Anton’s first stop after being ejected from the Billion Bloodline building was the hospital. He needed his face looked at properly; the pain was worse than the bruise would show, and the cut across his nose had swelled into a purple ridge by the time he arrived. The doctors did a quick assessment and the news came blunt and clinical: his nose was broken and there were signs his jaw had suffered trauma as well. To fix both properly they recommended surgery.
He would need to be placed under, have the bones reset, and then recover with his jaw wired or immobilized, which would mean fluids and nutrients through an IV for a while, a humiliating dependency for a man who always prided himself on being physically self-sufficient.
Cost was not the thing that gnawed at him, not immediately. The idea of having his mouth tied up, of being a shadow of his normal swagger for days or weeks, stoked his anger far more effectively than any bill could. Lying on the hospital bed, looking at the fluorescent light above him, Anton let the fury spike higher. In his mind the whole string of bad luck had been triggered by the red-headed man who’d slapped him out of the building.
The thought reverberated: Stern had done this to him. That one contact, that one encounter, and everything had unspooled.
’That damned Stern,’ Anton thought, jaw aching even as he brooded. ’Nearly all of my trouble started the moment I crossed paths with him. He’s a curse.’ He thought of how the Stern family had supposedly abandoned Max; if the family had no use for him, then maybe Max could be treated like any other unimportant thorn.
The fact that Max was an intern at the Billion Bloodline group didn’t mean much, in Anton’s mind, it was an opportunity. If the Sterns ignored him, Anton could act without worrying about reprisal from that quarter.
But it wasn’t just the humiliation Anton nursed. He simmered at Sheri’s expression when Max walked in the door, the way she looked at Max after the rescue. She didn’t look at him as a savior, as he felt entitled to be; instead she looked relieved and oddly grateful toward the other man.
It rankled. The narrative he’d built in his head was simple and reassuring: he would step in, be the protector, and she would see what a better life with him could be. Now the script had flipped. Sheri’s eyes had said the opposite of what he’d hoped.
’Don’t worry, Sheri,’ he told himself as the hospital bed creaked when he shifted. ’I’ll make this right. I’ll remove him from the picture so you can live the life you deserve. You’ll see what I can give you once he’s out of the way.’
Anton opened his contacts and began to think practically. He had cultivated a Rolodex of useful people, legitimate businessmen, middling politicians, and a handful of less savory clients who moved money in ways his official job could not. The Stable family’s business model relied on favours and connections; sometimes those favours had an unsavoury underside.
Over the years he had learned that some customers preferred off-the-books transactions: high-end merchandise that could ’go missing’ for insurance claims, quick swaps, and clean-ups for dirty money. He had done jobs like that for cash and had learned which doors could be opened in exchange for the right propositions.
One contact came to mind: a man used to making enforcement decisions and solving problems the legal way wouldn’t touch. Anton texted a short, carefully coded message:
"I have a proposition that will be lucrative. A piece of merchandise can go missing under the right cover, insured, accounted for. I’ll help with laundering and cleaning funds in return for a favour. Take care of someone for me."
It was deliberately vague but clear enough for the recipient. Anton waited and watched the ceiling tiles, blinked at the harsh fluorescent light, and felt the slow burn of revenge take root. He could afford a hit to his reputation if it meant Max would be hurt, and if he needed muscle, he knew where to rent it.
The person he messaged was not lounging in a polished office. Instead, he was seated in a chair built for a man with big shoulders and a body that spoke in blunt syllables. Jett sat in the kind of seat designed to contain or support a great mass of muscle, the kind of chair that looked like it belonged in a private boxing club or an executive den where size was itself a credential.
Around him, the hum was the low roar of a crowd and the metallic scent of adrenaline. He was at a boxing ring, a place where disputes were resolved with knuckles and courage, where bets changed hands with the swing of a punch. Two fighters were still in the ring, bare-knuckled and exhausted, the marks of blood and sweat showing they’d been at it for a long time. Jett moved into the ring with the unhurried confidence of someone used to owning space.
Without a word, he grabbed the two men by their wrists and slammed them together until both went limp. The crowd fell silent; their murmurs died in the face of his presence. Jett was known in certain circles as the Enforcer of the Black Hounds, second in command and not a man to be crossed lightly.
When Jett’s phone lit with Anton’s message he read it with the casual interest of a bored man who likes to be kept busy. Then he smiled. It was not a friendly smile; it was the pull of prospects, the chance for action, the promise of a job that could be finished cleanly and paid quietly. He thumbed out a reply:
"Sounds interesting. Bored anyway. Send me the details and make sure it’s something I can fit into. None of that small stuff, you better not cheat me, because it’s the wrong thing to do, but I’ll have someone take care of it. This is a small matter in our world."