The room reeked of blood, alcohol, and despair.

Shattered furniture lay strewn across the floor like the aftermath of a warzone. The mattress had been gutted, drawers torn from their frames, and blood stained the cracked walls and wooden floorboards. Among the wreckage, medicine bottles lay in pieces, pills and syringes scattered like confetti from a hellish celebration. Liquor bottles, both full and empty, added their scent to the chaos—sharp, bitter, and heavy.

Cassian sat in the only object left untouched: a solitary armchair in the corner, its upholstery darkened with age—and now, with blood.

He was unnervingly still.

His white shirt was disheveled, several buttons undone, revealing the rise and fall of his chest. His sleeves were rolled up to his elbows, revealing arms streaked with dried blood and fresh wounds. Crimson trickled from his knuckles, proof of the wall’s punishment—and his own. A glass dangled from one hand, half-full of something toxic, though it was clear no substance could reach the depth of the pain burning in his eyes.

His dark blue gaze was vacant, like a storm long passed but still dangerous. The death of his sister had hollowed him. He had tried everything to numb himself—alcohol, injections, violence—but the grief remained, coiled like a serpent in his chest.

Then the door creaked open.

Cassian didn’t move. His head lifted slightly, just enough to register the presence. Ivan entered, composed as always, though his expression carried tension. Beside him stood a woman.

Cassian eyes narrowed at once.

She didn’t belong here. Not in his pain. Not in this graveyard of rage.

His voice was low, rough from shouting and smoke. “What does this mean, Ivan?” he asked, though the calmness only made the threat sharper. “Why is she here?”

Ivan stood still, hands clasped in front of him, but his voice was firm. “She’s the daughter of your sister’s killer..”

Cassian eyes flickered—recognition, then fury. That name. That family. The enemy.

“I asked him for a man,” Cassian said, his tone darkening like a storm on the horizon. “And the bastard gave me his daughter ?”

Ivan exhaled. “sacrificed his own blood. Thought offering her would save his own.”

Cassian leaned forward slowly, the glass in his hand now forgotten. His bleeding hand rested on his knee as he looked at the girl—His oldest daughter. She was trembling, but trying not to.

There was no mercy in his eyes.

“Then let her be the first lesson,” he said coldly. “One blood for another.”