"Elena," he said. "Her daughter." Something in his voice, briefly.

Not nothing. "I’m going to give Elena the head of her father and the impregnated pussy of her mother as a gift.."

He straightened his collar.

"Simultaneously."

He walked to the window at the hall’s end.

Looked at the city below. The chimneys. The corruption-smoke. The general, visible rot of a place that had been running on a dead man’s infrastructure for too long.

He breathed.

And stepped through the window.

Not through the glass — the window was open an inch at the top, and he was simply ’gone’ between one moment and the next, the gust of his departure arriving a half-second after the vacancy he left, the curtain lifting and falling.

Rihana stood in the hallway.

Naked.

Looking at where he had been.

She ruffled her hair with one hand — the gesture of a woman who has just been assigned a mission she didn’t entirely sign up for and is figuring out her feelings about it.

"But what exactly do I—"

’CLICK.’

She stopped.

Something in her head.

A sound. Then a sensation — the specific, strange awareness of ’minds’ pressing against hers from a direction she didn’t have a word for, warm and various, like pressing your hand to a wall and feeling the vibrations of people living on the other side.

A giggle.

Then another.

Then a voice. Young. Bright. The voice of a girl who has recently discovered something surprising and cannot contain it:

"Oh— are you the new woman he caught?"

Rihana’s hands went to her ears.

Instinct. They were already at her ears before she’d processed the words.

"Who—"

More voices.

Overlapping, arriving one after another like rain:

"From the sound of it, he was very productive—"

"Is Gwen there? Gwen, are you—"

"MOTHER, how are you reaching me? Are you inside my—"

"Wait, everyone stop talking at once—"

"I’m Bella, we haven’t met—"

"Kaida here. He tastes like—"

"LIRA. I am LIRA. Who just—"

"He went to a mansion? What mansion?"

"Is she thick? She sounds thick—"

"EXCUSE ME, I am Vivian, I would appreciate some ORDER—"

The voices. All of them — every woman Viktor had touched, had bred, had bound — speaking simultaneously into a channel that had apparently opened when the wife bond network reached critical mass, their voices arriving in Rihana’s skull with the force of a full and enthusiastic committee meeting.

She pressed both palms over her ears.

It did not help.

Ears were not where the voices were.

"SHUT UP—"

The hallway went quiet.

The voices went quiet.

Every single one of them.

The silence of several women who have been told to shut up and have, briefly, complied.

Then Viktor’s voice.

In the network. Warm. From wherever he was — already moving through the city’s streets below, already finding the first thread of the corruption to pull — his voice arrived in all of their heads with the same specific, unhurried certainty that it arrived everywhere:

"Mira."

A pause.

"Teach Rihana your ways."

Another pause.

"I want a thick woman ready for me."

The silence held for exactly two seconds.

Then came a voice that was not any of the younger women.

Mature. Warm. With the specific, cultivated amusement of a woman who has been in this network long enough to understand its architecture and has made her peace with every dimension of it.

The chuckle came first.

Low. Genuine. ’Fufu.’

"Fufu..."

Then:

"As you say, my dear husband."

.

.

.

.

.

.

Inside the modest general store, dust motes danced in the slanted afternoon light. Madam Helviana knelt on the wooden floor, rag in hand, scrubbing at a stubborn stain near the counter.

Her simple dress clung to her body from the effort, the fabric damp at the small of her back, outlining the generous curve of her hips and the tired but resilient strength in her thighs. A single mother trying to hold onto this place after her husband’s passing.

She didn’t hear him approach.

The shopkeeper—greasy-haired, thick-bellied, reeking of cheap ale and unchecked power—stepped close from behind. His bulged cock, already straining against his trousers, pressed firmly against the cleft of her ass and lower back. He rocked once, slow and deliberate, grinding the hard length along her spine.

"Where is it?" he muttered, voice thick. "There’s dirt here. Clean it."

Madam Helviana froze. The pressure was unmistakable. Hot, insistent, obscene. Disgust crawled up her throat. She tried to shift away, but he followed, rubbing harder, the fabric between them doing nothing to hide the shape and heat of him.

She twisted sharply. "What are you doing?!"

He chuckled, low and ugly, not bothering to step back. His hand came down on her shoulder, heavy. "Don’t you want food for your child? That little mouth needs feeding, doesn’t it? And this shop... well. Times are hard since the Count died."

Her eyes flashed with anger. "Go away."

She tried to pull free. He caught her wrist instead, fingers digging in hard enough to bruise.

"You bitch," he snarled, yanking her closer. "Don’t you see? This whole place is in ruckus after the Count’s death. No laws here anymore. I can fuck you as much as I want. Every day if I feel like it. And you’ll spread those legs and thank me for the scraps."

Madam Helviana’s face paled. "What? What are you—"

He didn’t let her finish. With a brutal tug he hauled her forward and threw her down.

She hit the floor hard, a cry escaping her lips as pain flared through her shoulder and hip.

She curled instinctively, trying to protect herself, but he was already on her—kneeling over her body, one meaty hand fisting the front of her dress.

He yanked downward. Fabric tore. Her full breasts spilled free, soft and heavy, nipples tightening in the sudden cool air. His eyes glazed with hunger. He pawed at one roughly, squeezing, leaning down to force her legs apart with his knee.

"No—please—!" she screamed, voice cracking, tears spilling down her cheeks as his other hand shoved her skirt up her thighs.

The scream cut through the shop like a blade.

Then the man simply... came apart.

No warning. No blood spray or dramatic wound. One moment he was a leering, sweating weight pinning her down. The next, his entire body unraveled into a rushing torrent of crimson—a liquid scream that collapsed inward on itself, collapsing into a swirling, unnatural stream of blood that whipped once through the air like a dying serpent before vanishing entirely, absorbed into nothing. Not a drop landed on her.

Madam Helviana gasped, scrambling backward on the floor, breasts still exposed, eyes wide with shock. Her hands shook as she clutched at her torn dress. "What...? What just—?"

A calm, deep voice filled the shop. Not loud. Not angry. Simply present, as if the air itself had decided to speak.

"From now on, you are the owner of this shop."

She whipped her head around. A man stood near the doorway—tall, dark-haired, purple eyes steady and unreadable. Clothes perfectly tailored, posture relaxed.

He looked like he had simply stepped in from the street rather than materialized from vengeance.

"By the way," he added, the corner of his mouth curving slightly, "my name is Viktor, Can I get a map of this town."