The news didn't break loudly at first. It seeped. Denied mergers here, frozen accounts there, partnerships quietly "reconsidered."
By midmorning, financial analysts were scrambling, anchors were stumbling over half-confirmed reports, and whispers moved faster than facts ever could.
The Alarics were collapsing. Not in flames or with scandalous arrests or screaming headlines, at least not yet. This was something far more terrifying to those who understood power.
Their access was shrinking. Board invitations rescinded without explanation.
Private banks suddenly "unable" to process requests and political allies distancing themselves as if proximity alone might be contagious.
By noon, the word targeted had begun circulating in hushed tones. By evening, no one doubted it, someone was dismantling the Alarics with precision. Someone patient, someone untouchable.
Keigh stood in his office, jacket discarded, sleeves rolled up, eyes fixed on the floor-to-ceiling screen displaying real-time reports. Damon stood nearby, scrolling through data that only deepened the mystery.
"This is bigger than us," the man said finally. "Much bigger."
Keigh didn't respond right away because he already knew. He had been hitting the Alarics quietly, contracts nudged, pressure applied, leverage used with surgical care. Enough to warn them, enough to slow them.
What was happening now? This wasn't a warning, it was erasure.
"They're being stripped," Keigh said at last, voice low. "Not punished. Removed."
Damon hesitated. "We traced some of the disruptions. They don't lead anywhere. Not shell companies, offshore accounts, not even false trails."
Keigh's jaw tightened.
"Nothing leaves a trail," he said. "It just… stops."
That unsettled him more than open warfare ever could because Keigh Dynamite knew power. He knew how it moved, how it hid, how it retaliated and this?
This moved like a shadow that didn't belong to him.
Across the city and far beyond it, the public was only just beginning to catch on. Talk shows buzzed, financial podcasts exploded with theories. Social media lit up with speculation so wild it bordered on myth.
Some claimed the Alarics had crossed an international syndicate, others whispered about royal displeasure. A few dared to suggest corporate vengeance on a scale no one had seen before.
No one had proof and those who tried to dig deeper found their inquiries stalled politely, firmly, and without explanation.
Keigh didn't care about the noise, he cared about her. The screen shifted, now displaying a live feed from the palace's outer perimeter, routine surveillance, nothing out of place. Nara was safe and guarded, surrounded by layers of protection he trusted.
And yet, he felt it again. That prickle at the base of his spine, that instinct that had kept him alive in rooms where men smiled while planning ruin. Someone else was watching her. Not stalking, not threatening but protecting.
It was there in the club incident, how the culprits vanished before his men could reach them. There in the dead ends every time he tried to trace the interference. There now, in the way the Alarics were being dismantled with a reach that exceeded even his own.
Keigh leaned forward, resting his hands on the desk.
"I want everything," he said quietly. "Any unusual movements near the palace, any unfamiliar security rotations and any requests that didn't come through us."
Damon his personal assistant frowned. "You think there's another player?"
Keigh's eyes darkened.
"I know there is."
And what unsettled him most wasn't the idea of competition. It was the realization that whoever this was didn't see him as an enemy. They moved around him, anticipated him. Cleaned up threats he hadn't even reached yet, as if they had the same goal.
Later that night, Keigh stood alone on his balcony, city lights flickering below. His phone rested in his palm, Nara's last message still glowing on the screen, something light, something excited about the Queen's ideas for the ball.
She had no idea. No idea that empires were shifting because of her. No idea that families were falling and no idea that forces older, quieter, and far more powerful than tabloids or boardrooms had taken an interest in her existence.
Keigh looked out into the dark and exhaled slowly.
"I'll protect you," he murmured, the promise heavy and unyielding.
"No matter who else thinks they already are."
---
Far away, in a palace wrapped in history and secrets, a queen waited for confirmation she already felt in her bones and the world loud, oblivious, and spinning forward, had no idea that everything was about to change.