Chapter 90: The Week-Long War

"Reyn’s finally gone, huh?"

Trish sighed, fiddling with a strand of her hair as she lounged against her desk. This was her chance to prove herself to him. But that didn’t mean she had to like it.

It still meant being away from him, after all.

"An entire week before they return. That means I have an entire week to take care of the Bank. I wonder if I can even manage something like that..."

She moved to the window, overlooking the Brimstone estate from her own personal room, assigned by the Duke so she wouldn’t need to make repeat trips between the Fillaunete estate and the Brimstones’.

"Who am I kidding? Reyn did so much just to save my house. This is the least I could do..."

Trish hesitated, remembering the promise he had made her. About what would happen if she finished this job.

"And after that, Reyn will finally..."

She couldn’t finish the thought. Her face flushed so hot she slapped both cheeks with her palms, then crashed face-first into the bed as she tried to compose herself.

? ? ?

It was now the third day of my absence, and the entire Brimstone estate had mobilized to deal with the bank. Every maid had been ordered to read through contracts and report anything even slightly off or suspicious.

Trish and the Duke were skilled. But even they weren’t immune to glossing over certain details.

"I wonder if Reyn and Anna are having fun in the Federation? I heard they sold good jewelry there."

The words came out lighter than she felt. Trish let her gaze drift to the window, where the afternoon sun slanted through the glass and pooled across the floorboards in long golden rectangles.

She could picture it, the Federation’s market squares, bustling with merchants hawking their wares. Glass cases glittering with necklaces and rings and brooches set with gemstones that caught the light.

Anna would drag me from stall to stall, her pink eyes bright with excitement, her hand never leaving his arm.

And I would let her. Giving that small, knowing smile of mine, and then I’d buy her something frivolous and expensive because I could, because I liked seeing her happy.

She even wished that it could be her.

Trish pressed her palm flat against the desk, grounding herself.

"Focus."

She turned to another page and froze.

It was a book the Brimstone estate had scavenged from John Ferrum’s dorm. And to say it was damning was an understatement.

Trish snapped her pen in half by the second page.

"Those pigs. How dare they plan something like this...?"

The book was a ledger of names, dates, and payments. But it wasn’t the bank’s official records. It was something far worse.

A list of targets.

Every name had a price beside it. Some were marked with symbols Trish didn’t recognize at first. Then she found the key at the back of the book, written in John Ferrum’s cramped, precise handwriting.

Symbols denote method of disposal.

T—Torture. K—Kidnapping. M—Murder. B—Blackmail. W—"Worse."

Trish didn’t need to guess what "worse" meant. She’d seen enough of the world’s cruelty in her short life.

Reyn’s name was on the first page. Beside it was the symbol W, circled three times, with a note scrawled in the margin: Primary target. Bank directive. No expense spared.

Her hands trembled.

She turned the page. Anna’s name. K. Trish’s own name. M. The Duke’s name. B, with a sub-note about leveraging his children. Even the servants who’d worked at the Brimstone estate for decades.

Trish closed the ledger. Her hands were steady now. The trembling had passed.

? ? ?

It was the fifth day, and the bank investigation had reached its highest point of tension. An all-out war had erupted in the underground between House Brimstone and the Bank of Aurion.

Assassination after assassination after assassination. Even the local government had given up trying to intervene, granting the Brimstone estate full authority to lead the investigation.

But in truth, the real culprit behind the assassinations was the Brimstones themselves. They were slowly crushing the Bank of Aurion by eliminating its most experienced executives, replacing them with naive younger men and bleeding the bank of its talent one corpse at a time.

It was a risky plan, but the head of House Brimstone had still gone along with it. Trish had somehow convinced him, and in truth, she was the real mastermind behind everything. The Duke was almost a puppet in all of it.

A very important puppet that must always be kept safe, but a puppet nonetheless.

"They’re getting sloppy. The bank’s nepotism is catching up with them, all these new executives are only thinking about revenge. They aren’t even thinking anymore."

Trish laughed, biting one of her nails as she studied the board before her. Photographs, documents, and scraps of parchment were pinned across it in a sprawling web, connected by red thread that crisscrossed the surface like veins.

"At this rate, I can finish this job before Reyn even arrives."

? ? ?

The Duke was waiting for her in his study when she arrived, his eyes hollow from lack of sleep. He’d been following her instructions, signing what she told him to sign, approving what she told him to approve. But he was still the Duke. He still had questions.

"The bank’s remaining executives are meeting tonight. They’ve called a vote of no confidence in their own leadership. They’re planning to surrender."

Trish shook her head.

"They’re not planning to surrender. They’re planning to consolidate. The vote is a formality. They’ll use it to purge the weak and reorganize under a single leader, someone who can negotiate from a position of strength."

The Duke stared at her. "How do you know that?"

"Because it’s what I would do."

"You’re being overconfident. According to my spies, the Bank has nearly no resources left for a gamble like that."

"I disagree, Lord Brimstone. You might not be aware, given your position of power, but debts are powerful. The Bank of Aurion holds thousands of them spread across this city alone. Imagine how many more it holds beyond Leonis itself."

She paced across the room, her footsteps measured and deliberate.

"They have thousands of men at their disposal. Most might be useless, but some might be prodigies. And they don’t even need to try hard; they just need to invoke a debt, and they’ll get new recruits."

She stopped, turning to face the Duke directly.

"What then? Are we confident we can survive if the Bank weaponizes the desperation of the thousands of people it’s already broken? Recruiting them with nothing more than the promise of debt relief?"

The Duke’s jaw tightened. "Then what do you propose?"

"We don’t get complacent. We maintain our pace, and then we kill the Aurion family and replace them with a better House."

"You mean us. But where would we even start—"

"The new executives are young and naive, Lord Brimstone. And I’m a beautiful woman, at least, Reyn thinks I am. It wouldn’t be that hard."

She smiled.