Thomas Harding, the Sunfire Immortal who'd guarded the Sunfire Temple for millennia, finally got bored.

He insisted on dragging me down to the mortal world, said he wanted the full immersive experience of the twenty-first century.

He wore me down until I had no choice but to agree.

The moment we crossed over, he became the long-lost true-born son of an elite family, and I became the precious only child born late in life to the city's most powerful syndicate boss.

When the Harding family took Thomas back, I warned him: if they give you any trouble, we dust off our hands and head straight back to the Ninth Heaven.

He laughed it off. Said what birth parents wouldn't love their own child? Besides, the family's other son had been nothing but friendly. Told me not to worry.

I couldn't talk him out of it, so I let it go.

Then came the day I was about to queue up for my next game, and I felt the signal of Thomas's Immortal Soul shattering.

——

"Double Kill!"

Kill effects blazed across my monitor.

I was reaching for the Enter key to trash-talk the other team when a searing, bone-deep pain ripped through my chest.

This wasn't mortal flesh hurting.

This was a shockwave tearing straight through my Immortal Soul.

I shoved the keyboard away, one hand pressed to my chest, face drained of all color.

Thomas. Thomas Harding. My sworn brother, the Sunfire Immortal, who'd come down to the mortal world with me to live out a human life.

Before we descended, we'd exchanged Fate Sigils. The moment either of us faced mortal danger, the other's soul would receive a distress signal.

Right now, the sigil bound to his life force was cracking apart.

Thomas, who had sworn to me that no birth parents could ever hurt their own child, was dying.

I kicked the gaming chair out of my way, snatched the car keys off the desk, and bolted.

"Harry Driscoll! Bruno Kessler!" My voice tore down the corridor like a thunderclap.

The entire Dunn mansion erupted.

In under thirty seconds, dozens of thick-necked enforcers in black suits came pouring down from every floor, lining up in front of me in tight formation.

"Young Heir!"

My father, Malcolm Dunn, ran the most powerful syndicate in the city. He'd been going legitimate in recent years, but the ferocity in his bones kept every last person from crossing him.

I clenched my jaw. My eyes were murder.

"Gear up. Every brother you can reach, get them here. Now."

"Tonight, we're tearing down the Harding estate."

Bruno hesitated. "Young Heir, the Hardings are one of the biggest names in the capital. If we roll up on them like this..."

"I said move!" My palm cracked against the doorframe so hard the solid wood splintered. "Anything goes wrong, it's on me!"

Fifteen minutes later.

Ten black armored SUVs tore down the highway like a convoy of war machines, blowing through every red light, heading straight for the Harding estate.

In the back seat, I gripped my phone and dialed Thomas's number.

Off.

Still off.

The tearing sensation in my soul grew worse with every second. His life signs were fading fast.

"Faster!" I roared at the driver.

The Harding estate sat halfway up the mountain. Two massive copper gates stood sealed shut, four uniformed guards posted out front.

The driver slowed, reaching for the horn.

I grabbed the wheel and stomped the gas pedal to the floor.

"Ram it."

The copper gates exploded inward with a deafening crash, ripped off their hinges by the armored SUV. Alarms screamed across the estate.

The SUV drifted hard and came to a dead stop in front of the main building.

I kicked the door open, jumped out with a solid steel baseball bat in my fist.

Bruno and Harry poured out behind me with over a hundred men, flooding the grounds, surrounding the Harding mansion in seconds flat.

"Tear it apart."

On my command, the floor-to-ceiling windows on the first level shattered under a hail of baseball bats. Servants and bodyguards scattered like rats, hands over their heads. I followed the pull of my Immortal Soul, striding toward the basement level of the Harding estate. The steel door to the basement was sealed with a combination lock. I stepped back. Bruno pulled out the hydraulic cutters he always carried. One clean crunch, and the lock snapped apart. I kicked the door open. The stench hit me first. Blood and antiseptic, thick enough to taste. The moment I saw what was inside, my vision went red. This was no storage room. It was a fully equipped sterile surgical suite. Thomas Harding. My brother. The man who had once stood tall in the Celestial Realm, untouchable and effortlessly elegant. He was strapped to a freezing operating table. His face was the color of ash. His eyes were shut. Each breath came so faint it barely counted as breathing at all. His back had been cut open. A tube as thick as a man's forearm was jammed into his spine. Dark, reddish marrow crept through the tube, draining out of him drop by drop. On a second bed beside him, a plush hospital bed fit for a hotel suite, lay the Harding family's pampered fake prince: Vivian Harding.

Vivian's cheeks were rosy. He was propped up with a tablet, watching some variety show, giggling every few seconds.

Irene Harding sat at Vivian's bedside, spooning bird's nest soup into his mouth one careful bite at a time.

"There you go, sweetheart. Eat up. Once they finish extracting your brother's marrow, you'll be completely cured."

The private doctor in his white coat frowned and spoke up. "Mrs. Harding, Thomas's vitals are dropping. The volume of marrow already extracted is far beyond the safe limit. If we continue, he will die."

Irene didn't even look up. Her voice dripped with impatience.

"His worthless life, traded for my Vivian's health? He should count himself lucky."

