Caught by the Mad Alpha King Chapter 112: At the church in the morning (Win-Win)

Killian sighed, leaning heavier against the desk. "So, would you return to the palace?"

"No, I will burn the clergy down first. I need sothing to take my rage out on. You coming?"

Killian’s sigh ca out like permission and warning folded into one. He pushed off the desk and stepped closer until the office felt smaller, coiled around the two of them.

"You serious?" he asked, with no incredulity in his voice, only the practical question of how much blood they were willing to spill and who would clean it up afterward. "When did you soften enough to ask and not order?"

"Bla the exhaustion," Dax said, and the corner of his mouth tightened into sothing like a smile that didn’t reach his eyes.

Killian studied him for a beat, then let out a noise that was half amusent, half acceptance. "Let’s test if the god of these people is listening to them."

Dax moved and grabbed his coat from the back of the chair and slid his phone into the pocket. "Have a al ready and call General Edward Rose; let him know that we will depart in half an hour. "

Killian nodded and exited the room.

Dax could feel the ink under his skin like grit, a stubborn map that wouldn’t scrub away. For a long second he just looked at his hands, then shrugged them into motion. He stripped off the coat, rolled up his sleeves, and went to the bathroom.

The shower was hot enough to sting at first, steam filling the bathroom, water sluicing ink down his wrists and into the drain. He scrubbed until the skin on his palms prickled, until the black softened and faded to familiar sallow lines. He let the heat take the tension out of his shoulders; for a few minutes he allowed the water to do what orders and papers couldn’t.

He shaved quickly, the blade whispering along his jaw, then patted his face dry with a towel brought from the palace suite. For a mont the towel slled faintly of soap and sleep and rain, a scent that made his chest tighten.

He dressed in a fitted black shirt with sleeves that could be rolled without catching, dark trousers with reinforced seams, and boots broken in and silent. Over it he wore a dark tailored jacket with inner pockets. He clipped a discreet earpiece into his collar and slid leather gloves into the inner pocket. Dax doubted he would need it.

He ate like a man who intended to be violent, with scrambled eggs, thick toast, and strong coffee; the breakfast prepared a body for what was to co. Killian sat across from him, equally quiet, an espresso in hand, watching him eat with the sa composed, attentive presence he’d shown a thousand tis before.

At least this ti Dax listened and ate before starting to dismantle his enemies.

By the ti he clipped on his watch and checked his phone, the convoy lights were already knitting across the valley.

The convoy rolled, engines humming low like caged beasts, swallowing the last of the lavender dawn. Dax sat rigid in the passenger seat, fingers curled around the folder in his lap until the paper groaned. Killian climbed into the lead SUV behind them, face set, phone alive with channels and confirmations. Between them moved a tight, professional silence of radio clicks, breath, and the tiny chanical music of n about to unmake a house.

Edward Rose’s voice ca through Dax’s earpiece in a gravelly, no-nonsense bark. He was a late-fifties soldier with a face like a map of hard decisions and the kind of authority that made people stop arguing and start moving. "Teams green. Periter locked. Catacomb entry secured. Evidence unit on standby. You want the roofs hot or quiet?

"Hot enough to stop anyone from thinking of escape routes," Dax replied. He kept his tone flat; the edge lived in his eyes. "Stay on standby; I will deal with their head first."

"Understood," Edward said. "We go in on your mark. Press embargo holds. Drones are active for aerial coverage in case of improvised resistance."

Dax’s hand tightened once and released. "Move."

The convoy tightened, then split into rehearsed threads. Vehicles fanned into position around the temple’s block; unmarked vans took alleys, armored cars blocked the main road, and a single municipal vehicle, an obvious, slow-moving ambulance, sat staged at the side in case they needed plausible cover. The first team approached the temple’s service entrance: a low, squat doorway that slled of old incense and newer money.

The car doors opened to the heat of the sumr already rising through the slow mist of the rain.

Dax climbed the steps alone. The rain had turned to a fine mist, turning the marble slick and the air heavy with the perfu of incense that never seed to fade from this part of the city. By the ti he reached the grand doors, the priests had already gathered to greet him, their robes immaculate and their expressions carved into false serenity.

The High Cardinal was waiting in the vestibule as if expecting praise. He had that practiced look of a man who’d turned sanctimony into a profession: perfect robe, perfect cadence, perfect arrogance. He raised his hands in a blessing that had the tired, oily ease of soone who thought his words were talismans.

"Your Majesty," the Cardinal cooed, voice like silk over stone. "How punctual of you. We welco the crown’s attention to holiness."

Dax inclined his head like a gentleman and laughed.

It was a sound that refrad the room as sharp, amused, and utterly devoid of reverence. A murmur ran through the gathered clerics; their hands went to collars and pockets, to the little things n keep as insurance.

"You know," Dax said, voice smooth as a blade, "the last mission of your church made rethink my faith. I ca to question yours."

The Cardinal’s smile thinned, the trained oil wearing off at the edges. He lifted a hand as if to bless, as if ritual could repair a ledger, and replied with silk and insolence, "Your Majesty mistakes criticism for hostility. rcy must have limits, and..."

"...rcy is not your ledger," Dax cut in, amused, the laugh in his throat like a knife being sharpened. He closed the distance with that casual speed that made n flinch before they understood why. The room shrank to the two of them: marble, incense, and the soft hum of drones just beyond the stained-glass windows.

The Cardinal tried the old defenses of sanctity, outrage, and the thin threat of a scandal, and all of them sounded brittle when Dax repeated the words he’d already heard in paper and poison. "You called it charity," Dax said, voice low and very public. "You called it salvation while you sold our people’s bodies for money. How does that look from where you kneel?"

A junior acolyte pushed forward, voice bright with indignation; a handful of the older priests opened their mouths, prepared to turn this into a spectacle. For a mont the room humd with the nervous energy of n who had never been held accountable.

Dax let it increase like tension and then released it. He pressed a fingertip to the Cardinal’s ringed hand, the sa seal that had stamped shipnt manifests and glazed pastries, and with a quick, practiced motion he twisted it from the man’s finger. The ring ca off with a tallic sigh.

He held it up to the nearest cara, the little glass eye that would carry an image into hos across Saha, and grinned. "Nice keepsake," he said softly. "We’ll log it." His tone made the word "log" sound like a verdict.

The Cardinal’s face contorted into fury, his true nature surfacing under the holy oil he bathed in.

"How dare you?!" His clerical voice filling the entire temple.