CHAPTER 279: CHAPTER 279: SPOTLESS SUIT

White fabric caught the dim light as Benedict adjusted his sapphire cuffs, the pristine line of his suit contrasting the shadowed room. He had no use for priestly robes, no interest in appearing sanctified. Clean lines, sharp tailoring, and a face that could pass for polished nobility. Blue eyes that saw too much. Hands that did not tremble.

Christian Velloran trembled.

He was pinned against the wall, one hand clawing at Benedict’s grip at his throat, the other uselessly scraping at plaster as his breath fractured into shallow, panicked gasps. His silver eyes burned with the indignity of it, but they were glazing over now, the pressure at his windpipe making every second longer than the last.

"Quiet," Benedict murmured, his voice smooth and utterly unhurried. "Your lungs don’t matter to me. Your thoughts do."

His other hand pressed flat against Christian’s chest, fingers splayed, but it wasn’t muscle that held him; Benedict reached deeper, past bone and breath, into the private chambers of the man’s mind.

It was like sinking a blade into water, smooth at first, then splitting into ripples. Images surfaced, thoughts collided, and the raw tangle of memory peeled back layer by layer. Christian’s defenses were clumsy, frantic, the scatter of a man accustomed to lies but not to mental intrusion.

And there it was.

Jason Luna.

The name cracked through Benedict’s focus like lightning. Christian’s mind betrayed it in fragments of code and flickering screens: encrypted chats, ghosted servers, and conversations buried behind layers of digital fog. Jason Luna’s promises, calculated and targeted, always circle around the same prize... Lucas.

"You hid behind channels," Benedict murmured, his blue eyes narrowing as the pieces sharpened. "Both of you coveting the same thing. Didn’t I tell you that this time the boy is only mine? Two lives, and you remain as stupid as before."

Christian choked against his grip, the silver of his eyes flaring with panic, but the images spilled freely now. The encrypted strings, the cautious messages, the subtle shaping of a plan. Lucas, always Lucas, as though he were a currency they could split between them.

Benedict’s mouth curved into something closer to a sneer. "And now Luna is ash. Fitzgeralt saw to that."

He didn’t need to drag Christian deeper for the memory; it was already clawing through his mind, raw and vivid. The courier arrived, and the box was set down with reverence and dread. Black lacquer, gold trim, and the Fitzgeralt crest pressed into the lid like a brand. Christian had opened his own to find a hand, Jason Luna’s hand, neatly embalmed, the fingers curled faintly as if they might close around his throat from the grave.

Benedict’s gaze shifted, just once, to the corner of his office where his own gift still sat. The polished wood gleamed in the low light, silent and obscene. Inside lay Luna’s head, preserved with surgical precision, lips sewn closed, eyes sealed forever. Trevor’s message had been immaculate, as though even in death, order must be maintained.

"Efficient," Benedict hissed, the word soft and sharp as glass. "Fitzgeralt cuts him apart and sends the pieces to us like party favors."

He slammed Christian harder against the wall, the plaster cracking under the force. "And you... you whispered with Luna while he still breathed. You plotted to steal from me, to share scraps of a boy neither of you could hold."

Christian’s hands clawed at his wrist, his face turning crimson, breath strangled under Benedict’s crushing grip.

Benedict leaned closer, the scent of embalming salts and cold velvet from the unopened box still clinging to the air. His voice dropped, so smooth that it made the alpha under his grip shudder.

"You wanted Lucas with a dead man at your side. Tell me, Christian..." His blue eyes burned with fury and possession. "... what makes you think you’ll live long enough to want anything at all?"

Christian tried to rasp, to twist, to summon the pride that had once let him stand before kings. But under Benedict’s grip, there was only the ragged wheeze of air, the scrape of his heels against stone.

Benedict eased his fingers just enough to let him drag in a desperate gasp. Then he let his pheromones bleed out, controlled, suffocating, the weight of dominance filling the air until it pressed like iron against skin.

Christian’s body convulsed, his silver eyes dilating as panic tangled with instinct. He was drowning on dry land, lungs clawing at air that no longer seemed enough. His own pheromones flared, sharp and frantic, but they scattered uselessly, like smoke against a wall.

"You break so easily," Benedict murmured, his voice conversational, as though noting the weather. He adjusted his sapphire cuffs with his free hand, immaculate even as Christian writhed under him. "All that pride, and still you fold the moment someone reminds you where you stand."

Christian choked, his nails digging at Benedict’s wrist until they split, blood smearing the wall behind him. But the man holding him remained untouched.

Benedict leaned closer, his blue eyes glinting. "Every secret. Every filthy thought of Lucas you ever entertained, I can smell it on you. Desire. Greed. Even now, choking like an animal, you still want what was never yours."

He pressed harder, the merciless flood of his pheromones, the weight of possession so overwhelming it drove Christian’s body into shuddering submission. His scream cracked into a broken rasp, his legs buckling, though Benedict never let him fall.

When at last he released him, Christian collapsed against the wall and slid to the floor, trembling violently, his breath tearing raw from his throat. The faint imprint of Benedict’s fingers circled his neck, red and ugly, but it was the invisible wreckage that clung heavier, the humiliation, the collapse of his dominance under another man’s will.

Benedict straightened, smoothing the line of his jacket until not a wrinkle remained. His eyes dropped to the ruined man at his feet, and his smile curved, cold and crisp.

"Luna is gone. And you..." His voice softened to a whisper, silk drawn over steel. "you will wish you joined him."

The suit remained spotless.