"Increase the dosage. As long as it cures Vivian, even if he dies on that table, consider it his filial duty to the Harding family."

Filial duty.

The last thread of reason in my skull snapped clean in two.

"Filial duty my ass!"

CRACK.

I brought the bat down on the extraction machine with everything I had. Sparks erupted. The thing shrieked with the sound of shorting circuits and went dead.

The crash sent the bowl of soup flying from Irene's hands. It shattered on the floor.

"Who are you?!" Irene shrieked, stumbling to her feet, staring at me in terror.

Vivian burrowed under his blankets like a frightened child.

I didn't spare him a glance. I grabbed the doctor by the collar with one hand, lifted him clean off the ground, and slammed him into the wall.

"Who gave you the guts to touch his marrow?"

The doctor shook so hard his teeth chattered. He jabbed a trembling finger at Irene. "It was... it was Mrs. Harding's orders! I was just doing what I was paid to do!"

I drove my knee up into his stomach.

He screamed, crumpled to his knees, and retched bile onto the floor.

Bruno and Harry stormed in with the rest of the crew and locked down the surgical suite in seconds.

I rushed to the operating table and fumbled with the restraints around Thomas's wrists.

Deep purple welts ringed both wrists where the straps had bitten in.

His skin was ice under my fingers. Not a trace of warmth. Not a trace of life.

"Thomas! Thomas, wake up!" I slapped his cheek, and my voice wouldn't stop shaking.

His eyelids fluttered open. His pupils were unfocused, drifting.

When he recognized me, his cracked lips pulled into a thin, bitter ghost of a smile.

"Reggie... you came..."

"Mortals... they're truly terrifying..."

Tears spilled from my eyes before I could stop them.

I was the Thunder Lord, for heaven's sake. A hot-tempered god with a reputation across all Nine Heavens. And I'd let my sworn brother suffer like this in the mortal world.

"Don't be scared. I'm taking you home."

I eased the tubes from his back as gently as I could, then pressed a wad of sterile gauze hard against the wound.

I'd barely gotten him upright when a stampede of footsteps erupted outside the door.

"Nobody move!"

Quinton Harding, the eldest son of the Harding family, stood in the doorway flanked by a wall of armed bodyguards.

He wore a tailored suit, and behind those gold-rimmed glasses, his eyes radiated the cold arrogance of a man who'd never been told no.

The moment he saw me propping Thomas up, his brow knotted into a vicious scowl.

"Reginald Dunn? A thug from some two-bit gang dares break into my family's estate?"

"Do you have any idea what you've done? One phone call. That's all it takes to wipe every last one of your crew off the map."

I let out a cold laugh and passed Thomas to Bruno behind me.

"Bruno, get him to the car. There's a first-aid kit inside."

Bruno took Thomas under his arm and started toward the exit, but Quinton's bodyguards closed ranks and blocked them solid.

Quinton kept his hands in his pockets, voice dripping with contempt. "Put him down. He belongs to the Harding family. If he dies, he dies under our roof."

"I don't care what kind of stunt you're pulling, Reginald. Take your lowlife crew and get out. Now."

Before I could respond, Vivian, who'd been lying on the hospital bed, suddenly broke into pitiful sobs.

He kicked off the covers and ran barefoot to Quinton's side, latching onto his arm.

"Quinton, please don't blame Reggie. This is all my fault!"

"I shouldn't have gotten sick. I shouldn't have needed Thomas's bone marrow... If Reggie insists on taking him, then just let me die!"

He stood there in an oversized white hospital gown, eyes red and swollen, swaying like he might collapse at any second.

Quinton immediately pulled him close, his glare cutting back to me twice as sharp.

"You hear that, Reginald? Vivian is this kind and selfless, and your so-called brother is that selfish? It's just a little bone marrow. Instead of giving back, he goes running to gangsters to trash our home!"

Irene snapped out of her shock and jabbed a finger in my face, shrieking.

"Where is that ungrateful little animal? We spent twenty years searching for him! We fed him, clothed him, and now that we ask him to repay even a fraction of what this family gave him, he plays dead!"

"Nobody takes him out of here until we've gotten every last drop of marrow we need!"

I looked at this shameless family and laughed. The kind of laugh that comes when fury circles all the way back around to amusement.

"Repay you?"

I stepped forward and raised my hand.

CRACK.

The slap connected flush across Vivian's two-faced mouth. I put everything I had behind it.

Vivian launched off his feet, sailed a good six feet, and slammed into the hospital bed. His lip split on impact, blood streaming down his chin.

"Ahhh! My face!" He clutched his cheek and screamed.

Dead silence.

Quinton's eyes went wide, as if his brain couldn't process that someone had just struck a man on his turf.

"You're dead, Reginald!" Quinton roared and lunged at me.

I raised one foot and drove it straight into his kneecap.

The crack of bone was crisp and clean. The mighty firstborn of the Harding dynasty dropped to his knees in front of me.

"You want to talk rules?" I grabbed a fistful of his hair and wrenched his head back so he had no choice but to look me in the eye.

"Let me teach you how rules work where I come from."

I backhanded him across the face. Half a tooth spun through the air and clattered to the floor.