Jax had been wondering for a while now why his complicated relationship with Astrid had been going so unusually well without any family drama.

He had always found it extremely weird that her ridiculously rich aristocrat father had not played the role of the typical evil villain trying to ruin his life.

But seeing Claude standing alone in the shadows of the corridor made everything click into place.

The man had simply been patiently waiting for the ideal moment to confront him without any outside interference.

Jax met his eyes and started with a smirk and confidence. "So here we are at the grand beginning of your threats and rich noble humiliation. But let me stop you right there, because trying to break my spirit is a complete waste of your breath."

He stepped closer. "I will never abandon your daughter no matter what kind of hell you threaten to unleash. Let me just recite our own script for you. You will offer me a fortune to vanish, and I will happily shred it into snow. You will send elite killers to hunt me down, and I will simply send them back in pieces."

He tilted his head. "You will try to engineer lies to create a massive rift between us. But every single blade you use to sever our ties will only stitch our souls tighter together. I may have missed a few more possibilities because I am still new to this love and noble politics game. But let me be clear, I am a veteran when it comes to retaining titles, trophies and glory. And your daughter, in this case, is infinitely more than any of that."

His voice dropped into something softer and somehow more dangerous at the same time. "She is the very sun in my sky. And I will plunge the whole world into darkness before I let you take her away from me."

Claude smiled internally but did not let a single trace of satisfaction reach his face. Instead he kept his expression flat and his tone even. "That doesn’t answer my question."

Jax let out a small chuckle. The smirk on his lips shifted into something quieter. "Most people would tell you it is a beautifully tragic story and they are entirely doomed to die apart."

He closed the distance between them until they were standing eye to eye.

"But a true love does not obey the rules. If a bird and a fish truly fall in love, they do not just accept their tragic fate and settle for the shoreline. They do not ever compromise with a universe that tells them their bond is physically impossible."

His voice carried a weight more than before. "Because the bird will rip the ocean right out of the world and carry it into the clouds. Or the fish will violently drag the heavens down into the absolute crushing depths. If the very laws of nature try to keep them apart, then they will simply burn those ancient laws to the ground and build a brand new world where they can finally breathe together."

His eyes locked harder on Claude’s. "Because a love that powerful does not beg reality for a safe place to exist. It aggressively demands one. Or makes one."

He then tilted his head to form a cold smile. "We will live wherever the hell we choose to live. And I deeply pity anyone foolish enough to stand in our way."

As his final words left his mouth, Jax caught something he had absolutely not expected. A small smile flickered on Claude’s face. Not the calculating smile of a business tycoon, but something warmer. Something that looked dangerously close to genuine appreciation.

It was gone in a blink.

Claude shifted that smile back into a mocking one and tilted his head with a challenging glare.

"You are utterly delusional, boy. And what makes your condition infinitely worse is that ridiculous misplaced confidence of yours. Do you honestly think reality works in such a poetic way? Do you actually believe this entirely accursed world will just happily rewrite itself to follow whatever grand fantasy you dream up?"

His glare sharpened. "And do you truly believe you are a man worthy enough to be given the privilege of holding my beloved daughter?"

Jax did not snap back this time.

The cocky mask slipped off his face and something more honest replaced it.

"Worthy. I am not going to stand here and lie to your face. I honestly do not know if I am. I was raised my entire life believing that love, care and similar things were just stupid distractions meant to drag you away from your goals. I never learned a single thing about how to properly be there for someone else."

He paused. Breathed in. "But I am trying. I am learning. I am changing. I am not the perfect man I want to be just yet. But I am a million miles away from the boy I once was."

Then the dark grin slid back onto his lips. "Maybe I am not perfectly worthy of Astrid today. But that definitely does not mean I am not completely worthy of slaughtering any so-called worthy noble scum you try to replace me with."

The mocking and the cold face on Claude completely changed. An appreciating smile erased the tense atmosphere between them like someone had wiped the room clean.

He landed his hand on Jax’s shoulder. "You passed... son."

And saying so, he turned around and started looking up at the sky while lighting his cigarette.

Jax stood there totally confused about what had just happened.

He had an entire arsenal of curses and violent threats completely ready to be thrown, but the terrifying Claude had surrendered before Jax could even reach the main course.

But Jax let out a quiet sigh of relief, because this sudden end was actually for the best. He was already running incredibly late for his actual mission here tonight. He decided to just leave this weird mystery alone for now and head straight to his angry kitten.

But before he could even take his second step, Claude spoke again with a hollow voice.

"That exact question I just asked you was the very same question the grandfather of Astrid asked me many years ago."

Jax stopped mid-step.

Claude did not turn around. He just kept watching the smoke curl up into the night sky.

"At that time, I was an absolute nobody. I was just a street orphan who dared to fall in love with the precious daughter of one of the three legendary families associated with the founding hero of this land."

The cigarette burned slowly between his fingers.

"I simply did not have the exact same fierce spark that you do right now. I was not completely fearless like you. And I definitely was not powerful enough to violently challenge the corrupt noble politics that ruled my entire life."

He took one long drag. Exhaled. The smoke trembled slightly on its way up.

"If I had just been a little more like you...". His voice cracked once. He did not bother to hide it.

"...my beloved Ariana would not have suffered such a terribly tragic end."

-x-X-x-

[A/N: stupid_squad, 👑Ordici_T, Sawma and spawn1996 thank you for the golden tickets, means a lot 🙏🔥

And Wbug coming in with a pizza gift, thank you bro now I’m hungry 😭❤️ (👍🏻ᴗ _ᴗ)👍🏻]