The next morning brought a rare moment of quiet. The rain had finally eased, leaving the city washed clean but still heavy with mist. Elias sat at the kitchen table, the pendant now tucked beneath his shirt, warm against his skin like a second heartbeat. The binder lay open before him, names and places inked in neat, careful script.
Most were dormant contacts — minor business owners, retired fighters, watchers in the city's overlooked corners. Pieces of a network Harold Linwood had quietly preserved before his death, trusting that one day they would serve again.
Elias knew better than to rush them. Loyalty earned through blood and hardship could not be commanded like soldiers in an army. It had to be awakened, the same way the legacy within him had been.
But first, he had to deal with something closer. More immediate.
Sera.
He hadn't said anything the night before about what happened at the hotel. She hadn't asked. But when she returned home after meetings with her family's business associates, her eyes were sharp, troubled. Something was wrong.
And this morning, as she stood by the window cradling a mug of coffee, Elias saw the tension still clinging to her.
"Talk to me," he said quietly.
Sera hesitated, her fingers tightening around the mug.
"My father's dealing with a financial leak," she said at last. "A bad one. Some of the investors are pulling back. One of them... Mason Sterling's father... made an offer. A buyout." She paused, biting her lip. "But the offer wasn't clean."
Elias's gaze sharpened. He already disliked Mason Sterling. Hearing his name again, attached to this, wasn't a surprise.
"What kind of offer?"
"They want to tie up certain Linwood assets through shell companies," Sera said. "Lock us into partnerships we can't walk away from. Control, disguised as help."
"And your father's considering it?" Elias asked.
Sera gave a small, bitter laugh. "Victor's desperate enough to pretend it's a good idea. He'll drag the family down with him before he ever admits he made a mistake."
Elias leaned back in his chair, tapping a finger thoughtfully against the table.
He knew what this was.
A quiet takeover.
And Mason's sudden approach to Sera last night wasn't random. It had been deliberate. A play. First the family. Then the marriage. Piece by piece, until everything was theirs.
Not while Elias still drew breath.
"Don't worry about it," Elias said calmly.
Sera raised an eyebrow. "That's not exactly comforting."
"I'll handle it."
"Handle it?" she echoed, folding her arms. "How?"
Elias just smiled slightly — the kind of smile that wasn't meant to be comforting at all.
That evening, while the Linwoods squabbled in their private boardrooms, Elias moved through the city's undercurrents.
Through Caius, he reached out to contacts listed in the binder — discreet brokers, private investigators, information gatherers who still remembered the Crane name.
By nightfall, Elias had a full map of Mason Sterling's operations — offshore accounts, silent partnerships, illicit dealings disguised behind layers of respectability.
The next day, an anonymous dossier landed on the desk of the city's financial crimes division.
By noon, the first government subpoenas were issued.
And by nightfall, Mason's father's empire shuddered under the weight of frozen assets and pending investigations.
The buyout offer evaporated overnight like mist under the sun.
When Victor raged about it at the dinner table, cursing the "corrupt vultures" who tried to tear the Linwood family down, Elias said nothing.
Sera caught his eye across the table. Her expression was unreadable — but her fingers brushed lightly against his under the table, a silent touch of thanks.
She didn't ask how it had happened.
She didn't have to.
Something inside her had shifted again.
Elias Crane — the man her family had mocked, the man they had dismissed — was quietly, methodically protecting everything they thought he could never touch.
And it was only the beginning.