Page 22 of The Sin Binders Ascent

Lucien turns to her. “He started it.”

Caspian shrugs. “I finished it.”

Elias raises a hand, dazed. “I got punched.”

Silas throws a hand over his heart. “I did it forlove.”

And me? I wipe Theo’s blood from my knuckles and meet her eyes.

“Next time,” I say softly, “just let me kill him first.”

She stands halfway down the stairs, one hand gripping the railing, the other at her hip, hoodie sleeves pushed up her forearms like she’s trying,really trying, not to start dismembering. Her glare scans the wreckage with surgical precision.

The dining room looks like a war crime. One of the chairs is impaled through the drywall like it tried to escape mid-fight and failed. The table’s cracked in two,Caspian’s table, mind you, which was solid oak and custom-built. Forks glitter across the floor like abandoned throwing stars. The risotto is everywhere. Silas somehow managed to get a clump of it on the chandelier.

Theo’s bleeding from the mouth and smiling like we handed him a party favor.

“This,” Luna gestures, sweeping the destruction with a single, sharp wave of her hand, “isnotacceptable.”

We all freeze. Even Riven, mid-knuckle crack, goes statue-still.

“You want to kill him?” she continues, stepping fully into the room, her voice too level to be safe. “You want to punch him? Threaten him? Shove a chair leg up his smug, too-perfect ass?Fine.Do itoutside.”

Silas opens his mouth.

“Not even one word,” she snaps.

He closes it. Swallows it. I swear I hear his soul whisperYes, ma’am.

Lucien stands straighter, chin twitching toward the mess. “He provoked,”

“I don’tcarewho started it.” Her eyes cut through him. “You don’t destroy the home we built together just to stroke your egos and piss on your territory.”

Theo hums from the floor, dabbing at his split lip with a linen napkin. “That sounds territorial.”

Riven moves again, but Luna’s hand flies up.

“No.”

He freezes, jaw clenching hard enough I can see the muscle ticking from here.

“Lucien,” she says, turning toward him. “Fix the wall. Elias, you’re on glass duty. Caspian,yourtable,yourproblem.”

“What about him?” Silas croaks, pointing at Theo like he’s identifying roadkill.

Luna lifts a brow. “He can help.”

Theo looks delighted. “Oh, I love housework. Nothing saysbondinglike manual labor and passive-aggressive resentment.”

She walks over, grabs a cloth napkin, and shoves it into his chest, hard.

“Start with the floor. You bleed on it, you clean it.”

Lucien moves first, reluctantly. With that same icy precision, he uses to decimate armies. One flick of his fingers and the crack along the wall seals, smooth as untouched plaster.

Caspian mutters a prayer to whatever culinary god just witnessed this travesty and begins assessing the damage to his poor, splintered table. Elias crouches with a dustpan, already mourning the loss of a wine glass that shattered like his dignity.

Silas grabs a broom and glares at it like it personally betrayed him. “This ischild labor.”

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