Sebastian’s voice rang out once more through the curtain: "Your current apartment is no longer secure. You are relocating to my private residence tonight."

Chapter 22 

"Ah—ow!"

A sharp pain radiated from her back, and unable to hold it in, she cried out.

"What's wrong?" The curtain shifted; Sebastian seemed on the verge of bursting in.

"It's nothing!" She immediately stopped him, turning to the nurse. "Keep going."

Having mentally braced herself, Scarlett bit her lower lip hard, not uttering another sound.

Until the medicine was reapplied and the bandages were securely wrapped, she didn't hear another sound from the curtain.

"All done." Holding the discarded bandages, the nurse pulled open the curtain and stepped out.

She got up and turned around, only to lock eyes with a pair of calm, deep pools.

As the white curtain swayed gently behind him, Scarlett froze completely.

"Weren't you waiting outside?"

Sebastian stared at her intently. "You lied to me, Scarlett."

Her heart sank. "You saw it?"

"I saw it." The moment the words left his mouth, her entire body went rigid.

Then the narrative she had spun just now...

"Thirty lashes in total," his eyes turned dark and unreadable, his brow knitting slightly, making it impossible to guess his thoughts.

Scarlett's mind was a chaotic mess, entirely unable to construct a logical explanation. "I..."

Sebastian raised a hand to cut off her words, the look in his eyes softening with a deep ache.

"It's because I took you to Ethan's villa that day, and the Syndicate found out, isn't it? That's why you were punished."

The atmosphere instantly froze.

"You..." Scarlett's brow furrowed tightly, sensing immense danger. "What are you talking about?"

Sebastian, completely undeterred, advanced on her step by step. "The Syndicate code states that retired members who compromise active contracts are sentenced to thirty lashes."

Hearing this, her heart plummeted straight into a freezing abyss.

"How do you know the internal protocols of the Syndicate so thoroughly?"

When it came to assassinations, ordinary people would automatically suspect the Crescent; how could he identify the hand of the Syndicate at a single glance?

His identity was far from ordinary.

"Who exactly are you?" She stared at him, her gaze burning with intense scrutiny.

Scarlett's pulse raced as he closed the distance between them, her fingers tightening instinctively around her hidden dagger—partly out of defense, partly out of preparation.

As he stood right before her, her hand was already half-raised.

"Does it hurt?" Sebastian asked suddenly.

The question caught her completely off guard.

Scarlett locked eyes with him, only to find his gaze stripped of all sharpness, replaced by a devastatingly gentle sorrow, like ancient glaciers melting into a sea of absolute tenderness.

"What do you mean, does it hurt..." She couldn't comprehend why he would suddenly speak to her like this, muttering defensively under her breath.

A sudden warmth pressed against her lips.

Sebastian's hand had gently come up to touch her mouth.

Throughout the lashing last night and the medical treatment today, she had consistently suppressed her voice by violently biting down on her lower lip.

As a result, her lips were currently swollen and stained a deep crimson, mapped with severe teeth marks.

Sebastian's dry, gentle thumb brushed lightly across her lips, the radiating warmth of his touch piercing straight to her core.

"How could it not hurt..." He caressed her mouth with profound delicacy, stripped of all lust, offering nothing but pure comfort.

A strange, electric tingling suddenly erupted within her chest. Shocked by the unfamiliar sensation, she automatically pushed his hand away.

Yet he instantly caught her arm, reversing her resistance.

Just as Scarlett prepared to struggle, she collided head-on with his eyes.

Sebastian's dark, piercing eyes seemed to carry a sprawling, eternal galaxy of starlight within their depths.

And right at the center of that starlight, she caught the reflection of her own silhouette.

Sebastian's gaze triggered a cascade of buried memories in her mind.

She faintly recalled a youth she had rescued a lifetime ago.

During his three-day stay at the hospital, her days were entirely consumed by covert training and disguises, leaving her to sneak into his room only in the dead of night.

One evening, he wasn't inside his ward; she had eventually discovered him sitting out in the garden.

Back then, he had looked exactly like this—his hands tightly clenched, staring up at the night sky.

His eyes had appeared to hold a revolving vortex of celestial stars.

When she went to check on him on the fourth day, he had already vanished.

