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Ezra placed his phone down, reclined in the study\'s comfortable chair, untucked the newspaper from under his arm and opened it with a flourish. He gestured again and the curtains covering the windoes opened, giving him a direct view of the moon.

He reached out to the bottle of blood wine on the table, poured himself a glass and took a sip. "Hmmn." He murmured in appreciation. This was what his life should be like.

Should I get myself those intellectual looking glasses? I think I could pull it off. No. Scratch that. All vampires can pull it off.

He sat alone in the dimly lit study, his eyes skimming over the day\'s newspaper. His mind wandered between the headlines, the silence around him only broken by the occasional rustle of pages and the distant creak of old wood.

Olivia was out, hunting for clues about The Silent Hand. Genesis was busy keeping the gang\'s affairs in order, ensuring that their territory remained secure and profitable. Miss Red had taken her leave, off to her job inside the City Lord\'s domain.

It left Ezra in an unusual state of privacy, something he hadn\'t had for some time. He took another sip of his wine, enjoying the beautiful sound of silence.

As he turned another page, his phone buzzed against the polished mahogany of the desk, breaking his reverie. The screen displayed an unfamiliar number. His eyebrows rising in curiosity, he picked up the call, bringing the device to his ear.

"Hello?" he said.

"Ezra Matten." A familiar feminine voice responded, making him sit up in his chair, newspaper immediately forgotten. "I\'ve been looking forward to speaking with you."

He tensed, recognizing the voice. "Medallion?"

"Ah. I was wondering where that went. No matter. You would have met us eventually." She replied. "Yes. We work with the coming count.

Yes. The count ordered the attack against you."

There was a pause before Ezra began laughing. There was no humor in the laughter, only a sense of harshness. "You don\'t expect me to believe that would you? Killing me is the last thing our coming count wants to do."

"That didn\'t work." She said, her voice flat. "Terribly rude to laugh at me though."

Ezra\'s eyes narrowed, recalling the vicious attack he had narrowly survived. "What do you want?"

"Simple," she said, the ease in her voice grating against his nerves. "Destroy Ascendant Capital. Bring it to the ground, and maybe, just maybe, you\'ll have a chance at survival."

""You\'re crazy." A surge of anger flared within him. "Why would I ever do that?" he sneered, his grip tightening on the phone.

She laughed, a chilling sound that echoed through the quiet room. "You don\'t have a choice, Ezra. Or have you forgotten how close I came to killing you? I can finish the job anytime I please."

"Fuck off." He said.

"Oh? Should I come meet you now? Alone in your mansion? With your newspaper and wine?"

Ezra looked around the room. She could see him! He glanced at the open window and walked towards it.

"You look like someone posing as an elite. You\'re a fake, Ezra Matten. All you have, you stole from the innocent."

"Come say this to my face." Ezra spat into the phone. "I dare you."

"How about I give you something to remember me by?" Ezra could hear the smile in her voice. He tilted his head in confusion, then he saw it.

A flash.

He tilted his head and a shadow flashed by his cheek, drawing a thin line on it. The wound burned as black blood ran down it. There was a thunk behind him and he turned to stare at it.

An arrow made of a dark wood was embedded in the wall. It stood there, quivering.

Ezra turned back to the window. The arrow had passed through where the glass was but had not shattered it. It had phased through.

"Accept that as a token of my affection for you." The woman\'s voice filtered into his ear. "After all, I was going for your heart."

His anger turned into a seething rage. "I swear, I will find you and make you regret this."

"Oh, I\'m sure you\'ll try," she taunted, her laughter ringing out again. "But you\'re playing a dangerous game, and you\'re terribly outmatched. You don\'t even know who the players are or what the stake is. You-"

Ezra\'s rage boiled over, and before he could stop himself, he crushed the phone in his hand. The shattered pieces fell to the floor, scattering across the plush carpet.

He took a deep breath, trying to calm the storm inside him. The woman\'s words echoed in his mind, her threat lingering like a dark cloud. Why was she targeting Ascendant Capital? The company was his lifeline.

Ascendant Capital was the reason why he wasn\'t Griffin\'s plaything. The protection the new count\'s territory gave him was the reason his debt to Griffin hadn\'t consumed him.

The Black Spider gang, with all its criminal undertakings, seemed a more likely target. Yet, her demand was clear and specific. Ascendant Capital, huh.

Ezra stared at the remnants of the phone, frustration bubbling up once more. The pieces were everywhere, tiny shards that glinted in the dim light.

He ran a finger through his hair, sighing as he realized he\'ll have to clean it all up. With a gesture, the curtains covering the window closed once more. He walked to the door of the study, opened it, and paused.

"Fuck."

It dawned on him that he had no idea where the cleaning supplies were kept. He glanced at his shattered phone. He couldn\'t even use it to call anyone and ask. Even if he used the other phones in the house, there was no guarantee he would recieve a response.

Olivia was very busy, Gen was overseeing a new shipment of arms and couldn\'t even pick her phone and the last and only time he\'d called Red while she was at work, she hadn\'t even picked the call.

"Fuck." He cursed again. He would have to go out, find a grocery store, and buy what he needed.

He chuckled. The irony wasn\'t lost on him. A vampire of his standing, reduced to running mundane errands.

With a resigned sigh, he walked out of the study. The mansion\'s eerie silence accompanied him as he made his way through the corridors, the weight of the night pressing down on him.

The Silent Hand had found where he lived. As always, his enemies knew where he was and yet, he didn\'t know where they were. He would be fixing that as soon as possible.

He paused at the front door, glancing back at the darkness that filled the mansion. This place, once a sanctuary, now felt like a prison of shadows.