Against the Algorithm

Chapter 41: Where Loyalty Stands

Summary: In a room thick with old names and veiled threats, choices are made without permission. But power isn't always held by the loudest voice—it's in who people protect, who they believe, and who they stand behind when it counts. Fevered or not, Yao doesn't need to fight alone. Not anymore.

Chapter Forty-One

Chen Kazemi rose from his desk with a slow, measured grace that belied the storm building behind his dark eyes. The polished surface of his office gleamed with the overhead light, the quiet hum of the room fading beneath the thunderous silence that followed his sister's call. His jaw was set, shoulders squared, and the hand at his side clenched into a tight fist, veins pressing against skin. There was no panic in his expression—just cold, pure, calculated fury.

The attack had happened months ago.

Months.

And no one had told him.

That a girl he'd silently looked after from the periphery for years, his sister's best friend, the quiet, stubborn, razor-bright but shy introverted Yao, had been targeted. Nearly broken. And not by strangers—but by blood.

His breath was low, sharp through his nose, his voice muttered like an oath. "They thought they could touch her and walk away."

He barely heard the soft knock before the door opened.

His wife stepped in, poised as always in a tailored black blouse, her heels clicking softly against the marble as she entered. Her beauty was disarming to most—refined, graceful, a woman of high status, well-bred manners, and a smile that lulled fools into comfort. But she wasn't fooled by the silence or her husband's clenched hands. She was a predator long before she became his wife. "What happened?" she demanded, her voice sharp, controlled, and immediately laced with suspicion as her eyes flicked to his face.

Kazemi turned his head slowly, the tension around his jaw evident. "Yao." he said simply.

And that was all it took.

Her dark eyes sharpened instantly.

"What about her."

He didn't soften it. "She was nearly raped months ago. Her aunt and uncle arranged it. Her cousin helped. They wanted her broken, declared unfit, so they could seize control of a trust her mother left in Lu Wang Lan's care."

His wife stilled.

Absolutely.

Stilled.

Then her lips curled back—not in shock, not in horror, but in something far older. Darker. More dangerous. Her gaze dropped to the floor for a heartbeat before she lifted it again, slower this time, her eyes gaining the sharp gleam of a blade catching firelight. "So," she said, her voice like a blade wrapped in silk, "they tried to sell her soul for money."

Kazemi didn't speak. He didn't need to. Because the look in his wife's eyes had already changed. Gone was the image of a wealthy, poised matron of the Chen family. What rose in its place was something ancient and vengeful. The shadow of the woman she once was.

The enforcer.

The goddaughter of the most dangerous mafia head in the underground. The one with a body count only whispered about in old corridors, who once walked into cartel compounds with blood on her heels and left nothing behind but fear.

Her smile was slow.

Cold.

And terrifying.