When the last chair signaled assent, Jax placed his palms flat on the obsidian table. The scars of old disputes seemed to shift under his hands, as if the stone itself was acknowledging something new.
The only problem?
“My name is Elara Venn.” Her voice echoed through the chamber. “Daughter of Marcus Venn—the Broker. Hidden since birth for reasons that will become clear to you shortly. I am alive. I am unharmed. And I am currently in the custody of Jax Marren.”
“It requires blood,” rumbled Kaelen Thorne from the far end. The man-mountain’s hands rested on the table like twin battering rams. “The Broker’s bloodline, to be precise. And you don’t have it.” Power Vacuum Chapter 12 Official
The recording continued. She named names. Safe houses. Account numbers. Contingency protocols that only the Broker’s own blood could have known. By the time the chip finished, the silence in the room was absolute.
Elara Venn wasn't hidden away for her protection.
Because Jax Marren hadn't told them the whole truth. When the last chair signaled assent, Jax placed
She was hidden because she was never meant to rule.
Mira’s eye flickered. She nodded to a tech in the corner. The room’s central holo-emitter crackled to life.
“She chose you,” Kaelen said. It wasn’t a question. “My name is Elara Venn
Outside, the city hummed with violence waiting to happen. But in this room, for the first time in twenty-three days, there was order.
“She found me.” Jax allowed himself the smallest smile. “The Broker left a dead-man’s switch. A message that would only reach her after his death. Told her everything. Then gave her a choice: disappear forever, or come back and claim what was hers.”
The Broker had no living heirs. Or so everyone believed.
She was a weapon. One that Jax had just aimed at the heart of every family in the room.
It felt fragile. It felt temporary. It felt exactly like the beginning of something far more dangerous than war.