Chapter 173: Chapter 173: Hate

Adam’s laugh tried to come again and failed halfway, caught in his throat like a hook that wouldn’t set. He stared at Max for a beat, then looked past him – at the warded window, the pale ether lamps in the courtyard, and the way the light made everything look clean enough to pretend history had been washed.

He didn’t like Max.

He didn’t like how easily he could say ugly things without flinching. He didn’t like that he was right about too much of it.

But he also didn’t like the alternative Max had implied – the faceless someone else, eager, naïve, and easier to kill.

Adam drew a slow breath in through his nose, exhaled through his mouth, and forced the words out with a calm he didn’t entirely feel.

“Fine,” he said. “I’ll think about it.”

Max paused.

Because that was the answer of a man who understood the stakes and still wanted the dignity of pretending choice was real.

“How long?” Max asked, voice even.

Adam’s eyes narrowed. “As long as I need.”

Max’s mouth twitched, not quite a smile, not quite irritation. “You don’t have as long as you’d like.”

“I noticed,” Adam said dryly. He stood as well, because he refused to keep sitting while Max towered over the conversation like a polite threat. “So give me what you’re actually offering, not what you wish you could offer.”

Max looked at him for a beat, then nodded once, like he respected the demand even if he hated it.

“Three days,” he said. “You get three days to decide.”

Adam blinked. “That’s generous of you.”

“It’s not generosity,” Max replied. “It’s logistics.”

Of course it was.

“The next event is already scheduled,” Max continued, and now there was that quiet edge again – the voice of someone who lived in calendars and consequences. “The avenue is booked. Security is booked. The Emperor’s funds are allocated. Two other slots are being contested as we speak.”

Adam’s jaw tightened. “So if I say no, you pick someone else.”

“If you say no,” Max said calmly, “you remove yourself from being a predictable variable.”

Adam scoffed. “A variable.”

Max’s gaze held, unblinking. “Yes.”

Adam stared at him like he wanted to throw the water glass after all. Then he forced himself to breathe, because anger was satisfying, but it wasn’t a plan.

“Three days,” Adam repeated, slower. “And what happens on day four?”

Max’s expression didn’t change. “On day four, the Empire moves forward with or without you.”

Adam’s smile came back, thin and sharp. “Do you rehearse lines like that in front of a mirror?”

Max’s lips twitched. “I rehearse them in meetings where men decide whether other men live.”

Adam hated that answer more than the first.

He turned away, pacing once toward the warded window and back, restless energy looking for somewhere to go. Then he stopped, facing Max again.

“You want honesty?” Adam said, voice low. “Here it is. I don’t trust you.”

Max didn’t argue. “You don’t have to.”

“I don’t trust your emperor,” Adam continued, because if he was going to burn bridges, he was going to do it with his head up. “Or your court. Or your ’stabilization.’”

Max’s gaze sharpened slightly at the word ’court,’ like Adam had kicked a hornet’s nest on purpose.

“And yet,” Max said quietly, “you care about the civilians.”

Adam’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t pretend you know what I care about.”

Max held the look, then said, softer but no less precise, “You watched them sing tonight, and it mattered to you.”

Adam’s throat tightened. He hated being seen.

He looked away first, just for a second, then forced his gaze back to Max like it was a point of pride. “Three days,” he said again. “And if I say yes, you don’t get to call me pretty again.”

Max’s mouth curved faintly. “Noted.”

—

Three days passed in a series of ordinary hours that refused to stop moving just because Adam needed time.

The first day, he tried to be angry properly, pacing his apartment like a caged animal, replaying Max’s voice in his head until it grated, until every sentence sounded like a leash dressed up in politics. He hated the seal. He hated the implication. He hated that the Empire could look at a concert and immediately reduce it to a stabilizing mechanism.

He hated, most of all, that Max wasn’t wrong about the civilians.

The second day, he talked to his team in the quiet, grim tone people used when they were deciding whether a ’yes’ would get them paid or get them buried. His manager went pale. His sound engineer swore. His drummer asked, very carefully, whether ’imperial funding’ came with ’imperial expectations.’

Adam didn’t sugarcoat it. He didn’t have the luxury.

The third day, he stood in front of his mirror with damp hair and a mug of coffee and looked at his own face like it belonged to someone else – someone the city had decided to love. Someone the Empire had decided to use.

Then he remembered the crowd.

The off-key chorus. The tears. The way the hall had sounded like a living thing learning how to breathe again.

And he thought, with a bitter, resigned clarity: if the Empire was going to turn his voice into a tool, then he would at least choose how it was wielded.

So on day three, he sent the message.

“I accept. Send the contract. No surprises.”

The response came fast enough to confirm what he’d suspected all along: this had never been a question of if. Only which.

“Understood,” the reply read. “Work begins immediately.”

Immediately was not a figure of speech.

By the time Adam’s team had finished reading the contract – by the time they’d argued over clauses about venue wards, transport routes, crowd limits, and the careful language that insisted the Emperor’s contribution was ’patronage,’

not ’sponsorship’—a schedule had already been drafted.

Then revised.

Then revised again.

It arrived like a punch: dates, cities, event avenues, and time windows that included security sweeps and ether calibration, rehearsal blocks, and press appearances that were framed as ’community morale engagements’ in language so bloodless Adam wanted to bite the paper.

Adam stared at the itinerary and felt his stomach drop.

It wasn’t a handful of shows.

It was a tour.

And it wasn’t designed around art.

It was designed around control.

Two days later, a courier dropped off equipment tags – imperial-etched, ward-compatible, all of it stamped with identifiers that made Adam’s tech team go very quiet. Another courier delivered passes: sleek black cards with gold filigree, keyed to ether signatures. Their names were printed cleanly. Their faces were already in the system.

His manager called it ’efficient.’

Adam called it ’terrifying.’

Within a week, the first venue requested a private run-through for ward testing. Within ten days, his lighting director had a government liaison in his inbox asking about ’beam intensity limits in high-density crowds.’ Within two weeks, Adam’s social channels were flooded with polished announcements from palace-approved entertainment channels, clipped trailers of his concert synced to official messaging, and the word ’normality’ floating through every caption like a blessing and a warning at the same time.

And Maximilian – Maximilian Thronwell, the middleman, the alpha with the expensive suit and the dangerous calm – was barely there.

Which would have been a relief if it didn’t feel like a trick.

Adam saw his name everywhere.

Max’s signature on approvals.

Max’s seal on clearances.

Max’s office sending revised routing to avoid ’high-risk intersections.’

But Max himself?

A ghost.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep