The morning sun filtered through the floor-to-ceiling windows of Seraphina Vance’s penthouse, casting long, sharp shadows across the imported Italian marble. She stood by the glass, a steaming cup of black coffee in her hand, looking out over the sprawling metropolis that she owned. Or, at the very

Pain was the first thing to register.

A deep, throbbing ache radiated from the base of Seraphina’s skull, pulsing behind her eyes with the relentless rhythm of a war drum. She groaned, the sound harsh and ragged in her dry throat.

The second sensation was the cold. It seeped through the thin fab

"Fifteen million?" Seraphina's voice sliced through the damp, subterranean air, devoid of the panic her former lieutenants were undoubtedly expecting. She stood at the end of her iron tether, her wrists chafed by the heavy manacles, but her posture remained as impossibly straight as it was behind he