over their lunch break.
Behind the steam-fogged glass counter of the crowded canteen, Steven forced a rigid, practiced smile onto his face as he slid a plastic tray toward another giggling student.
Inside, however, his blood was boiling.
This humiliating assignment was entirely Dr. Arthur's doing. The doctor had pulled the necessary strings to plant Steven directly inside the university's beating heart, giving him the perfect vantage point to monitor Win and the formidable men surrounding him. The objective was simple, yet insanely dangerous: track Win's every move, map out his routine, and find the one fleeting, golden window of vulnerability to snatch the boy away.
For a man like Steven, who had spent his entire adult life doing ruthless, violent work in the dark underbelly of the city, working a service job was an absolute living hell.
Metal spoons clattered violently against the tile floor for the third time that morning, followed immediately by the acrid, telltale smell of charred flour wafting from the industrial toaster behind the counter.
Steven cursed under his breath, yanking out two black, smoking slices of bread and dumping them into the trash bin. His calloused fingers—built for grips, triggers, and precise physical force—were completely useless when it came to the delicate, rhythmic speed required for kitchen work. He was utterly, pathetically out of his element.
Out in the dining hall, the student body's reactions were instantly split down the middle.
A group of freshman girls sitting near the counter giggled into their sleeves, finding his blushing frustration and awkward clumsiness oddly endearing. "Look at him," one whispered, watching him fumble with a stack of trays. "He's kind of cute when he's stressed."
On the other side of the counter, however, an exhausted senior waiting for his breakfast rolled his eyes hard, tapping his foot in sheer annoyance. "Is this guy serious?" he muttered loudly to his friend. "It's a university canteen, not a training kitchen. How hard is it to toast bread without burning the building down? They should really teach these guys basic manners and skills before letting them serve paying students."
Steven heard every single word.
He stood up slowly, tossing the dirty metal spoons into the sink with a heavy clatter. Tucking his hands into the pockets of his apron, Steven took a slow, grounding breath, forcing his dark rage back beneath the surface.
To the giggling freshman and impatient seniors scattered across the dining hall, he was just an awkward, hopelessly clumsy newcomer who couldn't even toast a slice of bread without burning it.
Then, the heavy glass doors swung open, and the mood in the canteen shifted instantly.
Win walked in surrounded by his inner circle, their arrival drawing quiet glances from every corner of the crowded hall. They moved with an easy, effortless air, bypassing the hot food counters entirely to order a round of iced drinks before casually making their way toward a large table near the back.
Once seated, the group plunged into a chaotic storm of non-stop chatter. Laughing, teasing, and talking over one another, they bounced wildly from one topic to the next—abandoning previous arguments mid-sentence as if they had never existed at all. To any onlooker, they were the picture of carefree youth, completely insulated from the dark realities of the outside world.
From behind the service counter, Steven's eyes narrowed, tracking every single movement through the crowd like a hawk locking onto its prey.
Then came the opening he had been praying for.
"I need to go to the washroom," Win said, sliding his cold glass across the table and starting to push his chair back.
Before Win's feet even fully planted on the floor, Justin stood up instantly, his wooden chair scraping sharply against the laminate tiles.
"Me too."
"Let him be alone for once," John said, reaching out to catch Justin by the wrist before he could step away from the table.
Justin hesitated, staring at John's grip for a long second. He let out a sharp, restless sigh, pulling his hand back and sinking heavily into his chair. "Fine. But if he takes more than five minutes, I'm going after him."
They sat back down, picking up their iced drinks and trying to fall back into their rapid-fire conversation. But as the minutes slowly ticked by, an uncomfortable, heavy silence began to bleed into the group. The subject changes slowed down. Laughter died away.
Every few seconds, Justin's eyes flicked toward the narrow corridor leading to the washrooms, his knee bouncing nervously beneath the table.
Win wasn't coming back.
Ten minutes turned into fifteen. The air at the table grew suffocatingly dense.
Unable to take the agonizing delay any longer, Justin pushed back his chair so hard it clattered loudly against the floorboards. He sprinted toward the washroom corridor, the rest of the group scrambling to follow close behind his heels.
