"Oh, you!" Jade instantly forgot about the existence of the two men, leaving them behind as she rushed toward her best friend.

The moment Aliana’s bare feet touched the final step, Jade threw her arms around her, pulling her into a tight embrace. "Oh, I missed you so much! It feels like ages since I last saw you."

A soft smile spread across Aliana’s lips as she returned the embrace.

"So you finally came back from your trip to space!" she complained. "Where have you been?! I called so many times! You’ve been completely unreachable!"

Jade tightened her hold around her for another second before finally pulling away, guilt instantly flashing across her face as she looked at her friend.

"I know, I know," she said with an apologetic pout. "I’m so sorry, alright?!"

"My father sent me to some godforsaken, remote village to inspect a plot of land we are supposed to modernise, and my phone fell directly into a pile of cow dunk while I was taking a tour of one of the farms. Can you even begin to comprehend the horror? After that, life was an absolute, isolated hell. They didn’t even have a proper shop for me to buy a replacement. After a couple of days, when I finally escaped that wasteland, the first thing I did was purchase a new phone, only to unlock it and find out... hello! Is my best friend in the entire world getting married without telling me?!"

Once Jade started speaking, stopping became an impossible mission. Words poured out of her mouth one after another like a flood that had finally burst through a dam, and Aliana could only sigh inwardly, already knowing just how much chaos Jade had already missed in merely a few days.

So, she simply waited. 𝑓𝘳𝘦𝑒𝑤𝑒𝘣𝘯ℴ𝘷𝘦𝓁.𝑐𝑜𝑚

She knew interrupting Jade now would be equivalent to standing in front of a speeding train and hoping for survival.

"Not only that, what was that about the freak accident today?!" Jade continued without even taking a proper breath. "You scared the bejeezus out of me, Ali! Are you feeling alright? I rushed straight here from the airport, only to find... him here."

Finally, Jade paused before slowly turning her head and casting a suspicious glare towards Cillian.

Cillian merely met her stare and responded with his signature charming smile, one that somehow looked irritatingly smug today.

Jade huffed before whipping her head back towards Aliana.

"And do you know what I found when I got here?" she demanded dramatically.

"He was busy stuffing a highly suspicious-looking box into your fridge? And like a responsible adult, when I asked him to show me what was inside, he flat-out refused! So I went to inspect it myself, only to find out it was a bakery item. Can you actually believe that he’s been protecting a cake as if there’s stolen gold stuffed inside the frosting?"

The moment she heard the word ’cake,’ Aliana’s eyebrows rose. Suddenly, her attention snapped back to the one person she had actually rushed out of her room to find.

Looking past Jade, Aliana’s gaze swept across the expansive layout of her penthouse, only to confirm that no one else was present apart from the four of them.

Her eyes quickly locked onto Cillian.

"Where is he?" she asked directly.

Cillian offered her a calm smile, completely aware of exactly who she was asking about. "He stepped out to handle some work. He should be back in a little while."

Just then, a violent wave of thunder roared outside, causing Jade to flinch in response. Aliana’s eyes instinctively drifted to the dark storm raging against the glass before she turned her attention back to Cillian.

"What could he possibly be doing out in a storm like this?" she pressed, her voice tight with rising concern.

Cillian cleared his throat before gesturing toward the living area. "Right... about that. Why don’t we all take a seat? Since we have a great deal to catch up on, shall we?"

.....

Far away from Victorian Heights, on the rooftop of a building on West Avenue where the billboard had fallen, cold blue eyes silently assessed the thick, heavy metal supports that had once held up the massive structure. They looked as though they had been ripped apart by some overwhelming force.

Narrowing his eyes, Gavriel reached out and touched the jagged edge of the metal.

A dark figure quietly materialised out of the shadows behind him.

"Did you find out who was responsible for this?" Gavriel asked, his voice deathly calm.

Reve immediately dropped to one knee before his master, fully aware of just how furious he was at the moment.

So he replied with extreme caution, "Forgive me, master, but the culprit’s magical residue was too faint to track. It appears that whoever did this was exceptionally careful with their movements, knowing you were in the vicinity."

As expected, Gavriel was not pleased.

His eyes bled into a brilliant red as he grabbed a discarded chunk of iron lying near the broken pillars. Closing his fist around the solid metal block, he crushed it as if it were a flimsy tin can.

"How dare they try to go after her?" he growled, the sound vibrating through the stormy air. "How dare they touch something that belongs to me?"

Hearing the sheer, unadulterated menace in Gavriel’s voice.... a tone Reve had not heard in centuries, the demon felt a cold shiver run down his spine.

"It seems everyone in this realm is becoming too bold, Reve," Gavriel continued, his low, dangerous voice cutting through the rumbling thunder. "They seem to have forgotten exactly who I am."

"I think it’s time to send them all a message," Gavriel murmured. "Let them see the consequences of finally waking the devil from his long slumber."

The pupils of his bright red eyes narrowed into slits, looking as though they belonged to a dangerous beast as he gazed down at the sprawling city below.

With a ruthless squeeze of his fingers, he ground the remaining chunk of solid iron into a fine powder, letting the heavy downpour of rain instantly wash the metallic dust away into the darkness below.

"Yes, master," Reve agreed, keeping his head bowed low.

Even without looking up, Reve could feel the suffocating waves of raw bloodlust radiating from the man before him.

He could only marvel at the sheer stupidity of the culprit who had managed to anger the devil to this level by targeting the one person in the world Gavriel was guarding as fiercely as a precious glass doll.

Only one thing crossed his mind, ’They’ve brought this upon themselves.’

Lightning split the sky, tearing a spiderweb of tracks across the clouds as his low, commanding voice rang through the wind.

"Let’s go."

With that, the two figures dissolved into the night.