The air in Room 58 was thick with the scent of dried blood. Malcolm Ford, the man who commanded the global economy with a single word, forced himself to stand. He pushed away from Dahmer Lukas's lap, his legs trembling not from weakness, but from the sheer biological shock of the Mark pulsing on his neck.
He stood in the center of the room, half-naked, draped in a sheet that felt like a shroud. He wiped the blood from his mouth with the back of his hand, his amber eyes regaining a cold, razor-sharp clarity.
"What is wrong with you?" Malcolm's voice was a low, vibrating snarl that seemed to rattle the windowpanes. "Why were you so concerned with my life that you had to do this? You've spent weeks treating me like a laboratory animal, a donor, a nuisance. Why didn't you just let the heart stop? What do I need to do to remove this filth from my skin? Tell me the price. Money, land, the Deviloy infrastructure—name it, and take this mark with you."
