Chapter 3 Vellion

They called him a Vellion.

Not just a name - a legacy. A warning.

In certain circles, the Vellion name bought loyalty, in others it bought fear. And in a few... it bought blood. When Drace Vellion walked into a room, you didn't ask questions. You just stood up and tried not to make eye contact.

Because you didn't want to know what he was thinking.

You just prayed you weren't in his way.

Born into Power

Drace was the only son of Lucien Vellion, a man who turned steel, oil, real estate, and political dirt into an empire stretching across continents. A man known for turning enemies into ashes and contracts into wars.

Drace didn't inherit wealth.

He inherited control.

And he learned fast that power wasn't in money - it was in what you made people believe you were capable of doing.

He wore suits like armor. Smiled like a predator. And built his reputation not through noise, but through silence. He spoke only when it mattered - and when it did, people obeyed.

His name appeared on stock boards, tabloids, and intelligence watchlists. Some said he had his father's empire in his right hand... and a hidden empire of his own in the left.

Cold. Until She Broke Him.

He had only ever let one person in.

Elowen Sinclair.

Beautiful. Untouchable. Heiress of the Sinclair shipping dynasty. The only woman who'd ever held a piece of his soul.

And she shattered it.

Drace had planned to propose. Build a legacy. Unite two powerful bloodlines.

Instead, he found her tangled in his oldest enemy's sheets.

Dominic Ryker.

And Drace?

He didn't scream. He didn't beg.

He just walked away... and the version of himself that could love?

He buried it that night.

The Collapse

The whiskey didn't numb the pain, but it made the voices quieter. The memory of her body with Ryker... her moans still echoing from behind that half-open door. The sound had broken something inside Drace that couldn't be put back together.

He got drunk. Not slurred, sloppy drunk.

Sharp, angry drunk.

The kind that feels like a weapon.

The kind that makes you drive into the night with no destination.

Until a girl walked into the road.

And everything changed.

Back to the Present

She was still unconscious. Pale. Silent. Her name: Ruby Elgrave.

Drace sat in a chair outside her hospital room, untouched coffee in hand, tailored coat drenched in rain. He hadn't moved in hours.

He didn't know why he stayed.

Maybe guilt. Maybe curiosity.

Maybe because her eyes-right before she passed out-looked like they'd seen the same hell he had.

But the doctor had said something else, too.

"She talks in her sleep. Different voices. Different names. Like she's not alone in there."

Drace leaned forward, eyes narrowed.

Not alone?

He had no idea just how true that was.

And no idea that the girl he nearly killed... might be the one to save him.

Or destroy him.