The realization flashed through her mind like a streak of lightning.

Sebastian checked his wrist, tracking the time. "It is time."

Time for what?

Before Scarlett could vocalize her confusion, the sound of steady footsteps echoed down the corridor. Someone rapped lightly against the door: "Master Sebastian, everything is finalized."

"What exactly is finalized?" she questioned, thoroughly puzzled.

"Our marriage registration."

Chapter 23

Ultimately, everything transpired precisely as Sebastian had calculated; they finalized their marriage registration right there at the hospital.

Securing the marriage certificates in his own possession, he arranged for his subordinates to escort Scarlett back to her apartment, while he vanished to parts unknown.

Before departing, he had instructed her to prepare for relocation: "Now that we are legally bound, it is only natural that we reside together."

Yet the warnings uttered by the Shadow Master last night still echoed heavily in her mind, forcing her to treat the matter with the utmost gravity.

She intended to vocalize a refusal, but he had already swept out of the room.

While she was still locked in indecision over whether to pack her belongings, her phone violently vibrated. A text message from Sebastian popped up: 【Come to the Half-Awake Lounge.】

The Half-Awake?

Why on earth was he instructing her to venture there?

Scarlett darkened her screen, a creeping anxiety tightening her chest.

The night was suffocatingly dark, a dense wall of storm clouds completely obscuring the moon, yet the Half-Awake Lounge remained engulfed in its usual chaotic madness.

The volatile atmosphere drove the crowd into a frenzy, and the thundering music battered against her ears, causing her brow to furrow deeply.

Sweeping her gaze across the sprawling floor, she found no trace of Sebastian. Instead, a deeply familiar face navigating through the shifting crowd caught her eye.

It was the female detective who had exchanged a look with Sebastian previously.

What on earth was a law enforcement agent doing inside a place like this?

Scarlett's heart sank as she verified the woman's identity.

The Half-Awake Lounge functioned as the primary command post for the Syndicate; could the authorities have unearthed a lead?

She needed to track her.

The moment the short-haired woman made a move to slip away, Scarlett fell into step behind her without a fraction of hesitation.

The female detective glided through the packed crowd like a fish navigating a dense current; had Scarlett not possessed a supernatural visual acuity, she would have lost her target entirely.

The woman executed a sharp turn into a secluded corridor. From Scarlett's vantage point, she could only discern the crisp, lethal lines of the woman's arm and the ember of a cigarette glowing between her fingers.

"Boss, a full sweep yields no trace of the target."

So she hadn't infiltrated the perimeter alone. Scarlett's brows tightly knit as her mind raced; were the authorities orchestrating a full-scale raid tonight?

A deep, gravelly male voice cut through the space: "Heh."

The timbre carried an eerie, haunting familiarity. Before she could pinpoint the memory, the man spoke again: "I am going to see the Shadow Master."

Targeting the leader of the Syndicate?

Could this be an execution of an underworld vendetta?

The Syndicate operated strictly within the trade of blood, so harboring lethal adversaries was entirely natural; yet who on earth possessed the absolute audacity to launch a direct, head-on assault right inside their primary command post?

Before her logical mind could yield an answer, the man snuffed out his cigarette and turned to march directly toward the Shadow Master's private vault.

The female detective nodded, preparing to fall into step behind him, but his hand moved like lightning, clamping firmly onto her shoulder to root her to the spot.

That hand possessed long, elegant fingers mapped with heavy veins, leaving no room for doubt regarding the terrifying power coiled within his grip.

"Secure the perimeter," the man commanded flatly before sweeping down the corridor. Scarlett immediately trailed his shadow.

The Shadow Master's true identity was far from an absolute secret; anyone possessing a sophisticated intelligence network could decipher it.

Yet absolutely no one had ever dared to casually march right up to his door.

At the absolute end of the corridor, the man came to a grinding halt.

The heavy vault door had been left slightly ajar, a sliver of interior light spilling onto the floor, indicating the master inside had anticipated his arrival.

"For the legendary leader of the Crescent to grace my humble establishment with his presence... I must apologize for the lack of a formal reception," the Shadow Master's voice drifted through the gap, echoing sharply along the desolate hallway.