The mahogany door didn't just open—it *exploded*.
A mob of Xavier's fans poured through like a pack of rabid wolves, led by a girl whose cotton-candy pink hair matched the violence blazing in her eyes. She clutched a glass bottle like it was Excalibur pulled from stone, her face twisted with the kind of righteous fury that toppled kingdoms and started holy wars.
"VIVIAN NING!" Her voice cracked like a bullwhip across marble. "You lying, scheming bitch! You destroyed my Xavier with your fake evidence!"
The shrill sound hit Lucien like a sledgehammer to the base of his skull.
His vision bled red at the edges. The prayer beads in his white-knuckled grip snapped like vertebrae, thousand-dollar agarwood scattering across Italian marble like drops of liquid amber. The air pressure in the room plummeted as something primal and apocalyptic stirred behind his storm-gray eyes.
Marcus felt his knees buckle, cold sweat breaking across his forehead. *He's going to slaughter them all. Every last one.*
The security team tensed, hands moving instinctively toward concealed weapons. They'd seen their boss in this state exactly twice before. Both times had required extensive cleanup crews and sealed NDAs that would make the CIA jealous.
But before Lucien could unleash hell, Vivian was there.
Her hands clamped over his ears in one fluid motion, pulling his head down to her shoulder like she was sheltering him from a hurricane. Her body became his shield, her voice a whispered prayer of salvation against his temple.
"Don't listen to the poison. They're nothing. Less than nothing."
The effect was instantaneous and miraculous. Lucien's rigid muscles slowly unlocked, his ragged breathing evening out as the toxic cacophony faded to blessed silence. His arms came up to circle her waist with desperate hunger, pulling her closer until there was no space between them, his face buried in the curve of her neck like she was his personal sanctuary in a world gone mad.
Marcus's jaw hit the floor hard enough to crack teeth. His untouchable, violence-prone boss—the man who'd once hospitalized three grown men for breathing too loudly during a board meeting—was being *gentled*. Like a feral wolf finally finding its pack, or a demon discovering grace.
The other fans pressed closer, phones raised like weapons, livestreaming every second of what they thought would be Vivian's public destruction. The viewer count was climbing past eight million and rising.
Pink Hair's face contorted with rage at being ignored, her features twisting into something barely human. "LOOK AT ME WHEN I'M TALKING TO YOU!"
She raised the bottle higher, the liquid inside sloshing ominously like liquid death. "You think you're untouchable because you're fucking some rich psycho? This is concentrated sulfuric acid! I'm going to melt that pretty face right off your skull and see how much he wants you then!"
Vivian didn't even blink. She kept her body positioned between the threat and Lucien like a human shield, one hand still covering his ear, the other stroking his dark hair with surprising tenderness. Her voice remained steady, almost conversational.
"That's a very impressive performance. Tell me, how much did Vivienne Lin pay you for this little show?"
**[CHEMICAL ANALYSIS COMPLETE: 98% H2O, 2% FOOD COLORING. CORROSION LEVEL: ZERO. THREAT ASSESSMENT: THEATRICAL ONLY.]**
*Amateur hour. They couldn't even spring for real acid.*
Without breaking her protective stance, Vivian pulled out her phone with her free hand. One tap of her finger, and the studio's massive LED screen blazed to life like a digital billboard of judgment.
A crystal-clear screenshot filled the display—a money transfer app showing Pink Hair receiving five thousand dollars from an account labeled "Lin Shallow," complete with a transaction memo that made the entire room go dead silent:
*"Performance bonus: Additional $5K for permanent facial disfigurement. Make it look real."*
The livestream chat exploded into digital chaos:
*[SHE'S BEEN PAID TO DO THIS]*
*[FAKE ACID ATTACK]*
*[LIN SHALLOW ORCHESTRATED EVERYTHING]*
*[HOLY SHIT THE RECEIPTS ARE REAL]*
*[VIVIAN NING IS A SAVAGE]*
Pink Hair's bottle-wielding hand froze mid-swing, her face cycling through confusion, dawning horror, and finally complete psychological collapse as she realized her entire life had just been destroyed on live television.
