Page 33 of Imperial: The Corvidae Family

Chapter

Twenty

Emir

When I pulled up at my brother’s house, I was annoyed but highly fucking amused.

My lady was proving more and more that she was built for this shit.

After I punched my code to enter, I found Yair at the table with his laptop open, papers spread out like a goddamn case file.

Kades was leaned against the wall behind him with his arms crossed over his chest.

“What’s up?”

Yair leaned back. “You were right, Mir. About all that shit.”

After I reminded Yair to check into the account I sent him, he made it a priority. We all knew that shit belonged to Trent but he planned on trying to link it to me. Yair just needed time to pull it all together. Apparently he had.

“Show me.”

Yair turned the laptop, exposing a new document I recognized as a financial report.

“The half a mil to his sister wasn’t all,” Yair started. “Trent made another transfer too. It was small compared to the first, but still six figures. Sent it to an account overseas.”

My jaw tightened. “Who owns it?”

“A law firm here in the states but they collect their money in offshore accounts to provide ambiguity. They specialize in posthumous legal affairs.” Yair met my eyes. “He’s got something set up for after he dies. A message or lawsuit, shit maybe both and guess who the contact is?”

I frowned and Kades smirked before he dropped the bomb. “Atteir Dominic.”

One of the highest ranking members from Shadow Court…

“This muthafucker was really setting me up to kill him and planned on dropping the dime with some fake shit after he was gone, hoping they would shut me down.”

“Looks like it.” Yair nodded along with Kades’ confrontation.

“Keep going.” My jaw clenched.

Yair tapped another file. “This is where it gets tricky.”

He pulled up a list of Trent’s erased assets.

“Over the past six months, he’s been closing accounts, dissolving businesses, cutting off every old associate.”

Kades snorted, shaking his head. “He wiped his entire fucking life.”

“Every number he used to call regularly? Disconnected. Emails? Deleted. The storage unit he rented? Completely cleared out last week.” Yair gestured to the screen. “Trent didn’t just prepare to die, he prepared to disappear.”

The realization clicked into place and Kades said what was on my mind.

“This muthafucker really wants you to kill him and was going to try to make it seem like you tried to erase his existence to cover it up.”

“How fucking wild is that shit.” I laughed dryly.

“Exactly,” Yair said. “Because when he’s gone, there’s nothing left of him, except a trail of evidence leading to you.”

I leaned against the back of a chair.

“Who the fuck gets that deep with it?” I frowned hard, looking at the screen again.

“An unstable muthafucker for sure.” Kades shook his head.

Yair clicked another tab. Security footage.

“This is from the night of the break-in at Baylyn’s place.”

The footage was grainy but clear enough to note certain things. I saw a black SUV pull up three blocks away from her building.

Two men got out. Then Trent stepped out too.

I locked onto one of the figures. He didn’t move like a man hiding. He moved like a man setting some shit up.

“But look at this,” Yair said, rewinding. “He never actually goes in.”

The footage continued, showing the two men breaking in Baylyn’s place while Trent stayed outside.

“If this came back on him,” Yair said, “there’s no direct proof he had anything to do with it. I had to do a lot of digging to find this shit. Took me hours of searching every fucking camera anywhere near her place.”

The pieces started falling together. No proof. No evidence. Just enough to make me come after him, but not enough to justify killing him.

Yair looked up at me. “If you pull the trigger without things tracing back to him, it looks like a personal hit. Not justice. Y’all have history, Mir.”

Yair pulled up another folder on his screen. “This is where it gets twisted.”

He clicked a file, opening a collection of screenshots, videos, and documents.

They were all of me.

Old footage of me fighting. Shit, I hadn’t done that in years. Photos from places Trent should’ve never been anywhere near. Clips of me at meetings, me in the street, with women from my past. His ass was really fucking obsessed.

But the last file pushed anger through my veins.

“What the fuck is this?” I asked.

“A journal,” Yair said dryly. “His blueprint for how to manipulate you to make you act out of character.”

Kades cursed under his breath, stepping closer. It was hundreds of photos of Baylyn. Most of her alone, some with him…

“Do they have a history?” I growled, glaring at my brother.

“Calm the fuck down. No, they don’t. This is all new.

They’re time stamped but no one would know that without really looking into that shit.

The ones of them together were doctored but they’re good.

He spent money getting them done. He really wanted people to believe he was fucking your girl or maybe you were fucking his.

Ain’t shit worse than a woman coming between two rivals.

With the history the two of you had, nobody would have even thought twice about it. ”

Yair continued. “If this shit got back to Shadow Court, and I believe that was the plan, it would have looked bad for you, Mir.”

I stared at the screen, trying to control myself from sending my fist through it. There were intimate pictures of Trent and another woman but Baylyn’s face on them. I knew every inch of her body, which was the only thing that kept me from breaking Yair’s shit, but it still didn’t sit well with me.

