The Almighty Dominance (by Sunshine) novel Chapter 688

Feby leaned in until her shoulder nearly touched his. Her voice came out thinner than she wanted it to.

"Do I sign this?"

Alex didn't look at the paper. He looked at her, and something in the steadiness of it made her breath catch — like he'd already read the whole document and half her life besides.

"Which one gets you there faster?" he asked quietly. "Reaching magician level three, or landing a manager's position at the Regent Group?"

She almost laughed. Level three. As if the words alone didn't sting.

She'd spent years pressing her palm to testing stones that stayed dark, years watching other students light them up like sunrise while hers gave back nothing but her own reflection.

Talent wasn't something you could bribe, borrow, or earn. You either had it or you spent your whole life pretending the ache of not having it didn't exist.

"The manager position," she said. "Of course."

Alex tilted his head closer, and his whisper dropped so low it was almost just breath. "Then here's a thought. Can we bribe the Regent Group manager to take you on — even for a month? We pay them. That's all we'd need. One month inside."

Feby raised her eyes to him slowly.

Bribe them. Just like that.

Simple, cold, obvious — the kind of idea that should have occurred to her and hadn't, because she'd been too busy drowning to think about swimming.

This man was smart. Smarter than a stranger with no name and no past had any right to be, and the question of who he actually was pressed against the back of her thoughts like a bruise she kept forgetting not to touch.

She exhaled. "Fine. I'll sign it."

She reached out and took the paper from Marta's hand. The page felt heavier than paper should.

Alex reached for it. "Let me read it for you first."

But Rael's hand snapped out and tore the document away before Alex's fingers could close on it.

"This is not for anyone outside the family," Rael said, holding it against his chest like something precious. "Don't touch it."

Something hot and immediate rose in Alex's chest — the urge to put the back of his hand across that smug face and watch it change shape.

His fingers curled once at his side. Then he let it go, because it wasn't the right move. Not here. Not yet.

Instead he turned to Feby, and he didn't whisper this time. He spoke clearly, evenly, loud enough for every person in that room to hear each word land.

"Read it carefully before you sign," he said. "They are not honest people."

The silence afterward had teeth.

Marta's face went red. Rael's went redder. Even the cousins by the door flushed and looked away, and not one of them — not one — opened their mouth to deny it.

Feby heard the silence. She heard it, and some small animal part of her understood exactly what it meant. But they were family.

That word had been stitched into her since before she could walk, and habits stitched that deep don't tear in a single afternoon. She picked up the pen. Her hand didn't shake, which surprised her.

She signed.

Then Marta smiled, folded the paper away, and said, "You have thirty days. Only thirty."

The floor seemed to shift under Feby's feet.

Thirty days. No one had said anything about a time limit. Not once, not in any conversation, not in any of the terms they'd laid out at this table. How does a deadline simply appear after the ink is already dry? Her mouth opened. Nothing useful came out of it.

Rael was laughing. Actually laughing, warm and easy, like they were sharing a joke instead of a knife.

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