Chapter 2 - The Lion’s Mark
The heavy silence returned, far more suffocating than before. The lead guard stared at the silver crest in his trembling palm—a roaring lion crowned with seven stars, the unmistakable seal of the Sovereign Sovereign Consortium, the shadowy financial empire holding ninety percent of Vance Group’s debt.
“Captain Briggs! What are you doing? Beat him!” Victoria screamed, furiously clawing the slimy soup away from her eyes, her emerald necklace now completely ruined. “I pay your salary! Move!”
Captain Briggs slowly raised his head. His eyes darted to Damon, whose piercing gaze held the lethal calm of an apex predator watching an insect. Briggs bowed his head deeply, stepped backward three paces, and ordered through his radio, “Stand down. All teams, stand down immediately.”
“Briggs!” Victoria shrieked, hysteria creeping into every syllable.
Damon stepped forward, shielding Maya behind his broad frame. His posture was effortless, yet his presence seemed to swallow all the air in the courtyard. “Victoria Vance,” Damon spoke, his voice low, resonant, and icy enough to frost glass. “Five years ago, your father took advantage of my father’s illness, seized our shares, and threw Maya and me into the streets like feral dogs.”
Maya clutched Damon’s sleeve, her knuckles white. Memories of their father dying in a rat-infested public ward while the Vance branch threw lavish galas flooded her mind, choking her with fresh tears.
“You stole our name,” Damon continued, taking one calculated step toward the dripping heiress. “You stole our home. And now you treat my sister like kitchen dirt.”
Victoria tried to sneer through her filth, attempting to reclaim her arrogant authority. “You’re just Damon, the disowned bastard! You think wearing an expensive jacket and throwing soup makes you someone? My father will eradicate you before sunrise!”
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Damon checked the platinum watch on his wrist. “Your father, Richard Vance, won’t make it to sunrise as CEO.”
Before Victoria could snap back, the grand double doors of the ballroom burst open, and a middle-aged man stumbled out, sweating profusely, phone pressed to his ear. It was Richard Vance himself—and he looked like a condemned man walking to the scaffold.
