Page 36 of Onyx Realm

The old man peered around his son. “I did. Before dawn.”

“And you just happened to be out that early this morning?”

Leandros’s gaze flickered toward the horizon. “The tides were right for yellowfin.”

“The tides,” I repeated, stepping closer. “Funny thing about tides. They don’t push fishing boats against their direction.”

A tense silence fell over the men.

The other son spoke up. “There was a second boat.”

“Skata, Luca!” Nikos muttered. “What are you doing?”

“He’s the boss,” the brother protested.

“Smart boy,” I mused with a deceptive warmth. “Where did the other boat go?”

“They took off, three men who left Iakovos’s ship, whose course was set straight in the direction of the docks. We intercepted her before she struck and caused damage,” Nikos explained.

“Describe the second boat?” I demanded.

Nikos hesitated, his weather-beaten face tightening with obvious reluctance. His father placed a gnarled hand on his arm and nodded once.

“Black hull, maybe forty feet,” Nikos said finally. “Custom job. Had some kind of symbol painted on the side—a white scorpion.”

My blood ran cold. The Skorpios family. They’d been pushing into our territories for months, but this was their boldest move yet.

“Which direction?” I kept my voice level despite the rage building in my chest.

“Southeast,” Luca offered eagerly, pointing toward the horizon. “Heading toward the islands.”

I nodded slowly, processing this information. “You saw faces?”

The three men exchanged uneasy glances. Old man Leandros shook his head, but Nikos’s eyes betrayed him. If the older brother knew something.... I stepped closer and turned my gaze to the younger brother, who wilted slightly under my scrutiny.

“Luca? Did you see their faces?” I let my voice hum with an unspoken threat.

“Too dark. But they wore suits. Not fishing clothes.”

Nikos shifted uncomfortably, put off by his brother’s loose tongue. “They had guns, Markos. Big ones. We stayed back until they were gone.”

“And you didn’t think to call us immediately?” My voice dropped dangerously low.

“We did call,” the father protested. “Called Zephyr straight away.”

“Let me make myself clear. You saw nothing. You went out for yellowfin and only just came back to hear about the tragedy.” I pinned them each with a warning glance. “These men struck down a member of the Twelve along with his whole crew. They’re dangerous, and they don’t need to know you made out their vessel. Understood?”

Relief flooded the father’s face. He clasped his hands, muttering thanks and wishes for my health in the old language.

I left them to it, content that my warning had been received. We would protect them, we always did. But only so long as they were loyal to us first. That was the way organizations like ours worked. Our soldiers fought and bled for the syndicate, but not even leadership was immune to the ultimate price of serving our people.

***

The night air clung to my skin like a wet blanket. The breeze swept the smoke of the funeral pyre across the peninsula and carried it out across the waves. If it wasn’t for that, the stench of a burning corpse would’ve been unbearable.

“He said it was the Skorpios,” I insisted.

Atlas’s stony expression was unreadable.

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