Chapter 165: Brutal

Without breaking his gaze from the glowing screen of his phone, Magnus typed a quick message, his face remaining entirely unreadable—as if carved from a block of marble. Not a single emotion, not the slightest hint of fatigue, nor any attempt to share what was going on.

"Yeah," Sayan nodded, exhaling a stream of gray smoke into the freezing air. "The moment your die-hard fan saw her older brother, she was ready to go to prison and stand trial in our city just to avoid being returned to the bosom of her family."

Squinting slyly, Sayan looked at his friend with blatant curiosity, expecting some kind of reaction, since the situation was truly terrifying. The girl was trembling as if being led to the scaffold. But Magnus remained unbelievably silent, ignoring the words as though Madam Arden’s fate concerned him no more than the dust beneath the soles of his boots.

"Ugh, I heard she messed up badly in the past, and he’s a dangerous guy," Sayan pressed on, squeezing the cigarette between his fingers so hard the filter crushed. The urge to unearth the truth was itching right under his skin, and he could barely endure it.

"He is the head of the Black Mist Pack," Magnus stated slowly, enunciating every word, his tone sending a sharp chill down Sayan’s spine. "And I’m sure you’re aware that Bantre is a closed, brutally ruthless country. And Illai Keiner has already brought most of it under his thumb."

Hearing that, Sayan swallowed hard. Bantre wasn’t just brutal—it was a real meat grinder for the weak. It was a nation where only true monsters survived. And he couldn’t fathom what kind of a monster it took to rule it.

"And he flew in for her personally? What the fuck for?" The question slipped off Sayan’s tongue before he could filter it, a tight knot coiling in his gut. Why would the leader of such a powerful pack fly in personally just to fetch a disgraced girl sentenced to exile?

"I don’t think anything good awaits Ophelia Arden," Magnus said calmly, slipping his phone into his inner pocket and finally lifting his heavy, crushing gaze. "Her father asked me to hide her in exchange for her talents and a substantial sum of money. He swore she wouldn’t cause any trouble. The agreement was absolute: a single major misstep, and she’d be thrown right back. How stupid did she have to be to forget what kind of hell she left behind?"

His words fell like heavy stones. There wasn’t a single drop of sympathy in his voice, only cold, calculated logic. Magnus only favored those who played by the rules, and if someone broke them, mercy was completely off the table.

"What on earth did she do back home?" Sayan asked, looking lost as he watched a private jet touch down on the runway with a deafening roar and brake to a halt.

"A crime against pack members," Magnus said, his eyes locked onto the giant aircraft. His features sharpened into a predatory mask the moment a tall man appeared on the airstairs. "If Illai himself flew in for her, her neck will be snapped like a dry twig. He might even do it with his own hands. Serves her right for harming his... mate."

"She’s his sister... Would he really show no mercy?" Sayan exhaled in shock, tossing his burnt-out cigarette butt into a trash bin. The thought shook him to his core; in a normal world, family meant protection. Blood was supposed to count for something great.

"Illai? Hell no," Magnus cut in harshly. "He is ruthless. A lesser man could never hold a pack together in a country like that, let alone bend the rest to his will. There is nothing he cannot do."

Pushing off the hood, Sayan fell into step behind Magnus, feeling a sticky, sickening discomfort churning in his gut.

The earlier scene at the airport had truly rattled him. The girl had been so terrified she was ready to leap out a third-story window and smash her own head just to keep her brother from getting to her. Now, Sayan had no doubt that Magnus knew far more than he was letting on. Her father’s men had never shown up to save her, yet Illai Keiner himself had arrived. Magnus had likely informed him directly—throwing her to the brutal wolves without hesitation the moment she breached their pact.

Shrugging off a sudden chill, Sayan noted a terrifying fact. In his entire life, he had met Alphas with such overwhelming, dominant presence only twice: Magnus, and now this Illai.

Near them, the very air felt toxic—their auras explosive, their energy so fierce it made you instinctively want to bare your fangs or retreat into the shadows and run the hell away from it all.

Compared to the still-fresh memory of Illai, the figure of Dean Nyland—who was descending the airstairs at that very moment—seemed utterly pathetic.

He was a laughable caricature of a male. Dean tried to make his steps look natural, but he failed miserably. He could barely walk. His neck apparently still hadn’t recovered from his injuries, so he had to turn his entire torso to dodge the blinding flashes of the reporters’ cameras, moving in jerky fits like a broken puppet.

Behind the barricades, reporters shouted, desperate for a shred of attention, but Magnus’s men and the local security ruthlessly shoved them back.

The second Dean stepped off the airstairs, heavy hands grabbed him roughly by the arms. His personal guard was subdued within seconds, slammed face-first onto the concrete right beside the plane without a shred of ceremony. Nyland himself was hauled off toward a private lounge where Magnus was already waiting.

The atmosphere inside the room was suffocating and thick with tension—as if all the oxygen had been vacuumed out, leaving only primal dread. Magnus stared at the bastard who walked in as if he were mere dirt beneath his boots—an insect utterly unworthy of his time.