“Ay, get that shit off your screen before his fucking head explodes.” I cut my eyes at Kades who was smiling too damn big.

Yair chuckled and clicked out of it. “There’s one last thing.”

Yair pulled out his phone, pressing play on a recording.

Trent’s voice filled the room.

"I fucked your girl. Emir. You took everything else from me but I’m still fucking winning. I had the one thing that meant the most to you. Now come and get me.”

Silence filled the room. When it ended, nobody spoke for a minute.

“I’m about to head out.”

“Mir, you know that shit is not real, right. It’s just out there so all this shit aligns for him.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“Do you?” He angled his head and I nodded. I knew, but it was still too fucking close to home because it put the thought of Baylyn with another man, hell with him, in my head.

“Don’t take that shit home with you, Mir. It’s not fucking real.”

Yair’s words hit me and I pushed the thought of Baylyn and Trent out of my head. That motherfucker really wanted me to lose my shit. I ran a hand over my beard before looking at Kades. He hadn’t said much, just stood there, watching me.

I lifted a brow. “Say it.”

“You need to talk to Pops.”

I barely kept my expression neutral. “For what?”

“You already know.”

“This is between me and Trent.”

“No,” Kades said firmly. “It’s not. This isn’t just about a kill. This shit affects all of us. Our family.”

He wasn’t wrong. Whatever I did next wouldn’t just hit my name, it would carry weight for everyone connected to me. The Corvidae name held power, but that power came with a price. If I fucked this up, it wouldn’t just be my problem.

“Mir, Pops needs to know.”

“I’m not asking for permission.”

Kades smirked. “Nobody said you were. Trent’s out here fictionally fucking your girl.”

I snapped and moved so quickly he didn’t have time to react. I punched him so damn hard he lost his footing for a minute but didn’t actually fall over.

He wiped his mouth and grinned. “I’m gonna let you have that because I deserved it.”

“Yeah, muthafucker you did.”

“You know he’s sensitive as fuck and all in love, Kades. Why are you playing with him like that?” Yair grinned.

“The shit isn’t real. He knows that.”

“So the fuck do you, but you still said it.” Yair shook his head and leaned back in his chair, arms crossed like he was completely fucking amused.

Kades crossed the room and lifted a dish towel to his mouth. “You need to go talk to Pops.”

I brushed a hand over my head. “Yeah I know. I’ll pull up on him.”

“When you do, let us know what the move is.” I extended a closed fist to Yair and he met it with his. When I did the same for Kades, he frowned at me. “You just busted my damn lip. Fuck you, Mir.”

I chuckled and tossed my chin before heading out.

The drive to our parents’ house was quiet while I thought about the conversation I needed to have with my pops. When I pulled up to the estate, the gates opened before I even reached them.

He already knew I was coming. I walked through the front entrance, nodding to one of the staff as I passed.

“Your father is in his study,” she said.

I made my way through the house, past the long corridor lined with portraits of our family history. A history of how I ended up being the man I was today. The door to his study was cracked open so I didn’t knock, just walked in.

My father sat behind his desk, calm as ever, with a glass of dark liquor resting near his hand. He lifted his eyes to me and motioned to the seat in front of him.

“You finally decided to come see me.” He kept his voice level.

I shut the door behind me. “You heard what’s happening?”

He leaned back in his chair. “I did.” He studied me for a moment before motioning to the seat in front of his desk again because I was still standing. “Tell me everything.”

I sat down and laid it all out. Trent’s plan. His obsession. The way he was using the Black Code against me. The financial transfers. The erased existence. The setup.

I didn’t leave anything out. My father listened and didn’t interrupt. By the time I finished, he reached for his glass, swirling the liquid before lifting it to his mouth.

“I assume you already know how you plan to handle this.”

I nodded. “Yeah, I do.”

He studied me, then gave a slight nod of approval. “I trust your judgment.”

That was it. No hesitation or doubt. Just belief that whatever decision I made would protect me as well as our family.

“But, before you handle it, you take this to the Shadow Court.”

My jaw tensed. “Why?”

“Because when you kill him, and you will kill him, you need to make sure they know exactly why. Present everything to them first, so when the time comes, they don’t question it. They’ll sanction it.”

A sanctioned kill meant Trent would have no legacy, no honor. It would be recorded as a justified elimination, not a personal hit.

The very thing he thought he could manipulate would work against him instead.

“Understood.”

My father sat forward, resting his elbows on the desk. “Emir, this is the difference between acting on emotion and moving with power.”

I absorbed his words, rolling them over in my mind before standing. “I’ll make sure it’s handled right.”

“I know you will.”

I left my pops and headed home to Baylyn.

Things with Trent were about to get complicated.

I needed a minute to disconnect and clear my head and she needed a minute to be disconnected from the shit I’d brought into her life.

On the drive, I mentally mapped out a day for us to just chill and exist. All this other bullshit could wait.