"No, no, NO!" She crumpled to her knees like a marionette with severed strings, the harmless bottle rolling away across marble. "Lin said it was just colored water! She said you'd get scared and run away! I didn't know she wanted me to actually hurt you—I thought it was just supposed to be intimidation—"
"You thought five thousand dollars was worth attempted murder?" Vivian's voice cut through the girl's sobs like a surgical scalpel. "Congratulations, sweetheart. You just confessed to conspiracy and assault with intent to maim. On live television. To ten million witnesses across six continents."
Sirens wailed in the distance, growing closer by the second like the approaching footsteps of justice.
As federal agents flooded the room in tactical gear and dragged the sobbing girl away in handcuffs, Vivian finally looked directly into the cameras. Her smile was pure apex predator recognizing wounded prey.
"Let this be a public service announcement to anyone else considering similar career moves," she said, her voice carrying to millions of viewers across the globe. "If you want to come for me, you'd better bring more than pocket change and food coloring. Next time, invest in better help. And better props."
The sirens faded into the night, leaving blessed silence in their wake.
Vivian tried to step back from Lucien's embrace, but his arms tightened around her waist like steel cables, refusing to release their anchor to sanity.
"Not yet." His voice was rough gravel against her neck, raw with need. "The withdrawal hasn't started. I can still hear the echoes."
*Withdrawal?* She almost laughed at the clinical term. *Is that what we're calling this addiction now?*
**[LIFE FORCE: 91% AND CLIMBING. S-CLASS ENERGY SOURCE MAINTAINING OPTIMAL ABSORPTION RATES. RECOMMEND CONTINUED PROXIMITY.]**
She was about to make a sarcastic comment about his dependency issues when her phone buzzed with an incoming message.
The encrypted text that appeared made her blood turn to arctic ice:
*"Midnight. Nightfall Manor. Room 666. Come alone, or mommy's ashes get flushed where they belong—down the toilet with the rest of the trash. You have two hours to decide how much she meant to you."*
The casual cruelty of it hit her like a physical blow to the solar plexus. Her mother's ashes—the only tangible thing she had left of the woman who'd died protecting her from monsters—being threatened by some faceless coward hiding behind burner phones and anonymous threats.
The protective warmth in Vivian's eyes died like a candle snuffed by arctic wind.
What replaced it was something that made Marcus take an involuntary step backward, his hand moving instinctively toward his concealed weapon.
Pure, concentrated murder.
She shoved Lucien away with enough force to make him stumble, her entire energy shifting from nurturing protector to apex predator in the space of a single heartbeat. The temperature in the room seemed to drop ten degrees, frost forming on the windows despite the summer heat outside.
"Marcus." Her voice could have frozen molten steel into submission. "Car. Now. Full tactical loadout."
"Ma'am, I should mention that—"
"Someone just signed their own death warrant in blood." She pocketed the phone, her smile sharp enough to perform open-heart surgery. "Time to collect what they owe."
Lucien straightened slowly, his own predator instincts recognizing the fundamental shift in her energy signature. The sudden absence of her calming presence left him raw and exposed, but utterly fascinated by this new facet of her personality.
"What happened?" His voice carried genuine concern beneath the curiosity.
Vivian's laugh was soft and absolutely terrifying—the sound a blade might make sliding between ribs, or a guillotine falling on a tyrant's neck.
"Someone thinks they can threaten what's sacred to me and wake up tomorrow to see the sunrise." She headed for the door with predatory grace, pausing only to look back over her shoulder with eyes like winter storms. "Don't wait up, boss. I have a funeral to arrange."
The promise in her voice made even Lucien's blood run cold with anticipation.
*God help whoever's waiting for her,* he thought as she disappeared into the night like an avenging angel. *They have absolutely no idea what kind of hell is coming for them.*