Saintess's Worthless Husband Turned Dragon Commander novel Chapter 172

CHAPTER 138 PART 2

It was the sound of a man whose pride had been structured in a particular way for a very long time taking a hit in a load-bearing section. His jaw was working. His good hand was gripping the table behind him. The blood at his hairline had dried into a line that tracked down his temple like a verdict.

“Miguel.” His voice came out tighter than he intended. He reset it. “Miguel. This man attacked my people, injured a northern family guest, humiliated my fiancée-”

“I heard what happened,” Miguel said.

“Then you understand that whatever arrangement you have with him, the Lancaster Family-”

“Atlas.” Miguel turned toward him, and his voice had the quality of someone who had made a decision and was done revisiting it. “The Lancaster Family operates in Five-River Province with the tolerance of several existing relationships. Those relationships are not permanent. They’re choices.” He looked at Atlas with the flat assessment of a man who had spent forty years in rooms where things that were true were eventually said. “I’m making a choice tonight. That’s all.”

“You’re making an enemy,” Atlas said.

“Possibly.” Miguel straightened his jacket. “But I’ve been making enemies for forty years, and the useful thing I’ve learned is that the quality of your enemies tells you more about your position than the quality of your friends. “He turned toward the elevator. “Good evening, Atlas.”

Atlas Lancaster stood in the center of Pearl on the Water’s thirty-second floor, surrounded by forty men who had not accomplished what they’d been brought to accomplish, with his most capable bodyguard on the floor and a beer bottle’s worth of evidence at his hairline and his fiancée walking toward an elevator with another man, and he watched Miguel Abbott choose a side in real time and there was nothing not his name, not his money, not his four-young-master status, not Rafferty, not any of it – that he could use to change the outcome.

His phone was already in his hand before the elevator doors closed.

The top floor of Pearl on the Water was not the restaurant. It was the other thing that hotels like this kept above the public spaces

the private floor, the one that existed for guests who didn’t appear on standard registries and conversations that didn’t happen in rooms with windows.

The table was set for three. The view was the harbor from higher up, which meant the lights were wider and the water was darker and the overall effect was of something positioned deliberately above the concerns of the city below.

Marcus sat. Elize sat across from him, the theatrical intimacy of the restaurant replaced by something quieter the look of a woman who had done something significant this evening and was now sitting in its aftermath, still and assessing.

Miguel sat at the head of the table and poured three glasses with the unhurried motion of a man who had decided to be comfortable.

“You’re going to explain something to me,” Marcus said.

“I expect so,” Miguel said.

“Downstairs. You ordered your men to take us. You’d already assessed the situation and you gave the order anyway. “Marcus looked at him. “You knew who I was before you gave it.”

Miguel was quiet for a moment.

“Yes,” he said.

“Then why?”

1

+25 Bonus

Miguel turned his glass. “Because I needed to see if you’d show me the card,” he said. “Or whether you’d just handle forty men and walk out.” He looked at Marcus. “The first option means you still wanted something from me. The second means I was irrelevant.” He set the glass down. “You showed me the card.”

Marcus said nothing.

“Which means there’s an arrangement to be had,” Miguel said. “And I want to be part of it.”

“You’re already in it,” Marcus said. “You sided with me publicly in front of Atlas Lancaster and his four friends. That’s going to reach every relevant table in Five-River Province by tomorrow morning.”

“I know.”

“The Lancaster Family will treat it as a declaration.”

“I know that too.”

“So you’ve spent forty years building a position in this province,” Marcus said, “and you burned a significant portion of it tonight on the basis of a card you gave me at an airport this afternoon.”

VERIFYCAPTCHA_LABELVerify