Chapter 142: An SS-Class Predatory Support

Chapter 142: Chapter 142: An SS-Class Predatory Support

Rei’s mind was fighting a war.

Her mother, seeing the reports, meant she already understood hierarchy, not only inside Revien’s private network language, but the guild kind.

Rank. Optics.

Who stood closer to a scarce asset when the Empress’s eyes turned toward a sector.

"Second is not the worst..." Rei mumbled, almost to her plate.

The hall went eerily quiet.

Cecilia stopped eating.

"Say that again."

Rei’s throat worked.

"I mean—"

Swoosh.

Cecilia stood and slapped her.

The sound cracked across porcelain and low light.

Rei’s head turned with the force.

Heat bloomed along her cheek in the exact shape of her mother’s hand.

"Second is not the worst?" Cecilia’s voice stayed controlled, which made it worse.

"Is that why I raised you as a perfectionist? Why did I cover for every support you damaged in the name of blood experiments?"

Cecilia seized Rei’s jaw, fingers tight, and cold gathered at the tips, mana drawn sharp enough that frostbite-kissed pain sank into bone.

"You should never settle for second, Rei Lawless."

Silver-grey eyes locked on hers.

"You carry this house’s name. You are my daughter. You are someone... who should always be first. Be it desire or ranks."

Rei’s eyes darkened.

She didn’t fight. Did not answer. She only looked into her mother’s gaze while the cold bit deeper.

"I don’t care what kind of methods you use," Cecilia continued.

"During the test, you will prove higher compatibility with that support than Jenna’s child. I don’t care if you have to stab or weaken her to get there. I don’t care if you have to fuck him or more to close the gap. You will be the one he follows. And once I get my hands on him, I will test him personally to see whether he is worth the trouble he is causing."

Silence spread, ugly and complete.

Then a voice cut it.

"Sit, Ceci."

Cecilia’s hand left Rei’s jaw at once.

The cold remained.

Rei didn’t touch her face. Did not give either of them the satisfaction of watching her check the damage.

Cillian wiped his mouth with a cloth.

Blonde hair. Blue eyes.

A striking, composed figure who looked at Rei the way a man looked at a child who had fallen off a cycle, disappointed, assessing, already drafting the lesson.

"My daughter," he said quietly.

"What have you become?"

"Father..."

"Is this support truly that impressive to you?"

Rei did not reply.

"Hmm. Very well."

Cillian stood and walked slowly behind her chair.

Cecilia resumed eating as if the slap had been a seasoning.

"I have seen so many supports in my life, Rei," Cillian began.

"Handsome ones. Strong ones. Combinations of both. Women feel a strange pull toward those qualities. They call it fate, resonance, love, whatever word lets them endure the scarcity."

He stopped behind her, his hands landing on her shoulders.

"But do you know what they fail to understand?"

Silence stretched again.

Cecilia’s utensils made small sounds.

"The men will not see them the same way."

Rei’s shoulders stiffened.

"While a girl is crying, throwing herself open, offering her life and her rank and her bloodline for support," Cillian said, almost gentle, "the man is already looking toward the next woman. Always. No matter who he has been with. Especially in this world, where standards for loyalty were never built to survive the math of too few cores and too many hunters."

Rei looked up at him.

"That’s why men like me are rare."

A faint smile that did not reach kindness.

"I told you, didn’t I? Once you are old enough, I will be your support too."

The words sat on the table like a second slap.

"Go inside," Cecilia said quickly, face darkening.

"NOW!"

Rei stood.

Her legs worked.

That was something.

The frost-ache in her jaw pulsed in time with her heart.

She didn’t look at Cillian again. She didn’t look at Cecilia long enough to start a war she could not win at a dinner table.

"Rei," Cillian added, still mild.

"Do not confuse a provisional dual registration with a future. Scarce men collect. Even the soft ones. Especially the soft ones, they collect with speeches about hearts and still end with lists."

"I said go," Cecilia snapped.

Rei left the dining hall.

Her rooms were the only place in the Lawless residence that sometimes obeyed her.

She shut the door, locked it, and stood with her forehead against the wood until the urge to break something expensive passed.

In the mirror, the slap had already risen into a clean red print.

The jawline cold was slower to fade; Cecilia’s mana always lingered when she wanted a lesson to hurt after the sound was gone.

Rei laughed once, under her breath, ugly.

Second is not the worst.

She had said it because of a mat, a chain around her wrist, a man who refused to let her climb out of shame using his body.

Because Gia had answered we three before he had. Because for a few hours she had almost believed a network map was not the same thing as a house ledger.

Cecilia had translated it back into Lawless language: first, or failure.

Cillian had translated it into the older poison: men leave; plan accordingly; one day the house support might even be him.

Rei sat on the edge of her bed and flexed her sore knuckles, the ones that had punched Revien’s chest while she tried not to cry.

"Stab her. Weaken her. Fuck him until the graph moves."

She could still hear Cecilia’s voice.

Rei’s stomach turned.

Not because she was pure.

She had hurt supports before.

She had taken blood and power and called it experiment and survival.

She knew what she was when the blade was out.

But Gianna had looked at her on a training floor and said they were in it together without making it a trap.

And Revien had told her she was not disposable.

If she did what Cecilia ordered, she would prove every cold arithmetic in that dining room correct.

She would become exactly the daughter they had built: first at any cost, useful teeth, never a person who stayed when staying was second place.

Rei’s phone lit with a training schedule from Overwatch, morning radius, afternoon denial, Jenna’s clinical headers.

She typed, deleted, typed again.

Rei: On time tomorrow.

She sent that and nothing else.

Then, because the frost still ached and Cillian’s future still sat under her skin like a stain, she added one more line to a draft she did not send:

If I ever become the reason she falls, it won’t be for my mother’s graph.

She erased it.

Locked the screen.

In the dark of her room, Rei Lawless, secondary on a dual slate, first in a house that only loved the top of a list, pressed her fingers to her jaw until the cold bit back, and whispered to no one:

We three.

We three.

We three.

I’m not alone.