Grandfather Elias sat behind the glass desk as if it were a throne carved from ice.
The office stretched wide and immaculate around him, a monument to modern power. White stone floors reflected the city lights pouring through the floor-to-ceiling windows, turning the skyline into a fractured constellation of steel and neon. Towers rose like teeth against the night, alive with movement, commerce, and ambition. Elias had shaped that view with money and blood, had watched it grow fat on fear. It pleased him to see it still thriving.
"Step closer, boy."
His voice was thin with age, roughened by decades of command, but it carried easily across the room. It was the kind of voice that did not ask twice.
Izana Grimshaw stood near the doorway, tall and unmoving, his broad frame held rigid as if bracing against an invisible force. He wore a white dress shirt, carefully pressed, the color stark against the shadows that clung to him. A white blindfold was tied securely around his eyes, the knot tight and deliberate.
He was not blind.
He was contained.
"I'd rather stay here," Izana said. He tried to keep his voice steady, but it faltered. "The migraine—."
Elias squinted, impatience sharpening his gaze. "I can barely see you in the shadows."
Izana hesitated. His fingers twitched at his sides. Then, with visible reluctance, he took a single step forward.
The light struck him fully.
His breath caught as if the brightness itself were painful. Sweat beaded along his brow and traced slow paths down his temples. His shoulders tightened, and his jaw clenched as he adjusted to the exposure.
"It's starting again," Izana said quietly. "The four months are up tomorrow."
Elias straightened in his chair.
His hands folded atop the glass desk, fingers interlacing with practiced precision. Their reflection beneath the surface looked warped, distorted, as though the glass itself rejected the idea of age and decay.
"Which is exactly why we are doing this tonight," Elias said.
Izana's hand rose to his chest, fingers curling into the fabric of his shirt as if trying to anchor himself. His breathing grew shallow, uneven. There was a pressure there—deep and internal, pulsing in time with his heartbeat. Not pain, not yet. A warning.
"The Family needs a head," Elias continued calmly. "They need fear."
He lifted one bony finger and pointed directly at Izana. "And you, Izana… you are terror incarnate."
Izana shook his head. He stood fully in the center of the room now, exposed beneath the lights. His height and strength did nothing to stop the tremor running through him.
"I'm a liability," he said. "Look at me. I can barely stand without feeling like—."
His breath hitched.
"Like my heart is coming apart."
Elias scoffed and leaned back, unimpressed.
"Your father understood sacrifice," he said. "A lesson you have yet to learn."
Izana's hand dropped from his chest. His shoulders sagged.
"You saw what happened to them," he said. "To mother. To father."
The words hung in the air, heavy with memory.
Elias slammed his palm onto the desk. The sharp crack echoed through the office, bouncing off glass and stone.
"I saw power!" Elias snapped. "Uncontrolled, yes—but power nonetheless."
For a moment, silence followed.
Then Elias exhaled slowly, regaining composure. When he leaned forward again, his expression had changed. The anger smoothed into something quieter. More dangerous.
"You are twenty," he said. "You are a Grimshaw."
Izana's fingers brushed the front of his shirt, trembling. He traced a small, unconscious motion there—a reminder he had given himself long ago, not to punish, but to remember. To never forget what he was capable of becoming.
"I'm a monster," he whispered. "I marked myself so I wouldn't forget."
The room felt too large. Too empty. Izana lifted his head slightly, though the blindfold hid his eyes.
"Don't make me the Don," he said. "Please."
His voice cracked.
"I'll kill them all by accident. Again."
Elias rose from his chair.
Despite his age, he moved with deliberate strength, his frame cutting a dark silhouette against the city lights. From within his jacket, he produced the Grimshaw signet ring.
Gold, heavy, unmistakable.
The black onyx at its center did not shine. It absorbed the light, swallowing it whole.
"Take it," Elias commanded.
Izana recoiled violently.
He stumbled backward until his spine struck the wall, his palms raised in instinctive defense. Panic sharpened his breathing, turning it quick and shallow.
"No touching," he said quickly. "You know the rules."
"If the curse triggers early—."
"Then let it trigger!" Elias roared. "Let the underbosses see what happens when they cross us."
He leaned over the desk, eyes burning, and extended the ring again—this time steady. Patient.
An offering.
A threat.
"Put it on," Elias said.
Izana wiped his nose with the back of his hand. A faint smear of red stained his skin, and a single drop fell, blooming against the white fabric of his shirt. He froze at the sight of it.
"If I take that ring," he said softly, "I take responsibility for everyone I hurt with it."
Elias shrugged.
"You're already drowning in it," he replied. "Might as well learn to swim."
Izana's hand hovered in the space between them. It shook violently.
For a moment—just one—he imagined refusing. Turning away. Letting the Family devour itself without him.
But the city loomed behind Elias, endless and waiting. Millions of lives, stacked atop one another, fragile as glass.
"God forgive me," Izana whispered.
He closed his fist around the ring.
The gold was cold. Heavier than it should have been. It felt as though it were pulling him downward, anchoring itself to something deep inside him. Not flesh. Not bone. Something older.
Elias smiled.
Not wide. Not kind.
Satisfied.
"Good boy," he said. "Now, let's begin."
The lights flickered.
Izana gasped as something shifted within him—old, vast, stirring from long restraint. The pressure in his chest surged, and the room seemed to tilt, as if the world itself were adjusting to his presence.
Somewhere far below, the city continued to breathe.
And the Grimshaw legacy woke with him.