Dark Lord Seduction System: Taming Wives, Daughters, Aunts, and CEOs novel Chapter 636

Chapter 636: Birthday Bullets

The party thinned into that velvety exhaustion where joy stopped performing and started telling the truth. Goodbyes stretched longer than etiquette allowed. Champagne-warm kisses bloomed on cheeks. Hands lingered, squeezing like they were trying to memorize bone.

We spilled out of the elevator into the underground garage in a slow river of silk and laughter, thirty-two people drunk on celebration and pretending tomorrow was optional. The air tasted of exhaust and moneyed perfume, gasoline softened by jasmine and oud.

Headlights carved yellow corridors through the concrete gloom. Valets jogged between idling engines, moving with the urgency of men who understood the value of what they were shepherding.

Phantoms. Bentleys. Blacked-out SUVs.

A motorcade that looked like old money and new power had gotten drunk together and decided to reproduce.

Soo-Jin rolled the van forward without a sound. Matte black. Unmarked. Quiet in a way that felt intentional.

She’d left hours earlier to handle Koreatown, exactly as instructed. The gold had moved. Pallets lifted, transported, absorbed into estate vaults like they’d never existed anywhere else. Clean. Professional. Invisible. I liked work that vanished behind itself.

Madison pressed into me one last time, heat through thin fabric, familiarity without softness. Her mouth brushed my ear.

"Don’t stay out too late, Emperor."

Then she was gone, sliding into the lead Phantom, her red dress riding high on her thighs like it knew it was being watched.

The kind of sight that made restraint feel like a personal insult. Priya, Amanda, and Patricia followed her in, laughter spilling out with them, already absorbed in whatever conspiracy was glowing on Priya’s phone.

Emma and Sarah claimed the next SUV, still loose from tequila and bad decisions. Luna half-dragged Rebecca toward another car while she loudly insisted she was perfectly capable of walking in a straight line, thank you very much.

Reyna, Anya, and Victoria disappeared into the third vehicle, their voices bouncing off concrete and fading into the hum of engines.

The rest scattered across the remaining cars—Lea and Kayla, Charlotte and Catherine, Ms. Chen and Margaret, Sofia and Isabella—splitting off in pairs like practiced choreography. Tommy tugged Mia toward the last Phantom, and even from here I caught the familiar slide of his hands, wandering with the confidence of someone who thought the night still belonged to him.

I guided Jasmine and Linda toward their ride, my arm firm around Mom’s shoulders, feeling her lean into me the way she used to when I was small and the world felt too big to survive alone.

"My boy," she whispered, and her voice cracked right down the middle. "Seventeen. God, where did the time go?"

"Love you, Mom. Always."

Jasmine squeezed my hand, her smile carrying that exact mix of pride and worry she’d perfected over the years. "Don’t do anything stupid tonight, nephew. Your harem’s waiting."

My quantum neural buds engaged the incoming call without me calling them, a reflex deeper than thought, and Ava’s voice came through—breathless, urgent in a way that snapped my spine straight.

"Eros, this is emergence! Dmitri’s been confirmed back in the country. He surfaced. He’s contacted Vincent and Antonio. He’s targeting Charlotte and Margaret, and Eros, please—"

ARIA cut in, and for the first time since I’d created her, I heard fear.

Not the cool, calculated risk analysis she usually delivered. Not probabilities or projected outcomes.

"Sniper. Rooftop. Southeast corner. Everyone needs to move. Now. Peter, get them in the—"

VERIFYCAPTCHA_LABELVerify