Page 6 of The Syndicate’s Shadow Heiress (Branche de Lune Syndicate #1)

THE TRUTH BLEEDS CLEAN

Kali’s Emotional State: Focused. Powerful. Teetering on the edge of obsession. Each cut is clarity. Each scream, a sermon

T

he senator was sweating through silk. Strapped to the voidstone table—arms bound above his head, legs spread wide—his body trembled beneath the weight of Kali’s magic.

No leather. No steel. Just shadow, coiled around him like velvet chains, pulsing with hunger and absolute control.

The stone beneath him thrummed like it knew what she was about to do.

Kali circled like a blade with legs, posture immaculate, braid swinging behind her like it wanted its own kill count. Her heels clicked against the rune-etched stone floor, each step a countdown.

She didn’t speak.

Not yet.

Lev stood beside the table, already selecting a blade. His eyes burned through the mask, locked onto the senator’s shaking flesh. The matte black scalpel glowed faintly—enchanted to make nerves scream louder than lungs.

The senator whimpered. “You—you don’t have to do this. We can talk— ”

Kali tilted her head. “We are talking. You just haven’t earned the right to be believed.”

Irina leaned against the chaise, legs crossed, sipping from a chilled glass bottle of Dr. Pepper.

Her presence was deceptively relaxed, like a viper basking in warmth.

Vaerkyn, Kali's massive hellhound, rested at her feet, his head in Irina’s lap as she absently scratched behind one ear with blood-slicked nails.

“You told her lies,” Lev said, voice like ice poured over a blade. “You thought your secrets were clever. They weren’t.”

The first cut came without warning.

A shallow line down the thigh. Skin split like paper. The senator howled.

Kali didn’t flinch. “Name. Code. Sigil drop point.”

“I—I can’t. I made a vow.”

Her shadows surged across the floor like a tide of coiled serpents.

“I know,” she murmured. “That’s why we’re going to cut through the vow until your body forgets it ever made one.”

Lev switched to the banshee blade. The air hummed with violent intent. Blood painted his stomach in slow, elegant strokes.

“Astraeus’s voice thundered in her mind, persistent and concerned. This isn’t about sending a message anymore, Kali. This is your soul. Don’t lose it to anger. ”

Her spine ached. Her joints burned. Her rage was a leash she kept wrapping tighter around her own throat. But her clarity sharpened with each scream.

Irina rose then, lazily walking over, removing a heated brand from its case. “Thought we’d test a new rune. Curses the tongue. Let’s see how he sings with no voice.”

She pressed it just beneath his chin. The senator shrieked like his throat had opened into a portal.

Kali’s eyes glowed with pleasure.

The sixth scream did it. “It was Lucian!” he sobbed. “He gave the Vampire Court Syndicate sigils—they’re trying to breach the East End portal!”

Kali stilled. Every muscle, breath, and shadow froze.

“Which sigils?” she asked, voice dipped in venom.

“The ones from 99—the cursed ones your grandfather sealed. They’re trying to mirror-cast with Spiral magic to open the Gate from the outside!”

The room changed.

Lev stopped mid-slice. Irina’s jaw twitched. Even Vaerkyn—silent beside the chaise—let out a low growl.

Astraeus’s voice thundered in her mind. “That gate was never meant to be touched.”

Kali stepped forward, shadows rising to her shoulders like wings .

“You sold access to my bloodline,” she said softly. “And thought you’d walk away?”

The senator babbled apologies.

“Lev,” she ordered, tone diamond-hard. “Finish it.”

Kali’s shadows surged again, this time climbing the senator’s thighs like sentient silk. They twisted and pulsed—coaxing, stroking, commanding. It didn’t take long.

Despite the senator’s fear, the shadows took control of his body. He gasped, unable to stop the betrayal of his own flesh under Kali’s magic.

Only then did Kali speak again. “Perfect. Now we can begin the real conversation.”

Lev nodded once, blade glinting. He worked like a surgeon, not a butcher—cutting down each side of the senator’s erection with precision, then slicing cleanly through the base. The man screamed, cracked, sobbed, and begged.

The black satin box hovered toward Irina on a curl of shadow. She caught it mid-air, popping it open without slowing. “Presentation matters.”

Kali approached as Lev opened the testicles and arranged each part like a grotesque bouquet. She raised a hand, palm glowing.

Astraeus growled again in her mind, deeper this time. “You are more than this fury, Kali. Don’t let them make you forget that. ”

Kali’s shadows slid deeper into the senator’s mind, snagging on something sharp—tiny flashes of surveillance sigils hidden inside Club Noire’s enchanted walls, blinking like malignant stars.

They weren't just spying. They were bleeding the Syndicate dry from the inside. And it reeked of Spiral magic.

She sent the order through the enforcer link: “Remove every bug from every club. Deliver them to my Manhattan office. Tonight.”

She turned to Irina. “Call the transplant chief at the children's hospital. Tell them we have usable organs. Rush order. No questions.”

Lev moved with ritualistic reverence, harvesting clean, packing every piece into separate containers.

He peeled the senator’s chest in one smooth pass.

Before sealing the heart in the chilled container, he held it one final moment, like a twisted offering, letting its final pulse echo in the silence.

Skin for burn units. Liver, kidneys—boxed and blessed. Eyes preserved for sight restoration.

Not a sliver of waste.

Only purpose.

Only wrath.

Kali didn’t blink.

When the last cut was made, she nodded.

“Irina. Label the box: Gift from the Empire. ”

Irina smirked. “Oh, I love when you get poetic.”

Lev stepped back. Blood ran down his arms.

“You okay?”

Kali stared at the corpse.

“No. But I’m alive.”

Kali didn’t move. Didn’t speak. She just let him.

His gloved fingers brushed the underside of her wrist as she passed him, slow and deliberate, a touch meant for no one else to see.

You are magnificent, his mind whispered across the bond, a blade wrapped in silk.

Kali didn’t stop. Didn’t acknowledge him.

But the shadows at her heels coiled tighter, like a lover’s hand sliding up her spine.

Kali stood alone once the blood and screams faded, her mask discarded, her shadows curling restlessly around her boots.

From the corner of the room, Vaerkyn approached—slow, deliberate, silent.

He didn’t bark. He didn’t growl.

He simply nudged his massive, scarred head against her thigh, the weight of him grounding her in a way no magic ever could .

She looked down—and in the dim light, saw her glove torn open at the palm, blood leaking sluggishly from between her fingers.

Vaerkyn lifted his head and, with aching gentleness, licked the wound clean.

Kali didn’t move. Didn’t speak.

She just let him, standing frozen, while her hellhound did what no one else dared:

Mourned for the pieces of her that war kept taking.

Power didn’t need permission.

And neither did she anymore.

The Spiral Mouth had moved.

And Kali?

She was done pretending she hadn’t.