Chapter 204: Sins and Punishment of the Homeland

The name echoed in the silence of Ian’s mind, a venomous serpent uncoiling after years of dormancy. Christine Yale. Not a faceless corporation, not a shadowy syndicate boss, but his stepmother. The woman whose smile was a mask for cruelty, whose touch was a prelude to pain. The architect of the suffocating darkness that had defined his early life. The white-hot inferno that had erupted within him didn't scream or rage. It condensed, cooling into a shard of ice in the center of his soul. The...