Free Web NovelChapter 111: Save the milf and her daughter
The morning had been productive in the quiet way Jake was learning to appreciate - paperwork spread across the villa’s administrative desk, Raani seated across from him translating the villa’s financial documents into terms he could actually parse, two cups of tea going cold because neither of them had remembered to drink them.
It had been an eventful night for all them and Jake wanted to spend few more days, just fucking all day long. But Raani said that he had to oversee the villa and its staff and check the finances. ƒrēewebnoѵёl.cσm
Financially, Jake had enough coin to last a few centuries. His mother had taken care of that.
Running a villa was different from anything Jake’s two lifetimes had prepared him for.
There were dragons to feed and the woman who ride them. Their training and equipment and other stuff which they need, the villa’s staff, and the maintenance of the property itself all required his attention. Despite his desire to prolong the pleasure, Jake knew that responsibility called for him to focus on the practical matters at hand. He couldn’t ignore his duties as the owner of the villa, no matter how tempting it was to indulge in more leisurely pursuits.
Chelsea managed households the way generals managed campaigns - with complete situational awareness and iron discipline.
Jake managed them the way a man who had spent eighteen years being deliberately lazy managed anything, which meant leaning heavily on Raani’s administrative experience while trying to look like he understood more than he did.
"The eastern district merchants are requesting formal recognition of their trade agreements under Raaya’s authority," Raani said, setting a document before him with the patience of someone who had explained this category of request three times already.
"If you sign here, it extends your protection to their shipments through the mountain passes."
"And if someone violates that protection?"
"Then my lord is obligated to respond."
Jake looked at the document.
"What’s the catch?"
"The merchants pay quarterly fees into the Villa’s accounts. The protection is mutual—they pay, we respond."
Raani paused for a moment.
"It’s how great houses build revenue networks. You’re essentially selling security."
"Like a guild," Jake said.
"Like a much more powerful guild with a clan name behind it instead of a crossed sword emblem."
Jake signed it, moved to the next document, and was halfway through reading a report about the villa’s grain stores when the door opened.
Jela entered, one of the younger Dragon Maidens, nineteen years old, with the earnest competence of someone who took every task seriously regardless of its size. She workes under Raani Anuki and had been in service for a couple of years now.
Behind her was a woman Jake didn’t recognize, perhaps fifty, wearing the livery of a household servant and carrying herself with the barely-controlled urgency of someone who had run most of the way to deliver news.
"Young master," Jela said, "this woman came to the gate requesting immediate audience. She says it’s urgent."
The servant stepped forward before Jake could respond, her words coming out in a compressed rush that had clearly been building the entire journey.
"Master Raikarndel. I’m in the service of Lady Matilda Linnam. You need to come with me."
"Take a breath and speak clearly," Jake said.
"My lady, Lady Matilda has sent me - she needs you now. Young Master Kunther is at the residence. He killed the guards, all of them, and he’s demanding Lady Margeret be handed over. The woman’s hands were shaking.
"My lady had sent me to fetch you, Young master. She needs your help."
Jake was already standing.
"How long ago?" he asked.
"I ran straight here. Perhaps thirty minutes."
Jake looked at Raani, who was already on her feet with the focused expression of someone switching from administrative mode to combat readiness in a single breath.
"Bring your maidens, Raani," Jake said.
"Already thinking it," Raani said, moving toward the door.
The Linnam residence sat in the upper merchant district, three terraced levels cut into the mountainside with the careful architecture of a family that had accumulated significant wealth over generations without quite reaching the nobility tier. Respectable walls. Maintained gardens. The kind of establishment that suggested a family that worked hard for what it had.
Jake saw the gates from fifty meters away and his jaw tightened.
The gates stood open in the way that gates stand open when they’ve been forced rather than welcomed—the iron frame bent at an angle that required considerable strength to produce. Beyond the gates, the courtyard held a scene that had that particular suspended quality of a situation that hadn’t resolved yet and everyone present knew it.
Dead men on the ground. frёewebnoѵēl.com
Jake counted six guards without looking carefully.
The household staff had clustered against the residence wall with the compressed stillness of people trying to take up as little space as possible.
Matilda Linnam stood in the courtyard’s center holding her daughter Margeret against her chest, the girl’s face pressed into her mother’s shoulder, and the woman’s expression was the specific controlled terror of someone who refused to let their fear become visible but couldn’t completely hide it.
And there was Kunther.
Jake assessed him in the few seconds before Kunther noticed their arrival.
Perhaps twenty-six, built with the physical confidence of someone who had spent years developing power and knew it showed. He wore traveling clothes that were expensive. His sword was sheathed, drenched in the blood of the killed guards.
Class I swordsman.
Jake could see his level and rank. He seemed different than the Class I swordsmen he had seen.
Kunther turned.
And he stared at Jake for a long time. He had seen Jake in portraits of him but it was his first time seeing Jake in person. Though Jake hadn’t seen him before or heard of Kunther before this incident.
"Jake," Kunther said, and something between surprise and amusement settled into his expression.
"The returned heir. I’d heard you were in Roakan."
"What are you doing here?"
He looked at Jake with the genuine curiosity of someone encountering a new variable and finding it less significant than anticipated.
Then his eyes moved to Matilda, still holding Margeret, and understanding replaced the curiosity.
"Oh," Kunther said and began to smile.
"She sent for you."
He looked back at Matilda with an expression that carried mockery without cruelty, which was somehow worse than straightforward contempt.
"Lady Linnam. You asked for my little brother for help."
The smile widened.
"That’s actually charming. You thought the boy who was lost would be able to say no to me."
