Chapter 130: Chapter 130: Thoughts

Charles was aware that Gregoris understood the impact of his choices.

A duke who didn’t host a public wedding wasn’t being “private.” It was a provocation all on its own. The nobility did not marry for romantic reasons; rather, they saw marriage as a political alliance and a public demonstration of power. A grand ceremony was not about vows; it was about accessibility. It was the one acceptable moment where other houses could crowd close, count allies, measure influence, and press their polished heirs into the same rooms, the same conversations, and the same headlines, even in a modern world running on ether and reputation.

Gregoris had denied them that.

And somehow Rafael looked… fine.

Not the fragile type of fine nobles preferred to see in an omega they could pity. Fine, like someone who had a good night’s sleep. Fine, as if someone had been allowed to forget that court opinions can bruise. Either Gregoris had shielded him so completely that the noise never reached him, or Rafael had heard every word and decided it wasn’t worth carrying.

Charles couldn’t decide which possibility was more terrifying. Rafael was similar to Gabriel in ways that mattered, and that was making him someone to be afraid of.

He sighed like a man condemned to exist among idiots, and the world answered him with obedient ether.

With a flick of his hand, a blade formed in his palm – thin, clean, and blue-white, humming softly like the air itself had decided to sharpen.

Gregoris hadn’t even told him to bring the blade.

He’d just looked at Charles earlier in that quiet, evaluating way that made you feel like you were being weighed for usefulness and said, “There’s an address. Go.”

Charles had taken the file, read the name, and almost laughed.

The cartel boss was old enough to be a myth. One of those men who had been corrupt back when ether first started powering half the city and people still pretended the energy trade was clean. The kind of man who had outlived dynasties by being polite, quiet, and constantly surrounded by other people’s violence.

Before Damian. Before the rebellion. Before Charles had been more than a possibility in a lineage chart.

And now Gregoris wanted him gone.

Charles stared at the ether blade in his hand for a second, then let it dissolve, because walking around armed in public was how you ended up in headlines, and Charles hated headlines almost as much as he hated being told what to do.

He took a car and dressed like an exhausted civil servant with a bad attitude, which was, honestly, not far from the truth lately. The city moved around him in its usual rhythm – streetlights fed by ether grids, transports sliding quietly on ether-charged rails, and advertisements shimmering on glass panels with too much light and not enough taste.

Everything modern. Everything polished.

And underneath it, the same old rot.

The boss’s building sat in a district that looked renovated on the surface – new façades, clean sidewalks, and security cameras on every corner. But the air had that faint, stale pressure that always clung to places where money moved in ways it shouldn’t.

Charles walked in like he belonged.

He didn’t look at the receptionist. He didn’t pause for permission. He let his presence do what it did best: make people pause long enough for him to pass.

The guards at the inner door glanced at him, confused.

One of them started to speak.

Charles smiled, which was a mistake for the man, because Charles only smiled when he was about to be unpleasant.

“Don’t,” Charles said, mild.

The guard frowned. “This floor is restricted—”

Charles lifted a hand, and ether hummed under the skin of the room like a power line waking up.

The guard’s mouth closed. His eyes widened just slightly.

Charles stepped past them.

He found the office without needing directions. It wasn’t hard to follow the density of protection. The old boss lived behind layers of secretaries, guards, false doors, and polite obstacles. Men like him always did.

The door opened when Charles touched the handle because locks respected ether more than they respected law.

Inside, the room smelled like expensive liquor and old confidence.

The cartel boss looked up from his desk.

He was older than Charles expected. His hair was silver, his suit tailored, and his posture was the careful kind of relaxed that comes from years of never truly being alone. Two men stood behind him, armed, silent, waiting for permission to become violent.

The boss’s eyes narrowed. “Who are you?”

Charles tilted his head, like he was considering whether the question deserved effort. “You don’t know me,” he said. “That’s kind of the point.”

The boss’s gaze flicked to his hands, his posture, and the faint ether air around him.

“You’re one of the Emperor’s,” the boss said slowly, as if tasting the words.

Charles didn’t correct him.

Technically, it wasn’t accurate. Charles wasn’t anyone’s – he was a von Jaunez, and he answered to necessity more than loyalty. But titles were complicated, and the outcome here didn’t care about nuance.

The boss leaned back a fraction, false calm settling in. “If the Emperor wanted me dead, I would be dead already.”

Charles’s mouth twitched. “You’ve been telling yourself that for decades.”

One of the guards shifted.

Charles sighed, genuinely tired now. He wasn’t here to banter. He wasn’t here to prove something. He was here because Gregoris had sent him and because the Empire didn’t have room for fossils that thought they were untouchable.

He let ether gather again.

The blade formed in his palm, thin and clean, blue-white, humming softly.

The boss’s eyes widened. “Wait—”

“No,” Charles said, and it came out flat, almost bored. “You can’t offer me more than the Emperor. I don’t care to negotiate. And yes, Hadeon is still dead, despite whatever rumors you people are feeding yourselves because you miss the comfort of old monsters.”

The man’s throat worked. His gaze flicked to the guards behind him, then back to Charles, weighing the room like it could still be turned into leverage.

“You’re young,” the boss tried, voice steadying. “Young men think loyalty is—”

Charles blinked slowly. “I’m not loyal,” he corrected, still monotone. “I’m employed.”

The boss’s lips tightened, and then, desperate, his eyes sharpened with the first real threat. “You know what happens when empires run out of enemies, boy? They start eating their own.”

Charles’s mouth twitched like the line had almost been clever. “Then it’s good I’m not edible.”

He moved.

One step. Barely a shift of weight, and the ether blade didn’t go for the throat as the hands of the boss flew to shield. Charles didn’t need blood to make a point.

He cut lower, where the channels sat like invisible wiring under skin, where ether lived and flowed. A single, smooth slash that looked like nothing to anyone without training.

The boss jerked, pupils flaring.

His mouth opened again, but the words didn’t make it out. Just the sudden, brutal understanding in his eyes of what had been cut, before his body stopped cooperating and folded sideways out of his chair like someone had unplugged him.

The guards surged forward.

Charles let ether roll off him in a controlled pulse – enough to freeze their muscles for a fraction of a second, enough to remind them that even moving was a privilege he was currently allowing.

They locked in place, breath caught.

Charles dismissed the blade with a thought. The blue-white edge dissolved into air, leaving his hand empty and clean.

He glanced at the body once, expression unreadable.

“Tell whoever comes next,” Charles said quietly, “that rumors don’t resurrect the dead.”

Then he turned and walked out, unhurried, as if he’d only stopped by to deliver a letter.

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