He threw the heavy washroom door open—and froze.
There was no body. No trace of Win. There was only blood.
The entire washroom was a horrific, chaotic mess. Thick, dark crimson was smeared across the porcelain sinks, splattered violently against the tiled walls, and pooling on the cold floorboards as if a desperate struggle had taken place in total silence.
The horrific sight hit them like a physical blow. Samantha covered her mouth, her breath hitching before she dissolved into hysterical, chest-heaving sobs. With trembling, ice-cold hands, she fumbled her phone out of her pocket, her vision blurred by tears as she dialed the one person who controlled their world.
The call connected on the very first ring.
Samantha's voice came through the speaker, but it wasn't the hysterical scream David might have expected from a stranger. It was worse. It was hollow, brittle, and trembling so violently that the words barely held together.
She stood frozen in the doorway of the washroom, staring at the crimson nightmare on the floorboards, her mind entirely paralyzed by shock. She was on the absolute precipice of breaking down, her throat tight and dry, her heart hammering so hard against her ribs that she couldn't even catch enough breath to cry.
"Mr. Mark..." she whispered into the receiver, her voice unnatural, flat, and vibrating with pure, unadulterated terror. "Win is... Win is nowhere to be found. And there is... there is only blood here."
She swallowed hard, a ragged, shivering breath escaping her lips as she pressed the cold phone harder against her ear, begging for an adult, a authority—anyone—to take the nightmare away.
"I... I don't know what to do now," she whispered, her fragile composure fracturing at the edges, voice wavering like thin ice ready to snap. "Please... please just come here."
The moment those shattered words registered in Mark's mind, the thin veneer of his human restraint completely snapped.
Whatever calm, calculating executive had existed moments prior vanished into thin air, replaced by a dark, violent instinct that made the room itself feel suddenly ice-cold. He didn't utter a single word. He simply cut the call, spun on his heel, and stormed out through the executive exit, his long, heavy strides tearing through the corridor like an impending storm—leaving a trail of suffocating silence in his wake.
He threw himself into his car, slammed his foot onto the accelerator, and tore out of the parking structure. He drove like a man possessed—swerving recklessly through traffic, ignoring every red light, as if the Grim Reaper itself were sitting in the passenger seat beside him, whispering for blood.
With one hand white-knuckling the steering wheel, Mark used the other to speed-dial Daniel.
The phone barely chimed before Daniel answered. Mark didn't give him time to speak, his voice dropping into an icy, unhinged register that carried no trace of his usual discipline.
"Get to the university. Now."
On the other end, Daniel paused, instantly picking up on the lethal edge in Mark's breath. "What happened? Mark, talk to me—"
"I don't have time to explain," Mark cut him off, his eyes dark and fixed on the stretch of highway blurring ahead of him. "Something happened at the university. Just get there right now."
He ended the call before Daniel could push for details, pressing the pedal all the way to the floorboard. Inside his chest, a dark, suffocating rage was building. Win wasn't just missing—the blood in that washroom meant someone had dared to touch the Mathew family's most sacred treasure. And whoever did it was about to find out what happens when the monsters step out of the shadows.
When Mark pulled up to the university campus, the air felt heavy with an unnatural silence.
He didn't walk toward the canteen building—he moved like an oncoming storm, his long, deliberate strides slicing through the whisper-filled corridors. As he approached the washroom wing, he found a anxious crowd of students gathered at a distance,
murmuring in hushed, fearful tones. But sitting alone on the cold tile floor just outside the corridor was Samantha.
She was a picture of total human collapse.
Her back was pressed against the wall, her knees drawn tightly to her chest, and her entire frame trembling uncontrollably. Her hands and legs shook with violent tremors, her face entirely drained of color as she stared blankly at the floor, trapped inside the nightmare playing behind her eyes.
Mark stopped right in front of her. His tall shadow fell over her small, shaking figure, cutting off the harsh fluorescent lights above.
He didn't shout. He didn't lose his composure. He simply crouched down to her level, his voice dropping into a low, deadly quiet register that carried the weight of an absolute order.
"Tell me now," Mark said, his dark eyes locked onto her trembling form. "What happened?"
..
..