Ethan:

  Marriage didn’t change us.

  It amplified us.

  The night we got married, the city didn’t even blink. No headlines. No celebration. Just a rooftop kiss laced with wine and danger, and a pair of rings that meant something far worse than “forever.”

  They meant partnership.

  Celeste and I were no longer just Lysandre and husband.

  We were a unit.

  A storm.

  And the underworld could already smell the shift.

  The old power brokers — the ones who tolerated Vincent’s empire, the ones who whispered about Celeste like she was a cautionary tale — they weren’t ready for both of us.

  Not for her ruthlessness and my strategy.

  Not for the way we moved in sync, like daggers dancing.

  The first night as a married couple?

  We didn’t spend it in bed.

  We spent it working.

  Celeste:

  There was a man named Dmitri Volkov — Eastern syndicate, brutal but predictable. He’d been circling my family’s ports for years, pressing into our territory with the subtlety of a bomb.

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  Vincent had always tolerated him.

  I didn’t.

  And now that I had Ethan?

  I didn’t have to tolerate anyone.

  We visited Dmitri’s nightclub — a gilded den of glass and neon, crawling with weapons dressed like dancers. Ethan wore black, sleek, dangerous. I wore red. Not because I had to. Because I wanted to.

  We entered through the front. No pretense.

  Newlyweds on a honeymoon of blood.

  Ethan:

  They tried to frisk us at the door.

  I let them find the pistol.

  I didn’t let them find the razor blade under my watch band or the garrote coiled like a ring in my coat lining.

  Celeste kissed me just before we walked into the VIP lounge. Left red on my neck like a threat.

  “You speak first,” she said. “I’ll finish it.”

  I nodded.

  And Dmitri?

  He made the mistake of smiling.

  Celeste:

  “You must be the new husband,” he said with that greasy Eastern charm, eyes flicking between Ethan’s jaw and my ring.

  Ethan smiled.

  “I’m whatever she needs me to be.”

  He slid the folder across the table — photos, invoices, dock reports.

  Proof.

  Proof that Dmitri’s men were stealing from us.

  Not subtly.

  Sloppily.

  I watched Dmitri’s face tighten. Saw the twitch in his fingers. He didn’t like being exposed.

  Good.

  That meant he was scared.

  Ethan:

  “You have two choices,” I said quietly. “Pull out of the ports by midnight. Or stay.”

  Celeste sipped her drink.

  “And if he stays?” she purred.

  I didn’t blink.

  “Then we drag his corpse through the docks tomorrow and light his club on fire the next night. Either way, the territory’s ours.”

  Celeste leaned in. Smiled. Whispered in Dmitri’s ear, sweet and slow:

  “Welcome to our reign.”

  He left the city by morning.

  The club burned three days later — just to send a message.

  NEXT MORNING — BACK AT THE ESTATE

  Vincent sat in the sunroom, reading the paper. The article on the back page mentioned “unexplained explosions” and a missing foreign national.

  He looked at us over his tea.

  Celeste still wore red. I still smelled like smoke.

  Vincent raised an eyebrow.

  “So. You’ve declared war.”

  Celeste:

  I licked jam from my thumb and said, “No.”

  “We ended one.”

  Ethan smirked. “Now we’re building something better.”

  Vincent gave a small nod — not quite approval. But something close.

  “They’re scared,” he said.

  Celeste raised her glass. “Good.”

  Ethan: “They should be.”