Chapter 31: The Circle Beneath the Surface 

The room remained eerily silent after Luna's words dropped like a stone into still water.

Obsidian Circle.

Killian stood motionless, his features impassive, but Luna could tell the name had shaken him. She saw it in the way his shoulders tensed, the way his gaze fixed on the monitor as if staring straight into the past.

She hadn't meant to drop a bomb. But there was no taking it back now.

"I haven't heard that name in years," Killian finally said, his voice clipped and cold, like steel meeting ice. "I thought they'd gone underground—dismantled."

"They didn't," Luna replied quietly. "They just waited."

Avery stepped forward, brow furrowed. "Wait—what exactly is the Obsidian Circle?"

"A syndicate," Killian said, eyes still on the screen. "One that operates in shadows. Blackmail, financial manipulation, corporate destabilization. The Circle doesn't leave a trail. They erase it."

"They don't just dismantle companies," Luna added. "They dismantle people."

Killian's gaze snapped to hers for a moment, unreadable. Then he turned back to the monitors, his voice calm but colder than before. "If Cameron's working with them… this isn't just a power grab."

"It's a war," Elijah muttered.

Luna crossed her arms over her chest, a chill running down her spine. "But why involve me? What's the point of dragging me into it?"

Killian didn't look at her as he responded. "Because you're my wife. The public face at my side. You represent my stability—my Achilles' heel."

Her heart skipped, but she quickly buried the flicker of emotion. She wasn't going to let herself read into that. Not again.

"You think I'm a weakness?" she said, the words sharper than she intended.

His eyes flicked to hers briefly. "No. But they do."

She blinked. Just like that, a wall of emotion crashed into her—but Killian had already looked away, as if the conversation meant nothing more than a line in a business report.

But it meant something to her.

He didn't even know he was protecting her. He was just doing what he always did—calculated damage control. Cold, detached. Except… she'd seen the way his jaw clenched at that photo earlier, the way his hand had lingered too long on her arm when he'd pulled her away from the screen.

He didn't say it. He didn't even recognize it.

But it was there.

Hidden beneath the ice.

"I need a full audit," Killian said, breaking the silence. "Start with the board, then move down to department heads. Every executive, every contractor, every server log. If Cameron has allies in our system, we root them out now."

Avery nodded and started typing.

"Elijah," he continued, "get me dossiers on every known contact Cameron's had in the last five years. Offshore accounts, dummy corps, all of it."

Elijah was already moving. "Consider it done."

Luna remained standing, her arms crossed. "And what about me?"

"You'll stay under protection," Killian said without looking at her.

She arched a brow. "So I'm supposed to sit around and watch while you fight this war?"

His jaw twitched. "This isn't your fight."

"I'm the target," she snapped. "That makes it my fight whether you like it or not."

Killian finally turned to her, his expression unreadable. "You've never been trained for this."

"No," she said evenly. "But I'm not useless either. You want me protected? Fine. But you'll get a hell of a lot more out of me than just hiding me behind bulletproof glass."

There was a pause.

Then, slowly, he gave a single nod. "You want in? You're in. But you don't leave my sight."

Avery raised a brow from her seat. Luna almost smirked.

That was the closest thing to a compromise Killian Blackwell was capable of.

Later that night, the house was cloaked in silence.

Luna stood by the window, staring out at the glittering skyline, her thoughts racing. The cold glass against her fingertips grounded her, but her mind remained far from calm.

Behind her, Killian sat on the couch, a tablet in hand, scrolling through encrypted documents. The only sound was the soft hum of the city below and the occasional flick of a page being turned.

She spoke without looking at him. "You didn't seem surprised when I said the Circle was back."

"I wasn't," he replied flatly.

She turned to face him. "Why?"

"Because this… this level of chaos? It was too clean. Too surgical. Cameron's not smart enough to pull this off alone."

Luna leaned against the window frame. "So you suspected it from the start."

"I suspected something bigger," he said. "I didn't think it would be this."

He didn't say I was scared or I'm worried about you.

He said nothing that showed emotion. Nothing that hinted he cared.

But she knew better.

And maybe that's what made it harder.

"You really think he'll go public?" she asked after a beat.

Killian's gaze was sharp. "He's already started. He wants to tarnish my name. Position himself as the 'rightful heir' to Blackwell Industries."

"Will it work?"

"It depends," he said quietly. "On how many lies he can dress up as truth."

Luna exhaled, pushing a hand through her hair. "Then we need to beat him to it. Get ahead of whatever he's planning."

Killian nodded once. "We will."

She crossed the room and sat across from him. "Tell me what you're not saying."

He looked up slowly.

"There's a secondary protocol," he said. "If Cameron's reach grows, if the Circle escalates—we go underground."

Luna stared at him. "You mean vanish?"

"For a while. Until we can regroup and strike."

"You'd really disappear from your own empire?"

He shrugged. "Empires can be rebuilt. Graves can't."

She was quiet for a long moment.

"Have you done this before?"

"Yes."

Something about the way he said it made her blood run cold.

"And you never told me."

"I never thought I'd need to."

Luna swallowed. She wanted to scream at him for keeping secrets, for treating her like a pawn in a game she barely understood. But part of her knew this was how he operated. Everything about Killian Blackwell was compartmentalized.

He didn't love openly. He didn't trust easily. He didn't protect loudly.

But he protected.

Whether he admitted it or not.

The next day moved fast.

Luna found herself sitting in the executive war room, surrounded by data analysts, cybersecurity leads, and legal strategists. It was a whirlwind of names, charts, timelines, and code. But she absorbed it all.

Killian hadn't said much since they arrived—but she noticed how often his gaze drifted toward her. Just quick, flickering glances—checking if she was okay, if she was keeping up, if she was safe.

He didn't speak it.

He just watched.

And somehow, that said more than any words could.

Avery entered halfway through the briefing with a grim look. "We have a new problem."

Everyone looked up.

She set a tablet on the table and pressed play.

A video began streaming—a press conference.

Cameron Blackwell stood behind a podium, flanked by corporate banners with a new logo: Blackwell Consortium.

His voice was polished, rehearsed.

"Today marks the beginning of a new legacy—one that honors truth, innovation, and justice. The Blackwell Consortium will stand for integrity—everything my half-brother failed to uphold."

"And tomorrow, I will release proof of his misconduct. Financial fraud. Internal corruption. Abuse of power."

Luna's stomach dropped.

"Is any of it real?" she asked quietly.

"No," Killian said immediately. "But the public won't care."

Elijah's fingers flew across the keyboard. "He's going live with the 'evidence' in less than twenty-four hours."

Killian stood, cold fury in his gaze. "Then we burn him down before he gets the chance."

But before anyone could speak again, an encrypted email popped up on the screen.

Subject: A Little Preview.

Luna opened the attachment.

Her blood ran cold.

It was a leaked file.

Her medical records.

Private. Confidential. Things no one was supposed to know.

Beside it, a note:

Let's see how well your pretty little wife handles the spotlight, Killian.

She didn't even realize her hands were shaking.

Killian's chair scraped as he moved toward her, taking the screen from her hands.

His expression was blank—but his jaw was steel.

He didn't say anything.

He didn't curse. Didn't shout.

But the temperature in the room dropped ten degrees.

And Luna knew…

Cameron had just made it personal.