The Anatomy of a Curse: How the Feared King of Charleston Learned to Bleed for the Only Soul Who Refused to Run

Vance recovered his composure with terrifying speed, setting the decanter down with a soft click on the marble desktop.

He smiled thinly, remarking that Damian had always been remarkably difficult to kill, just like his stubborn old father.

Damian stepped into the room, kicking the door closed behind him and cutting off any escape toward the hallway.

He told Vance that the curse was officially broken, because every lie that sustained it had been written down in black ink.

Downstairs in the ballroom, the lights dimmed suddenly as the grand presentation screens flickered to life.

Instead of the polished corporate slideshow the audience expected, the speakers throughout the customs house roared with the crackling sound of an audio recording.

Vance’s own voice echoed across the crowded ballroom, explicitly detailing the amount of money paid to the mechanic who cut the brake lines on Arthur Cross’s sedan.

The room of three hundred high-society guests went dead silent, the champagne flutes freezing in mid-air as horror rippled through the crowd.

On the massive projector screens, Alara’s program broadcasted the bank accounts, the wire transfers, and the names of every board member who had profited from seven years of bloodshed.

Upstairs, Vance heard his own confession booming through the floorboards, his face turning the color of curdled milk.

He realized with chilling clarity that his political capital, his wealth, and his manufactured reputation were disintegrating in front of the entire state.

In a desperate, cornered frenzy, Vance lunged for the open desk drawer, pulling out a snub-nosed revolver.

He screamed that Damian would not leave this building alive, shouting that the Cross family was meant to rot in the mud where they belonged.

Damian did not flinch; he stepped forward, grabbing Vance’s wrist and twisting the weapon away before the older man could align the sight.

The revolver fell to the Persian rug with a heavy thud, followed by Vance collapsing back against his mahogany desk, clutching his broken wrist.

Damian looked down at the man who had stolen his youth, his family, and his peace of mind.

He could have pulled the trigger and ended Vance’s life with absolute justification, but he remembered Alara’s words in the cellar: monsters thrived in the dark, but justice lived in the light.

He told Vance that a quick bullet was far too easy a mercy for the man who framed his father and murdered Thomas Bennett.

He stepped back, allowing the distant sound of approaching federal sirens to fill the quiet room.

Before Damian could turn toward the door, the heavy oak panels burst open with sudden violence.

Senator Sterling stood in the threshold, his face contorted in drunken fury, holding a silver automatic pistol aimed directly at Damian’s chest.

Downstairs, Alara saw armed private guards rushing toward the executive staircase and abandoned the projection booth, running up the marble stairs two at a time.